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Full Idea
There used to be a 'problem of Abstract Ideas' because it was assumed that an idea ought, somehow, to be a mental image; if some of our ideas appeared not to be images, this was a paradox and some solution must be found.
Gist of Idea
If ideas have to be images, then abstract ideas become a paradoxical problem
Source
H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.VIII)
Book Ref
Price,H.H.: 'Thinking and Experience' [Hutchinson 1953], p.234
A Reaction
Berkeley in particular seems to be struck by the fact that we are incapable of thinking of a general triangle, simply because there is no image related to it. Most conversations go too fast for images to form even of very visual things.
| 9032 | Before we can abstract from an instance of violet, we must first recognise it [Price,HH] |
| 9033 | Recognition must precede the acquisition of basic concepts, so it is the fundamental intellectual process [Price,HH] |
| 9031 | The basic concepts of conceptual cognition are acquired by direct abstraction from instances [Price,HH] |
| 9035 | If judgement of a characteristic is possible, that part of abstraction must be complete [Price,HH] |
| 9034 | There may be degrees of abstraction which allow recognition by signs, without full concepts [Price,HH] |
| 9036 | There is pre-verbal sign-based abstraction, as when ice actually looks cold [Price,HH] |
| 9037 | Intelligent behaviour, even in animals, has something abstract about it [Price,HH] |
| 9030 | Abstractions can be interpreted dispositionally, as the ability to recognise or imagine an item [Price,HH] |
| 9029 | If ideas have to be images, then abstract ideas become a paradoxical problem [Price,HH] |
| 14329 | Some dispositional properties (such as mental ones) may have no categorical base [Price,HH] |