Abstraction

“ In the process of Abstraction, we draw our attention away from a mass of confusing details, unimportant at the time, and attend only to qualities common to the class. Abstraction is little else than centering the power of attention on some qualities to the exclusion of others.... While we are forming concepts, we abstract or draw off certain qualities, either to leave them out of view or to consider them by themselves. ”

“ For how is it possible we can separate what is not distinguishable, or distinguish what is not different? In order therefore to know, whether abstraction implies a separation, we need only consider it in this view, and examine, whether all the circumstances, which we abstract from in our general ideas, be such as are distinguishable and different from those, which we retain as essential parts of them. ”

“ Save for purposes of abstraction, the earth is a great plain, with hills and valleys. Why force abstractions and kill the reality, when there's no need?
As for children, will we never realize that their abstractions are never based on observations, but on subjective exaggerations? If there is an eye in the face, the face is all eye. ”

“ We must admit the notion of abstraction, first or last, unless any one will contend for this infinite refinement in our ideas of things, or assert that we have no idea at all. For the same process takes place in it, and is absolutely necessary to our most particular notions of things, as well as our most general, namely, that of abstracting from particulars, or of passing over the minute differences of things, taking them in the gross, and attending to the general effect of a number of distinguished and distinguishable impressions. ”

“ So when the child introduces this idea of collection into his mind in a wholly instinctive way, by identifying the things he sees, he begins to perform abstraction. This abstraction delivers him from all the complications and all the annoyances that come to him from the contemplation of real objects. By the philosophic process of abstraction it has been possible to construct all the sciences, and especially the science of magnitudes. ”

“ It will, I think, be found that, when a high degree of abstraction is spoken of, abstraction from the realm of possibility is what is usually meant — in other words, an elaborate logical construction. ”

“ When it is said, that, in order to classify, we leave out of view all the circumstances in which individuals differ, and retain only those in which they agree; this separating one portion of what is contained in a complex idea, and making it an object of consideration by itself, is the process which is named Abstraction, at least a main part of that process. ”

“ Before we inquire into abstraction, as fixed and expressed in words,—whether such words are the complement of an actual or possible representation, or exist alone in consciousness, as complete substitutes,—it is indispensable that we should study the origin, and still more the evolution, of this new factor. ”

“ If abstraction rises to as great an elevation as possible, it arrives at two primary ideas, before which it is obliged to stop and to recognize its limits. It distinguishes in man something that continues, and something that changes incessantly. That which continues it names his person; that which changes his position, his condition. ”

“ The general idea is always an abstraction and, for that very reason, in some sort a negation of real life. ”

“ When once this arbitrary abstraction of some one part or aspect of the stream of events from its context has been made, we are compelled to recognise the existence of the context from which we have abstracted by saying that any effect may enter into or form part of a variety of different larger effects, according to the nature of the context in which it occurs. ”

“ The principal aim of this work is to study the development of the mind as it abstracts and generalises, and to show that these two operations exhibit a perfect evolution: that is to say, they exist already in perception, and advance by successive and easily determined stages to the more elevated forms of pure symbolism, accessible only to the minority.
It is a commonplace to say that abstraction has its degrees, as number its powers. ”

“ Thus scientific objects are the concrete causal characters, though we arrive ‘at them by a route of apprehension which is a process of abstraction. In the same way, what, in the form of a sense-object, is concrete for our awareness, is abstract in its character of a complex of relations between scientific objects. ”

“ We have those which seek to produce an image, and those where we confine ourselves to combining empty forms, perfectly intelligible, but purely intelligible, which abstraction has deprived of all matter. ”

“ In our own reflection abstraction is a throwing off of useless baggage for the sake of more easily handling the knowledge which is to be compared, and has therefore to be turned about in all directions. ”

“ Why were the powers of Abstraction and Generalization passed over in silence?—powers which, according as they are cultivated or neglected, constitute the most essential of all distinctions between the intellectual characters of individuals. ”

“ And this is the only true and legitimate abstraction which holds good both for science and for life. But thus to abstract our own Me and subjective peculiarities is a duty which is far from being commonly observed, and is, in truth, extremely difficult, even with the greatest honesty of purpose, perfectly to accomplish. ”

“ I proceed to examine what can be alleged in defence of the doctrine of abstraction, and try if I can discover what it is that inclines the men of speculation to embrace an opinion so remote from common sense as that seems to be. ”

“ For, when the highest product of abstract thought is analysed, the ultimate elements must always be found to consist in material given directly by the senses; and every stage in the symbolic construction of ideas, in which the process of abstraction consists, depends on acts of perception taking place in the lower stages’. ”

“ A Concrete Term is the name of a substance, e.g. a man, this chair, the soul, God.
§ 97. Abstract terms are so called as being arrived at by a process of Abstraction. What is meant by Abstraction will be clear from a single instance. The mind, in contemplating a number of substances, may draw off, or abstract, its attention from all their other characteristics, and fix it only on some point, or points, which they have in common. ”

“ To satisfy the imagination, a discourse must have a material part, a body; and these are formed by the perceptions, from which the understanding separates distinct features or conceptions. For though we may attempt to obtain the highest pitch of abstraction, something sensuous always lies at the ground of the thought. ”

“ No abstract definitions exist at the outset; abstraction is ulterior and derivative; foremost in each science must be placed examples, experiences, evident facts; from these we derive our general idea. ”

