Single Idea 9081

[catalogued under 15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 7. Seeing Resemblance]

Full Idea

It is not a law of our intellect that in comparing things and noting their agreements we recognise as realized in the outward world something we already had in our minds. The conception found its way to us as the result of such a comparison.

Gist of Idea

We don't recognise comparisons by something in our minds; the concepts result from the comparisons

Source

John Stuart Mill (System of Logic [1843], 4.2.2)

Book Reference

Mill,John Stuart: 'System of Logic (9th ed, 2 vols)' [Longmans, Green etc 1875], p.196


A Reaction

He recognises, of course, that this gradually becomes a two-way process. In the physicalist view of things, it is not really of great importance which concepts are hard-wired, and which constructed culturally or through perception.