Specification

“ We hear very frequent mention of ascending from particular to general propositions, and from these to propositions still more general;—of 99 truths included in other truths of a higher degree of generality;—of different stages of generalization;—and of the highest step of the process of discovery, to which all others are subordinate and preparatory. ”

“ The product of Generalization or Conception is called a Concept. A Concept is expressed in a word, or words, called "A Term." [Pg 108] A Concept is more than a mere word—it is a general idea. And a Term is more than a mere word—it is the expression of a general idea.
A Concept is built up from the processes of Perception, Abstraction, Comparison and Generalization. We must first perceive; then analyze or abstract qualities; then compare qualities; then synthesize or classify according to the result of the comparison of qualities. ”

“ It is manifest that the sum of human knowledge in all its departments and ramifications can be arranged in a variety of ways, and that all kinds of methods of classification can be devised to suit the basis selected, be it supernatural, physical, ethnological, philosophical, historical or other. ”

“ But the understanding in the process of knowledge makes use of the universal form of synthesis, the judgment; intellectual function is essentially of the nature of judgment or the reduction of a manifold to unity through a conception. The specific or type forms of such function will, therefore, be expressed in judgments; and a complete classification of the forms of judgments is the key by which one may hope to discover the system of categories. ”

“ Thus the objective explanation of a subjective fact, once entertained, tends by force of logic to become general, to include a whole class of similar phenomena, to become a system, and, if need be, a cosmological and metaphysical system. ”

“ A. Many arguments go from the general to the specific. Often the generalization is an opinion and the specific a fact. In each of the above paragraphs of the Review Reading, decide whether or not each clause or sentence is a generalization (G) or a specific (S) . ”

“ Let us suppose that the generalisation to be justified is one which asserts that the existence of a kind of object, which we will call A, is generally preceded, accompanied, or followed by the existence of a kind of object, which we call B. A, for instance, might be the hearing of a certain word by one person, and B the thought of that which we call the meaning of the word, in another person; and the generalisation to be justified might be that when one person hears a word, not spoken by himself, someone else has generally thought of the meaning of that word. ”

“ The logical process of defining consists of two steps: first, stating the class or group to which the object of definition belongs, as to say that Switzerland is a country, the forward pass is a strategic device in football, humanism is a philosophy of personal development ”

“ Our knowledge is determined by the interaction of our organism with the objective world, of our understanding with the milieu. The elaboration of the impressions received from without follows the laws of our organization, and all knowledge is therefore determined by a relation of subject and object. ”

“ Sciences exemplify similar attitudes and operations, [Pg 84] but with a higher degree of elaboration of the instruments of caution, exactness and thoroughness. This greater elaboration brings about specialization, an accurate marking off of various types of problems from one another, and a corresponding segregation and classification of the materials of experience associated with each type of problem. We shall devote the remainder of this chapter to a consideration of the devices by which the discovery, the development, and the testing of meanings are scientifically carried on. ”

“ In its abstract terms a Judgment is expressible in the proposition: 'The individual is the universal.' These are the terms under which the subject and the predicate first confront each other, when the functions of the notion are taken in their immediate character or first abstraction. [Propositions such as, 'The particular is the universal,' and 'The individual is the particular,' belong to the further specialisation of the judgment.] ”

“ Verifications, registrations, and categories make up our science, which is, therefore, not an immediate and objective knowledge of reality, but its representation elaborated by us at a given moment, and so subjective, relative, and capable of transformation and variation in accordance with the evolution of the human spirit, which is in a continual process of becoming. ”

“ Neither is it enough to consult concerning persons secundum genera, [15] as in an idea, or mathematical description, what the kind and character of the person should be; for the greatest errors are committed, and the most judgment is shown in the choice of individuals. ”

“ We have completed the survey of the human mind; we have created a foundation, upon which a scientific system, as the correct representation of the original system in man, may be built. In conclusion, let us take a glance at the whole. ”

“ Hence, we may broadly distinguish between concepts as of two orders—namely, those which have to do with recepts, and those which have to do with other concepts. For a concept is a concept even though it be nothing more than a named recept; and it is still a concept, even though it stands for the highest generalization of thought. I will make this distinction yet more clear by means of better illustrations. ”

“ I have now passed in rapid review what may perhaps without exaggeration be referred to as an array of conditions and theories, ideals and policies. It remains to refer to the actual results which have come about during these sixty years as respects them, or because of them; and, finally, to reach if possible conclusions as to the causes which have affected what may not inaptly be termed a process of general evolution. ”

“ Whether these principles of classification are correct or not is a matter of less consequence than the arrangement of the facts, by which every person is enabled to form his own idea of the manner in which progress has been evolved in early times. ”

“ That is to say, unless we have reason to assert a generalisation—the generalisation that objects of a certain kind are generally made by men, we have no reason to suppose that these particular objects, which are of the kind in question, were made by men. ”

“ Hence it has been said,
By Hui Tzŭ. 'The objective emanates from the subjective; the subjective is consequent upon the objective. This is the Alternation Theory.' Nevertheless, when one is born, the other dies. ”

“ Lord, in which the objects, or agents, of one class are, without any formal notice, employed in the place of the persons or things of which the passages in which they occur treat; and they are exhibited either as exerting, or as subjected to an agency proper to their nature, in order to represent by analogy, the agency which those persons are to exert, or of which those things are to be the subjects. ”

