The Divine Lamp

The Science of Logic

Chapter 1
The Mind and Knowledge: Preliminary Truths.
Article 2 Distinction Between Sense Perception and Intellectual Thought Upon the Sense Faculties.

The first or simplest exercise of the faculty of thought is called, in logic, Simple Apprehension or Conception. It is the process by which we form a concept or idea external of anything or object. To do this we need the assistance of the external senses; each of these seizing and presenting to our reason some sensible quality or other of external things. Here, for example, is a table-bell upon my desk; I look at it and ring it; my eye receives an impression which enables me to see the outline and the color of the bell, my ear an impression which enables me to hear a sound, my fingers the tactile impression which makes me conscious of the shape and resistance of the button pressed, and so on. These are so many distinct external sensations. But evidently these various sensible qualities of color,outline, sound, resistance, ect., would remain isolated from one another in my mind, did I not possesses the power or faculty of associating them. Both men and animals possess this power; it is a sense faculty, an internal sense; the ancients called it the Sensus Communis, modern philosophers call it the central sense, or the faculty of mental association.

As those sensible impressions are made practically together, it is easy to understand that the sensations produced by them are associated with one another. The qualities perceived by the production of those sensations come into our consciousness as forming one whole; this whole, the resultant of any many factors as there are qualities perceived, constitutes what we call the sense object: the concrete, individual, material thing, existing here and now in the actual conditions and circumstances of time and space in which it is thus perceived by the senses. The cognitive activity of these latter is called sense perception, or sensation, and the conscious product of this activity is called the precept.

Our sensations do not continue indefinitely in consciousness; but on passing out of consciousness they leave behind them traces of themselves, images of the sense qualities originally perceived. These images are preserved in the imagination and may be revived, or recalled to consciousness, by sense memory.

Now it is by the exercise of those partly bodily and partly mental activities of external sense perception and imagination that we obtain possession of the material or data necessary for thought proper. Aided by the sense precept or sense image, our purely mental faculty of thought, our intellect or reason, is able to form a concept or idea by which we apprehend what the thing is, get a rational knowledge of it, give it an intelligible interpretation or meaning and bestow upon it a name. In this we surpass the brute creation. Animals have indeed percepts and images of things; but they have no ideas or concepts; they do not understand what things are; they do not interpret their sense experiences as we interpret ours and theirs; nor have they language, the medium for expressing and communication thought.

To bring out the contrast between the two orders of mental product, the sensible and intellectual, let us revert to our illustration of the table-bell. It will enable us to realize that while the object grasped by sense cognition is concrete, individual, and limited by conditions of time, place, and material existence, the object grasped by the intellect through the idea, is abstract, universal, and independent of all such changing conditions and limitations. The thing perceived by the senses or reproduced by the imagination is always a definite individual thing apprehended as composed of this matter, endowed with these properties, existing here at this particular moment. This thing (the table-bell), which I see with my eyes and touch with my hands, is made of this particular piece of bronze, round in shape, agreeable in tone, resting here and now on this particular corner of this particular desk. All this is perfectly determined. But I can also think of a table-bell not of bronze, nor round in shape, nor agreeable to hear, nor resting here and now upon my desk,-of a table-bell which abstracts from all those particularities. No doubt, the table-bell thus thought of, apart from all those particular conditions , will, if it exists at all, be made of some metal or other; it will be of some shape or other; it will emit some sound or other; it will be localized some place or other, and exist at some time or other. But, as this table-bell of abstract thought may be made of any metal at all, be of any shape, yield any sound, exist anywhere and any time, it will evidently serve to represent to my mind, inadequately, of course, but faithful as far as it goes, any and every possible and actual table-bell of whatsoever material, shape, sound and whereabouts.

Any object or thing thus considered, apart from all the particularizing conditions with which it is really endowed when existing in the actual order of things, is called an abstract object; for to abstract mentally any object is precisely to consider it apart-”separatim considerare“- that which the thing or object is, while lying aside the particular characteristics which give it this, that, or the other definite and determined individuality. Once an object is thus conceived in the abstract by the intellect, it is seen to be capable of being embodied or realized equally and indifferently in an indefinite multitude of individual instances: which is the same as saying that it becomes or is made universal by the consideration of the intellect.

These two functions-of abstracting and generalizing its objects- are the characteristic features of the cognitive activity of human reason or intelligence.

It is of the greatest importance to distinguish clearly between the concrete, individual thing, which is the object of mere sense perception or imagination, and the abstract, universal object, which is apprehended by the thought proper. We can think, or have ideas, of objects which are not perceptible to our senses: for instance, objects not actually existent but only conceivable, such as a flying horse; or objects which we believe or know to exist, but to be imperceivable because not material, such as God, a pure spirit, the human soul, truth, virtue, similarity. And the things we do perceive by our senses we conceive by our intellects in a manner entirely different from that in which we perceive them. We perceive each numerical individual object of a class, as it exists in the concrete, John, James, Thomas, ect. We conceive the nature that is embodied or realized in each, and in virtue of which we put them into a common class, man; and we conceive this common human nature or humanity in the abstract, i.e. neglecting or not considering the different characteristics which particularize it in the individuals, John, James, Thomas, ect. Furthermore, we use this abstract and universal idea, man, for the purpose if interpreting for ourselves , or giving a meaning to, the individual objects John, James, Thomas, ect., which come under the notice of our senses: by thinking to ourselves, “John is a man,” “James is a man,” “Thomas is a man,” ect. The same is true of all our abstract and universal ideas. It is by means of these latter that we interpret or know intellectually the nature and the meaning of the Real World-of Reality itself-as this latter is revealed to us through our senses. This interpretation involves another exercise of thought-the second act of the mind in logic-the judgment.

The first act-conception-by which we form abstract and universal concepts of individual sense objects, has many modalities which have secured for it many different names. For example, when the mind considers one object independently of the surrounding objects it is said to pay attention to this object. This attention may be brought to bear either upon one single attribute of an object, independently of the other qualities with which that attribute is united; or upon all the attributes which constittute the common, specific or class nature of the object, apart from the characteristics that individualize that nature in the actual existing world: those mental acts are called acts of abstraction. Abstraction is the basis of generalization, as explained above; moreover it effects a mental process which we call analysis, i.e. a taking asunder or decomposing of the elements or attributes of a known object. Furthermore, when the mind once again reunites the attributes thus previously isolated, it carries on a work of synthesis. But in these activities judgment is involved as well as conception.-From “The Science of Logic” by Peter Coffey

Next installment:- Judgment or Interpretation: Inference or Reasoning.