How We Think Part 11

-- 3. _Conceptions and Meaning_

[Sidenote: A conception is a definite meaning]

The word _meaning_ is a familiar everyday term; the words _conception_, _notion_, are both popular and technical terms. Strictly speaking, they involve, however, nothing new; any meaning sufficiently individualized to be directly grasped and readily used, and thus fixed by a word, is a conception or notion. Linguistically, every common noun is the carrier of a meaning, while proper nouns and common nouns with the word _this_ or _that_ prefixed, refer to the things in which the meanings are exemplified. That thinking both employs and expands notions, conceptions, is then simply saying that in inference and judgment we use meanings, and that this use also corrects and widens them.

[Sidenote: which is standardized]

Various persons talk about an object not physically present, and yet all get the same material of belief. The same person in different moments often refers to the same object or kind of objects. The sense experience, the physical conditions, the psychological conditions, vary, but the same meaning is conserved. If pounds arbitrarily changed their weight, and foot rules their length, while we were using them, obviously we could not weigh nor measure. This would be our intellectual position if meanings could not be maintained with a certain stability and constancy through a variety of physical and personal changes.

[Sidenote: By it we identify the unknown]

[Sidenote: and supplement the sensibly present]

[Sidenote: and also systematize things]

To insist upon the fundamental importance of conceptions would, accordingly, only repeat what has been said. We shall merely summarize, saying that conceptions, or standard meanings, are instruments (_i_) of identification, (_ii_) of supplementation, and (_iii_) of placing in a system. Suppose a little speck of light hitherto unseen is detected in the heavens. Unless there is a store of meanings to fall back upon as tools of inquiry and reasoning, that speck of light will remain just what it is to the senses--a mere speck of light. For all that it leads to, it might as well be a mere irritation of the optic nerve. Given the stock of meanings acquired in prior experience, this speck of light is mentally attacked by means of appropriate concepts. Does it indicate asteroid, or comet, or a new-forming sun, or a nebula resulting from some cosmic collision or disintegration? Each of these conceptions has its own specific and differentiating characters, which are then sought for by minute and persistent inquiry. As a result, then, the speck is identified, we will say, as a comet. Through a standard meaning, it gets ident.i.ty and stability of character. Supplementation then takes place.

All the known qualities of comets are read into this particular thing, even though they have not been as yet observed. All that the astronomers of the past have learned about the paths and structure of comets becomes available capital with which to interpret the speck of light. Finally, this comet-meaning is itself not isolated; it is a related portion of the whole system of astronomic knowledge. Suns, planets, satellites, nebulae, comets, meteors, star dust--all these conceptions have a certain mutuality of reference and interaction, and when the speck of light is identified as meaning a comet, it is at once adopted as a full member in this vast kingdom of beliefs.

[Sidenote: Importance of system to knowledge]

Darwin, in an autobiographical sketch, says that when a youth he told the geologist, Sidgwick, of finding a tropical sh.e.l.l in a certain gravel pit. Thereupon Sidgwick said it must have been thrown there by some person, adding: "But if it were really embedded there, it would be the greatest misfortune to geology, because it would overthrow all that we know about the superficial deposits of the Midland Counties"--since they were glacial. And then Darwin adds: "I was then utterly astonished at Sidgwick not being delighted at so wonderful a fact as a tropical sh.e.l.l being found near the surface in the middle of England. Nothing before had made me thoroughly realize _that science consists in grouping facts so that general laws or conclusions may be drawn from them_." This instance (which might, of course, be duplicated from any branch of science) indicates how scientific notions make explicit the systematizing tendency involved in all use of concepts.

-- 4. _What Conceptions are Not_

The idea that a conception is a meaning that supplies a standard rule for the identification and placing of particulars may be contrasted with some current misapprehensions of its nature.

[Sidenote: A concept is not a bare residue]

1. Conceptions are not derived from a mult.i.tude of different definite objects by leaving out the qualities in which they differ and retaining those in which they agree. The origin of concepts is sometimes described to be as if a child began with a lot of different particular things, say particular dogs; his own Fido, his neighbor's Carlo, his cousin's Tray.