“ All thought begins with conceptions to a certain extent generalised, and thence is developed in two directions. On the one hand, generalisations become wider and wider, binding together by common properties a larger and larger number of phenomena, and so embracing a wider field of the world of facts. ”

“ A Description, I conceive, can only be ranked among Definitions, when taken (as in the case of the zoological definition of man) to fulfill the true office of a Definition, by declaring the connotation given to a word in some special use, as a term of science or art: which special connotation of course would not be expressed by the proper definition of the word in its ordinary employment. ”

“ The generalization test presents for interpretation situations which are closely paralleled in the everyday social experience of human beings. It tests the subject’s ability to understand motives underlying acts or attitudes. ”

“ When, however, we find it possible to connect many of these detached generalizations together, by discovering the more general laws of which they are cases, and to the operation of which in some particular sets of viii circumstances they are due, we gain not only a scientific, but a practical advantage ”

“ Concrete Terms; General vs. Specific Terms>
Abstract terms convey ideas; concrete terms call up pictures. If we say "Honesty is the best policy," we speak abstractly. Nobody can see or hear or touch the thing honesty or the thing policy; the apprehension of them must be purely intellectual. But if we say "The rat began to gnaw the rope," we speak concretely. Rat, gnaw, and rope are tangible, perceptible things; the words bring to us visions of particular objects and actions. ”

“ The general classification of objective, absolute or public realities, on the one hand, and of relative or private ones, on the other, might yet appear to present none but a methodological interest and to have no bearing on the problem of the genuinely real. ”

“ The complications and intersections of human knowledge prevent anything more than an approximation to this ideal, but it has been found in actual practice to be a classification scheme which works easily and harmoniously. ”

“ The combination of the two elements, the subjective or ideal, and the objective or observed, is necessary, in order to give us any insight into the laws of nature. But different persons, according to their mental habits and constitution, may be inclined to dwell by preference upon the one or the other of these two elements. ”

“ From the known to the unknown, through some common relations, has ever been the march of philosophical discovery: the skill of the general reasoner consists in the selection and use of these common relations for the determination of the principal conditions or agencies. ”

“ It is more than a mere fanciful description, to say that in languages, customs, forms of Society, political institutions, we see a number of formations super-imposed upon one another, each of which is, for the most part, an assemblage of fragments and results of the preceding condition. ”

“ Thus, knowledge of general principles must be applied to particular affairs, and this supposes that one knows how to reason correctly, how to infer the particular from the general, how to put facts together. ”

“ The union of facts into generalisations is the organisation of knowledge, whether considered as an objective phenomenon or a subjective one; and the mental grasp may be measured by the extent to which this organisation is carried. ”

“ All propositions which can be framed respecting the actions of human beings as ordinarily classified, or as classified according to any kind of outward indications, are merely approximate. We can only say, Most persons of a particular age, profession, country, or rank in society, have such and such qualities; or, Most persons, when placed in certain circumstances, act in such and such a way. ”

“ The objective statement, however true, is no measure of subjective fact, but this twisting of subjective fact to correspond with objective order is so embedded in language and common thought that it will perhaps always remain the form of ordinary thinking, like common-sense realism and geocentric appearance. ”

“ We get a picture not of any definite standard but of such a process as we have described in our analysis, namely, a process into which the existing social tradition, the mutual adjustments of a changing society and the intelligent consideration of all facts, enter. ”

“ In each of the four groups of sciences we must consider the facts either with regard to the general relations or with regard to the special material; the abstract general relations refer to every possible material, the concrete facts which fall under [650] them demand sciences of their own. ”

“ Cases may be cited, even in our imperfect acquaintance with nature, where agencies that we have good reason to consider as radically distinct produce their effects, or some of their effects, according to laws which are identical. ”

“ When we take phenomena in which the leading Idea is Resemblance, and resolve them into precise component Facts, we obtain some kind of Classification; as, for instance, when we lay down certain Rules by which particular trees, or particular animals are to be known. ”

“ A second process, to which the name of generalisation is often given, consists in passing from a fact or partial law to a multitude of unexamined cases, which we believe to be subject to the same conditions. ”

“ In order to do this, we must reconsider, in a more definite and precise shape, the doctrine which has already been laid down;—that our Knowledge consists 29 in applying Ideas to Facts; and that the conditions of real knowledge are that the ideas be distinct and appropriate, and exactly applied to clear and certain facts. The steps by which our knowledge is advanced are those by which one or the other of these two processes is rendered more complete;—by which Conceptions are made more clear in themselves, or by which the Conceptions more strictly bind together the Facts. ”

“ What we need is adequate criteria by which to make the necessary tests and classifications, and appropriate canons of procedure, or the adaptation of universal canons to the special tasks of sociology. ”

“ If the symbols of our system stand for entities for which the axioms hold, then all the propositions of the system will be true of those entities. Or, in other words: If entities can be found which satisfy the axioms of the system, then the system will be science of these entities. ”

“ If, then, a survey of the uniformities which have been ascertained to exist in nature, should point out some which, as far as any human purpose requires certainty, may be considered quite certain and quite universal ”

“ Instead of this, we know that the world consists of bodies distinguishable from each other by definite differences, capable of being classified and named, and of having general propositions asserted concerning them. ”