“ All other men have it in common with me to be 'I': just as it is common to all my sensations and conceptions to be mine. But 'I,' in the abstract, as such, is the mere act of self-concentration or self-relation, in which we make abstraction from all conception and feeling, from every state of mind and every peculiarity of nature, talent, and experience. ”

“ Abstraction is therefore a necessary consequence of the limitation of the comprehensive faculty, and mixes itself, more or less, with every act of the understanding, of whatever kind, during every moment of its existence. ”

“ Thus, when the mind considers the form of a tree by itself, or the color of the leaves as separate from their size or figure, the act is called abstraction. So, also, when it considers whiteness, softness, virtue, existence, as separate from any particular objects.
μ Abstraction is necessary to classification, by which things are arranged in genera and species. We separate in idea the qualities of certain objects, which are of the same kind, from others which are different, in each, and arrange the objects having the same properties in a class, or collected body. ”

“ Their completeness of abstraction from the accidents of experience, from the differences, qualifications, variations which contribute so largely to the personal interests of life, this it is which makes the abstract sciences demonstrative, exact, and universally applicable. In so far, therefore, as we are permitted to grasp the conception of a perfectly abstract existence prior to, and underlying, and enclosing, all separate existences, so far also do we get to a conception which is demonstrative, exact, and universally applicable throughout the whole world of knowable objects. ”

“ As attention is concentration of a sense, abstraction is the concentration or attention of the mind; therefore the power of fixing the senses and forgetting the mind, is attention, that of fixing the mind and forgetting the senses, is abstraction—philosophy, if you will. ”

“ And, finally, we have found that in actual life abstraction and duplicity make activity conventional and utilitarian, that is to say, consciously instrumental or—let me now say—experimental. In just these conditions, then, the general abstraction and duplicity, the conscious formalism and regard for utility, and the sense of experimentation, we have the determinant, formative influences of science's attitude and method, for any given set of conditions always makes the method with which the conditions themselves are met. ”

“ A delicate balance must be kept between that presentation of the concrete which makes it significant by making it representative and typical, and that other presentation which dissolves the individual into the general, by making it a mere abstraction. ”

“ In description in terms of abstract general notions such as common qualities we substitute for fact something which is not fact at all, we lose touch with the concrete and, moreover, we are strongly tempted to confuse fact with abstraction and believe that the implications of the abstraction apply to the fact, or even that the abstraction is itself a real part of the fact. ”

“ But there is another reason, in addition to that of promoting perspicuity, for giving a brief and compact name to each of the more considerable results of abstraction which are obtained in the course of our intellectual phenomena. By naming them, we fix our attention upon them; we keep them more constantly before the mind. The names are remembered, and being remembered, suggest their definition ”

“ For can there be a nicer Strain of Abstraction than to distinguish the Existence of sensible Objects from their being perceived, so as to conceive them Existing unperceived? Light and Colours, Heat and Cold, Extension and Figures, in a word the Things we see and feel, what are they but so many Sensations, Notions, Ideas or Impressions on the Sense ”

“ The conceptions, then, which we employ for the colligation and methodization of facts, do not develop themselves from within, but are impressed upon the mind from without; they are never obtained otherwise than by way of comparison and abstraction, and, in the most important and the most numerous cases, are evolved by abstraction from the very phenomena which it is their office to colligate. ”

“ From this interaction we derive by a very complicated process of abstraction both concepts, the subject as well as the object. It is true that the subjective world of feelings and of representative feeling is very different from the objective world of things. ”

“ But the instant we begin to refine and generalise beyond a certain point, we are reduced to abstraction, and compelled to see things, not as individuals, or as connected with action and circumstances, but as universal truths, applicable in a degree to all things, and in their extent to none, which therefore it would be absurd to predicate of individuals, or to represent to the senses. ”

“ The more theoretical, the more abstract, an abstraction, or the farther away it is from anything experienced in its concreteness, the better fitted it is to deal with any one of the indefinite variety of things that may later present themselves. ”

“ There is no need to admit at the outset any reflected and fully conscious abstraction: a happy instinct, guided by the needs of life, is sufficient at the commencement. Races that are poorly gifted in this respect, or little apt at imitating their betters, have never got beyond a low level. In effect, abstraction and generalisation are the nerve of all knowledge that transcends sensation. Is this mode of cognition useful? ”

“ In order to form concepts or general ideas, from our percepts or particular ideas, we must consider and examine two common points or qualities which go to make up differences and resemblances. The special examination or consideration of these common points or qualities result in the exercise of Abstraction. In the process of Abstraction we mentally "draw away" a quality of an object and then consider it as a distinct object of thought. ”

“ To form a truth, two factors are needed—a fact and an abstraction. ”

“ The world goes on as one great whole, and the abstractions that we make for the purposes of our own convenience, the particular branches into which we divide knowledge, are, in so far as they are abstractions, really deceptive. ”

“ After this general study of the nature of the most elevated forms of abstraction, we must take the principal concepts one by one, and retrace their evolution in outline. Let us once more note that we are concerned with pure psychology, and are to eliminate all that depends on the theory of knowledge and other transcendental speculations. As regards the first origin of our notions of time, space, cause, etc., each may adopt the opinion that pleases him. ”

“ The activity of Perception results in the formation of an internal picture or image of its ideas which intelligence can call up at any time without the sensuous, immediate presence of its object, and thus, through abstraction and generalization, arises the conception. ”