Having all these different objects before him, he a.n.a.lyzes them into a lot of different qualities, say (_a_) color, (_b_) size, (_c_) shape, (_d_) number of legs, (_e_) quant.i.ty and quality of hair, (_f_) digestive organs, and so on; and then strikes out all the unlike qualities (such as color, size, shape, hair), retaining traits such as quadruped and domesticated, which they all have in general.

[Sidenote: but an active att.i.tude]

As a matter of fact, the child begins with whatever significance he has got out of the one dog he has seen, heard, and handled. He has found that he can carry over from one experience of this object to subsequent experience certain expectations of certain characteristic modes of behavior--may expect these even before they show themselves. He tends to a.s.sume this att.i.tude of antic.i.p.ation whenever any clue or stimulus presents itself; whenever the object gives him any excuse for it. Thus he might call cats little dogs, or horses big dogs. But finding that other expected traits and modes of behavior are not fulfilled, he is forced to throw out certain traits from the dog-meaning, while by contrast (see p. 90) certain other traits are selected and emphasized.

As he further applies the meaning to other dogs, the dog-meaning gets still further defined and refined. He does not begin with a lot of ready-made objects from which he extracts a common meaning; he tries to apply to every new experience whatever from his old experience will help him understand it, and as this process of constant a.s.sumption and experimentation is fulfilled and refuted by results, his conceptions get body and clearness.

[Sidenote: It is general because of its application]

2. Similarly, conceptions are general because of their use and application, not because of their ingredients. The view of the origin of conception in an impossible sort of a.n.a.lysis has as its counterpart the idea that the conception is made up out of all the like elements that remain after dissection of a number of individuals. Not so; the moment a meaning is gained, it is a working tool of further apprehensions, an instrument of understanding other things. Thereby the meaning is _extended_ to cover them. Generality resides in application to the comprehension of new cases, not in const.i.tuent parts. A collection of traits left as the common residuum, the _caput mortuum_, of a million objects, would be merely a collection, an inventory or aggregate, not a _general idea_; a striking trait emphasized in any one experience which then served to help understand some one other experience, would become, in virtue of that service of application, in so far general. Synthesis is not a matter of mechanical addition, but of application of something discovered in one case to bring other cases into line.

-- 5. _Definition and Organization of Meanings_

[Sidenote: Definiteness _versus_ vagueness]

[Sidenote: In the abstract meaning is intension]

[Sidenote: In its application it is extension]

A being that cannot understand at all is at least protected from _mis_-understandings. But beings that get knowledge by means of inferring and interpreting, by judging what things signify in relation to one another, are constantly exposed to the danger of _mis_-apprehension, _mis_-understanding, _mis_-taking--taking a thing amiss. A constant source of misunderstanding and mistake is indefiniteness of meaning. Through vagueness of meaning we misunderstand other people, things, and ourselves; through its ambiguity we distort and pervert. Conscious distortion of meaning may be enjoyed as nonsense; erroneous meanings, if clear-cut, may be followed up and got rid of. But vague meanings are too gelatinous to offer matter for a.n.a.lysis, and too pulpy to afford support to other beliefs. They evade testing and responsibility. Vagueness disguises the unconscious mixing together of different meanings, and facilitates the subst.i.tution of one meaning for another, and covers up the failure to have any precise meaning at all. It is the aboriginal logical sin--the source from which flow most bad intellectual consequences. Totally to eliminate indefiniteness is impossible; to reduce it in extent and in force requires sincerity and vigor. To be clear or perspicuous a meaning must be detached, single, self-contained, h.o.m.ogeneous as it were, throughout.

