Combining Texts

Ideas for 'The Languages of Art', 'Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82' and 'Posterior Analytics'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 1. Thought
Thoughts are signs (just as words are) [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Thoughts are merely signs, as words are signs for thoughts.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1881-82 [1882], 5[1]272)
     A reaction: The obvious question he invites is 'signs of what?'. His point must be that most thinking is both non-verbal and non-conscious, which he took to be true even of intellectual thought. I sympathise with his view.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 2. Abstracta by Selection
We learn primitives and universals by induction from perceptions [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: We must get to know the primitives by induction; for this is the way in which perception instils universals.
     From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 100b04)
     A reaction: This statement is so strongly empirical it could have come from John Stuart Mill. The modern post-Fregean view of universals is essentially platonist - that they have a life and logic of their own, and their method of acquisition is irrelevant.