Full Idea
Abstractive cognition (in one sense) relates to something abstracted from many singulars; and in this sense abstractive cognition is nothing else but cognition of a universal which can be abstracted from many things.
Gist of Idea
Abstractive cognition knows universals abstracted from many singulars
Source
William of Ockham (Prologue to Ordinatio [1320], Q 1 N sqq)
Book Reference
Ockham,William of: 'Ockham's Philosophical Writings', ed/tr. Boehner,P [Hackett 1990], p.22
A Reaction
This strikes me as being correct common sense, even though it has become deeply unfashionable since Frege. We may not be able to see quite how the mind manages to see universals in a bunch of objects, but there is no better story.