Single Idea 9036

[catalogued under 15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind]

Full Idea

We must still insist that some degree of abstraction, and even a very considerable degree of it, is present in sign-cognition, pre-verbal as it is. ...To us, who are familiar with northern winters, the ice actually looks cold.

Gist of Idea

There is pre-verbal sign-based abstraction, as when ice actually looks cold

Source

H.H. Price (Thinking and Experience [1953], Ch.IV)

Book Reference

Price,H.H.: 'Thinking and Experience' [Hutchinson 1953], p.98


A Reaction

Price may be in the weak position of doing armchair psychology, but something like his proposal strikes me as correct. I'm much happier with accounts of thought that talk of 'degrees' of an activity, than with all-or-nothing cut-and-dried pictures.