Abstract Ideas

Abstract or General Ideas are Specific Ideas Which are Given a Name

Are abstract or general ideas conceived by the mind in a general or particular way?

George Berkeley was a great philosopher. He has asserted that all general ideas are merely specific ideas annexed to a certain term.

This term:

• gives them a more extensive meaning, and
• makes them recall other individuals similar to them.

For me, this is one of the greatest and most valuable discoveries recently made in the republic of letters.

When we create most of our general ideas, we abstract away from it every quantity and quality.

An object continues to be regarded as part of its kind despite small changes in its space, time, and other properties.

This is a dilemma that answers the nature of those abstract ideas.

The abstract idea of a man represents men of all sizes and all qualities.

This can only be done by representing:

• all possible sizes and all possible qualities at once, or
  • This is absurd as it would imply an infinite capacity in the mind.
• no particular quality at all.
  • This is the common representation for our abstract ideas.
  • It represents no specific quantity or quality.

But this is wrong because:

• it is impossible to conceive any quantity or quality without creating a precise notion of its degrees, and
• even if the mind is finite, we can easily create an imperfect notion of all possible quantities and qualities for the sake of reflection and conversation

Proposition 1: The mind cannot create any notion of quantity or quality without creating a precise notion of degrees of each.

This is proven by 3 arguments:

Argument 1: Objects that are different are distinguishable.

Objects that are distinguishable are separable by the thought and imagination.

These propositions are equally true in the inverse:

• Objects that are separable are also distinguishable.
• Objects that are distinguishable are also different.

How else can we separate what is not distinguishable or distinguish what is not different?

To know whether abstraction implies a separation, we only need to:

• consider it in this view, and
• examine whether all the simple ideas which we abstract out of our general ideas is different from the ideas which we retain as essential in those general ideas.

The precise degree of any quality is not different from that quality.

For example, a physical line’s precise length is not different from the physical line itself.

Therefore, these two ideas are not separated in the mind.

The general idea of a physical line appears in the mind with a precise degree of quantity and quality, despite all our abstractions and refinements.

However, it may be made to represent other lines which have different degrees of quantity and quality.

Argument 2: An object or impression must enter the mind with a quantity and quality.

This confusion arises because impressions are faint and unsteady.

It does not come from the mind’s inability to receive impressions that have no clear quantity and quality.

An impression without a quality or quantity would be a contradiction.

It would imply that it is possible for the same thing to be and not to be.

Since all ideas are derived from impressions and are nothing but copies and representations of impressions, whatever is true of the one must be true for the other.

Impressions and ideas differ only in their strength and vivacity.

The connection between impressions and ideas is not based on their vivacity.

Therefore, the connection cannot be affected by any variation in their vivacity.

An idea is a weaker impression.

A strong impression must necessarily have a quantity and quality.

Therefore, its copy or representative must also have a quantity and quality.

Argument 3: A general principle in philosophy is that everything in nature is individual.

It is absurd to suppose that a triangle can have no precise sides and angles and yet exist.

If this is absurd in reality, it must also be absurd in idea, since no clear and distinct idea which we can form is absurd and impossible.

But forming the idea of an object and forming an idea is simply the same thing.

The reference of the idea to an object is an extraneous denomination.

It bears no mark or character in itself.

It is impossible to form an idea of an object that has quantity and quality but has no precise degree of either.

It follows that there is an equal impossibility of forming an idea that is unlimited in quantity and quality.

Abstract ideas are therefore in themselves individual, however they may become general in their representation.

The image in the mind is only that of a specific object even if the application of it in our reasoning is the same, as if it were universal.