Part 14 (1/2)
4 THE CONCEPT
Fortunately for our thinking, the great external world, with its millions upon millions of individual objects, is so ordered that these objects can be grouped into coreat classes; and for many purposes we can deal with the class as a whole instead of with the separate individuals of the class Thus there are an infinite number of individual objects in the world which are composed of _matter_ Yet all these reat heads of _inaniain: all animate forms may be classed as either _plants_ or _aniain be subdivided indefinitely Animals include mammals, birds, reptiles, insects, mollusks, and many other classes besides, each class of which may be still further separated into its _orders_, _faee terms
THE CONCEPTS SERVE TO GROUP AND CLassIFY--But the somewhat complicated form of classification just described did not come to man ready- aroup these together under the general term _mammals_ Likeith birds, reptiles, insects, and all the rest In order to accomplish this, many individuals of each class had to be observed, the qualities common to all members of the class discriminated from those not common, and the common qualities retained as the measure by which to test the admission of other individuals into this class The process of classification is ist calls the _concept_ The concept enables us to think _birds_ as well as bluebirds, robins, and wrens; it enables us to think _men_ as well as Tom, dick, and Harry In other words, _the concept lies at the botto of the simplest relations between immediately present objects_
GROWTH OF A CONCEPT--We can perhaps best understand the nature of the concept if atch its growth in the thinking of a child Let us see how the child for_, under which he is able finally to class the several hundred or the several thousand different dogs hich his thinking requires hi is, let us suppose, with a pet poodle, white in color, and na_ and _Gyp_ are entirely synony Gyp's color, size, and all other qualities which the child has discovered But now let him see another pet poodle which is like Gyp except that it is black in color Here co_ as synonyer means white, but may mean _black_ Next let the child see a brown spaniel Not only hite and black now no longer answer to _dog_, but the roly-poly poodle form also has been lost; for the spaniel is o on fros of all varieties: poodles, bulldogs, setters, shepherds, cockers, and a host of others What has happened to his _dog_, which at the beginning meant the one particular little individual hich he played?
_Dog_ is no longer white or black or brown or gray: _color_ is not an essential quality, so it has dropped out; _size_ is no longer essential except within very broad liiness_ or _smoothness_ of coat is a very inconstant quality, so this is dropped; _for to the slender hound that it is discarded, except within broad liood nature_, _playfulness_, _friendliness_, and a dozen other qualities are likewise found not to belong in coo; and all that is left to his _dog_ is _four-footedness_, and a certain general _for qualities of habit of life and disposition As the ter in _extent_, that is, as more individuals have been observed and classed under it, it has correspondingly been losing in _content_, or it has been losing in the specific qualities which belong to it Yet it ether one of elimination; for new qualities which are present in all the individuals of a class, but at first overlooked, are continually being discovered as experience grows, and built into the developing concept
DEFINITION OF CONCEPT--A concept, then, is _our general idea or notion of a class of individual objects_ Its function is to enable us to classify our knowledge, and thus deal with classes or universals in our thinking Often the basis of a concept consists of an _ie of a est _ part of a concept is its _e or a word or stands relatively or completely independent of either, does not so ht, else all our thinking is wrong
LANGUAGE AND THE CONCEPT--We think in words None has failed to watch the flow of his thought as it is carried along by words like sotheAnd no one has escaped the teht by failure to find a suitable word to convey the intended rae are the words by which we name our concepts and are able to speak of them to others We define a common noun as ”the na or idea we have of a class It is easy to see that e have named these class _ideas_ we have our list of coe of a people ht
THE NECESSITY FOR GROWING CONCEPTS--The develope part of our education For it is evident that, since thinking rests so fundaress in our rowth in the number and character of our concepts Not onlynew concepts, but the old , our er learn This arrest of development is often seen in persons who have settled into a life of narrow routine, where the demands are few and of a simple nature Unless they rise above their routine, they early becoies” Their concepts petrify frorowth necessitates
On the other hand, the person who has upon him the constant demand to meet new situations or do better in old ones will keep on enriching his old concepts and for new ones, or else, unable to do this, he will fail in his position And the person who keeps on steadily enriching his concepts has discovered the secret of perpetual youth so far as his e; his thought will be always fresh, his experience always accu more valuable and usable
5 JUDGMENT
