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Full Idea
Though it may sound odd to say so, intelligent behaviour has something abstract about it no less than intelligent cognition; and indeed at the animal level it is unrealistic to separate the two.
Gist of Idea
Intelligent behaviour, even in animals, has something abstract about it
Source
H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IV)
Book Ref
Price,H.H.: 'Thinking and Experience' [Hutchinson 1953], p.98
A Reaction
This elusive thought strikes me as being a key one for understanding human existence. To think is to abstract. Brains are abstraction machines. Resemblance and recognition require abstaction.
| 10644 | A 'felt familiarity' with universals is more primitive than abstraction [Price,HH] |
| 10645 | We reach concepts by clarification, or by definition, or by habitual experience [Price,HH] |
| 10646 | Our understanding of 'dog' or 'house' arises from a repeated experience of concomitances [Price,HH] |
| 9031 | The basic concepts of conceptual cognition are acquired by direct abstraction from instances [Price,HH] |
| 9033 | Recognition must precede the acquisition of basic concepts, so it is the fundamental intellectual process [Price,HH] |
| 9032 | Before we can abstract from an instance of violet, we must first recognise it [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] |