Single Idea 8772

[catalogued under 18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 8. Abstractionism Critique]

Full Idea

The number-concepts just cannot be got by concentrating on the number and abstracting from the kind of things being counted.

Gist of Idea

We can't acquire number-concepts by extracting the number from the things being counted

Source

Peter Geach (Mental Acts: their content and their objects [1957], §8)

Book Reference

Geach,Peter: 'Mental Acts: Their content and their objects' [RKP 1971], p.28


A Reaction

This point is from Frege - that if you 'abstract away' everything apart from the number, you are simply left with nothing in experience. The objection might, I think, be met by viewing it as second-order abstraction, perhaps getting to a pattern first.