The technical name for any meaning which is thus individualized is _intension_. The process of arriving at such units of meaning (and of stating them when reached) is _definition_. The intension of the terms _man_, _river_, _seed_, _honesty_, _capital_, _supreme court_, is the meaning that _exclusively_ and _characteristically_ attaches to those terms. This meaning is set forth in the definitions of those words. The test of the distinctness of a meaning is that it shall successfully mark off a group of things that exemplify the meaning from other groups, especially of those objects that convey nearly allied meanings. The river-meaning (or character) must serve to _designate_ the Rhone, the Rhine, the Mississippi, the Hudson, the Wabash, in spite of their varieties of place, length, quality of water; and must be such as _not_ to suggest ocean currents, ponds, or brooks. This use of a meaning to mark off and group together a variety of distinct existences const.i.tutes its _extension_.

[Sidenote: Definition and division]

As definition sets forth intension, so division (or the reverse process, cla.s.sification) expounds extension. Intension and extension, definition and division, are clearly correlative; in language previously used, _intension_ is meaning as a principle of identifying particulars; extension is the group of particulars identified and distinguished.

Meaning, as extension, would be wholly in the air or unreal, did it not point to some object or group of objects; while objects would be as isolated and independent intellectually as they seem to be spatially, were they not bound into groups or cla.s.ses on the basis of characteristic meanings which they constantly suggest and exemplify.

Taken together, definition and division put us in possession of individualized or definite meanings and indicate to what group of objects meanings refer. They typify the fixation and the organization of meanings. In the degree in which the meanings of any set of experiences are so cleared up as to serve as principles for grouping those experiences in relation to one another, that set of particulars becomes a science; _i.e._ definition and cla.s.sification are the marks of a science, as distinct from both unrelated heaps of miscellaneous information and from the habits that introduce coherence into our experience without our being aware of their operation.

Definitions are of three types, _denotative_, _expository_, _scientific_. Of these, the first and third are logically important, while the expository type is socially and pedagogically important as an intervening step.

[Sidenote: We define by picking out]

I. Denotative. A blind man can never have an adequate understanding of the meaning of _color_ and _red_; a seeing person can acquire the knowledge only by having certain things designated in such a way as to fix attention upon some of their qualities. This method of delimiting a meaning by calling out a certain att.i.tude toward objects may be called _denotative_ or _indicative_. It is required for all sense qualities--sounds, tastes, colors--and equally for all emotional and moral qualities. The meanings of _honesty_, _sympathy_, _hatred_, _fear_, must be grasped by having them presented in an individual's first-hand experience. The reaction of educational reformers against linguistic and bookish training has always taken the form of demanding recourse to personal experience. However advanced the person is in knowledge and in scientific training, understanding of a new subject, or a new aspect of an old subject, must always be through these acts of experiencing directly the existence or quality in question.

[Sidenote: and also by combining what is already more definite,]

2. Expository. Given a certain store of meanings which have been directly or denotatively marked out, language becomes a resource by which imaginative combinations and variations may be built up. A color may be defined to one who has not experienced it as lying between green and blue; a tiger may be defined (_i.e._ the idea of it made more definite) by selecting some qualities from known members of the cat tribe and combining them with qualities of size and weight derived from other objects. Ill.u.s.trations are of the nature of expository definitions; so are the accounts of meanings given in a dictionary. By taking better-known meanings and a.s.sociating them,--the attained store of meanings of the community in which one resides is put at one's disposal. But in themselves these definitions are secondhand and conventional; there is danger that instead of inciting one to effort after personal experiences that will exemplify and verify them, they will be accepted on authority as _subst.i.tutes_.

[Sidenote: and by discovering method of production]

3. Scientific. Even popular definitions serve as rules for identifying and cla.s.sifying individuals, but the purpose of such identifications and cla.s.sifications is mainly practical and social, not intellectual. To conceive the whale as a fish does not interfere with the success of whalers, nor does it prevent recognition of a whale when seen, while to conceive it not as fish but as mammal serves the practical end equally well, and also furnishes a much more valuable principle for scientific identification and cla.s.sification. Popular definitions select certain fairly obvious traits as keys to cla.s.sification. Scientific definitions select _conditions of causation, production, and generation_ as their characteristic material. The traits used by the popular definition do not help us to understand why an object has its common meanings and qualities; they simply state the fact that it does have them. Causal and genetic definitions fix upon the way an object is constructed as the key to its being a certain kind of object, and thereby explain why it has its cla.s.s or common traits.