But in the building up of percepts and concepts, as well as inuse of the enters; na_
NATURE OF JUDGMENT--Judging enters , fro at his bottle, and finally it dawns on his sluggish ets his dinner He has performent That is, he has alternately directed his attention to the object before hi, discovered the relation existing between the two, and affirives ives-ment is, then, the affir of two objects of thought_ Even if the proposition in which we state our judgative, the definition will still hold, for the mental process is the sament if we say, ”The day is not-cold,” as if we say, ”The day is cold”
JUDGMENT USED IN PERCEPTS AND CONCEPTS--How judg of our percepts iven
The act by which the child perceived his bottle had in it a large eleht--the one froes, and the other from the present object, in the form of sensations from the bottle--and then affirm their essential identity Of course it is not meant that what I have described _consciously_ takes place in the mind of the child; but some such process lies at the bottom of every perception, whether of the child or anyone else
Likewise it ment Every tined its place in our classification, judgment is required Suppose the child, with his ireyhound He _, and decide that this is or is not a dog If he discovers the identity of ht, his judgment will be affirreyhound_ will affect it
JUDGMENT LEADS TO GENERAL TRUTHS--But judg percepts and concepts It takes our concepts after they are formed and discovers and affir us finally to relate classes as well as individuals It carries our thinking over into the realm of the universal, where we are not hampered by particulars Let us see how this is done Suppose we have the concept _man_ and the concept _animal_, and that we think of these two concepts in their relation to each other The mind analyzes each into its elements, co in a sufficient nue, in that it has discovered to us a new relation between two great classes, and hence given both, in so far, a newand a wider definition And as this new relation does not pertain to any particular man or any particular animal, but includes all individuals in each class, it has carried us over into universals, so that we have a _general_ truth and will not have to test each individual man henceforth to see whether he fits into this relation
Judgments also, as ill see later, constitute theHence upon their validity will depend the validity of our reasoning
THE VALIDITY OF JUDGMENTS--Now, since every judg between two tere of the terms compared If we know but few of the attributes of either terment is clearly unsafe I man coe for alleged misbehavior He said, ”Mr A---- was the best boy in the institution”
It is very evident that soe would want to expel the best boy in the institution Either e had failed to understand one of the terment Either ”Mr A----” or ”the best boy in the institution” had been wrongly interpreted by soood man,” while another will say, ”Jones is a rascal” Such a discrepancy in judgment must come froe of what constitutes a good man or a rascal
No doubt , and it is usually those who have the least reason for confidence in their judgments who are the most certain that they cannot beourselves more certain of the terms involved, and this in turn sends us back for a review of our concepts or the experience upon which the terms depend It is evident that no two persons can have just the same concepts, for all have not had the same experience out of which their concepts came The concepts h alike so that we can usually understand each other; but, after all, I have mine and you have yours, and if we could each see the other's in their true light, no doubt we should save s and quarrels
6 REASONING
All the mental processes which we have so far described find their cul_ Not that reasoning comes last in the list of mental activities, and cannot take place until all the others have been coree present almost from the dawn of consciousness The difference between the reasoning of the child and that of the adult is largely one of degree--of reach Reasoning goes farther than any of the other processes of cognition, for it takes the relations expressed in judgments and out of these relations evolves still other and more ultimate relations
NATURE OF REASONING--It is hard to define reasoning so as to describe the precise process which occurs; for it is so interment, that one can hardly separate them even for purposes of analysis, much less to separate the provisionally as _thinking byat some definite end or conclusion_ What does this ell has stated the matter so clearly that I will quote his illustration of the case:
”Suppose that we are about toa nuenuinely proble of the _pros_ and _cons_, and giving of the final decision in favor of one or other of several alternatives In such a case the procedure ofpicturesque and wholly novel, but also as being expensive We think of another as less interesting, but also as less expensive A third is, we discover, the most expedient, but also the most costly of the three We find ourselves confronted, then, with the necessity of choosing with regard to the relative merits of cheapness, beauty, and speed We proceed to consider these points in the light of all our interests, and the decision more or less makes itself We find, for instance, that we must, under the circumstances, select the cheapest route”