[Sidenote: Contrast of causal and descriptive definitions]

[Sidenote: Science is the most perfect type of knowledge because it uses causal definitions]

If, for example, a layman of considerable practical experience were asked what he meant or understood by _metal_, he would probably reply in terms of the qualities useful (_i_) in recognizing any given metal and (_ii_) in the arts. Smoothness, hardness, glossiness, and brilliancy, heavy weight for its size, would probably be included in his definition, because such traits enable us to identify specific things when we see and touch them; the serviceable properties of capacity for being hammered and pulled without breaking, of being softened by heat and hardened by cold, of retaining the shape and form given, of resistance to pressure and decay, would probably be included--whether or not such terms as _malleable_ or _fusible_ were used. Now a scientific conception, instead of using, even with additions, traits of this kind, determines _meaning on a different basis_. The present definition of metal is about like this: Metal means any chemical element that enters into combination with oxygen so as to form a base, _i.e._ a compound that combines with an acid to form a salt. This scientific definition is founded, not on directly perceived qualities nor on directly useful properties, but on the _way in which certain things are causally related to other things_; _i.e._ it denotes a relation. As chemical concepts become more and more those of relations.h.i.+ps of interaction in const.i.tuting other substances, so physical concepts express more and more relations of operation: mathematical, as expressing functions of dependence and order of grouping; biological, relations of differentiation of descent, effected through adjustment of various environments; and so on through the sphere of the sciences. In short, our conceptions attain a maximum of definite individuality and of generality (or applicability) in the degree to which they show how things depend upon one another or influence one another, instead of expressing the qualities that objects possess statically. The ideal of a system of scientific conceptions is to attain continuity, freedom, and flexibility of transition in pa.s.sing from any fact and meaning to any other; this demand is met in the degree in which we lay hold of the dynamic ties that hold things together in a continuously changing process--a principle that states insight into mode of production or growth.

CHAPTER TEN

CONCRETE AND ABSTRACT THINKING

[Sidenote: False notions of concrete and abstract]

The maxim enjoined upon teachers, "to proceed from the concrete to the abstract," is perhaps familiar rather than comprehended. Few who read and hear it gain a clear conception of the starting-point, the concrete; of the nature of the goal, the abstract; and of the exact nature of the path to be traversed in going from one to the other. At times the injunction is positively misunderstood, being taken to mean that education should advance from things to thought--as if any dealing with things in which thinking is not involved could possibly be educative. So understood, the maxim encourages mechanical routine or sensuous excitation at one end of the educational scale--the lower--and academic and unapplied learning at the upper end.

Actually, all dealing with things, even the child's, is immersed in inferences; things are clothed by the suggestions they arouse, and are significant as challenges to interpretation or as evidences to substantiate a belief. Nothing could be more unnatural than instruction in things without thought; in sense-perceptions without judgments based upon them. And if the abstract to which we are to proceed denotes thought apart from things, the goal recommended is formal and empty, for effective thought always refers, more or less directly, to things.

[Sidenote: Direct and indirect understanding again]

Yet the maxim has a meaning which, understood and supplemented, states the line of development of logical capacity. What is this signification?

Concrete denotes a meaning definitely marked off from other meanings so that it is readily apprehended by itself. When we hear the words, _table_, _chair_, _stove_, _coat_, we do not have to reflect in order to grasp what is meant. The terms convey meaning so directly that no effort at translating is needed. The meanings of some terms and things, however, are grasped only by first calling to mind more familiar things and then tracing out connections between them and what we do not understand. Roughly speaking, the former kind of meanings is concrete; the latter abstract.