Alan asked:

What is the best way to argue for how we form concepts?

Is abstraction tenable at all according to the modern viewpoint?

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As the question of how we form concepts has been a focal point of interest since Plato, and has
been approached from several angles by some of the greatest minds in philosophy, including Locke,
Berkeley, Hume, Kant, Wittgenstein, Russell and Ayer, to decide on which is the best way leaves us
spoilt for choice.

The term 'concept' is a development of the term 'idea' used by ancient Greek and early Western
Philosophers. As ideas/ concepts have through the ages been linked with epistemology (theory of
knowledge) based on a changing succession of paradigms and world views, you will appreciate the
difficulty in answering your initial question.

I find a general consensus, though sometimes with significant variation, amongst philosophers, that
sense data are at the foundation of our concepts. We take in information through the senses and,
some philosophers would claim, we have the mental facility to work upon the sensory information and
manipulate it into ideas/ concepts. Rationalists believe that our mental make-up has something to add
to the sensory data, we not only have the facility to manipulate but there is also an 'inner world' from
which we are able to contribute additional information.

I confess to being a Kantian, and if you have ventured to dip into his Critique of Pure Reasonyou will
have noted that the first sentence in the Introduction claims "That all our knowledge begins with
experience there can be no doubt." He goes on to say, "But, though all our knowledge begins with
experience it by no means follows, that all arises out of experience. For, on the contrary, it is quite
possible that our empirical knowledge is a compound of that which we receive through impressions,
and that which the faculty of cognition supplies from itself." Kant came to believe that a knowledge
existed which was altogether independent of experience, and even of all sensuous impressions, he
called it a priori knowledge.This is knowledge which is intrinsic within us, which has not been
supplied empirically, he actually called it "Pure knowledge a priori." This pure knowledge we
ourselves contribute to the world. For example, ideas of absolute space and absolute time did not
arrive through our senses, we ourselves contribute knowledge like this to the world. We might say
that these are concepts in the true sense of the word. The sense impressions received are
manipulated, categorized and eventually presented to ourselves within the bounds of these great
intrinsic concepts, i.e. we fit things within our awareness of space and time. From this manipulation of
sensory data within our intrinsic a prioriknowledge arise our basic concepts/ideas.

So far as I can make out, G E Moore seems to accept intrinsic concepts, he refers to them as
objectively real and necessary for combining propositions to form the only things that are real. Two of
these major concepts he accepts are existence and truth.

A J Ayer talks about receiving sensations from objects, these sensations he calls 'effects,' our
conception of these effects, whether immediate or remote, is then for us the whole conception of the
object.

Along with the change in terminology from idea to concept has become an awareness that the latter
is more intimately bound up with language. Innumerable concepts lie quite beyond the attainment of a
languageless creature. A J Ayer points out that language is in addition to our underlying abilities,
notably those of a broadly recognitional or discriminatory character, which give substance to the use
of words.

Using the structure of our native languages we set out to dissect nature, the world is presented to us
in a startling complexity of impressions which has to be organized by our minds, and this means
largely by the linguistic systems in our minds, we cut nature up and organize it into concepts.

With regard to your question on abstraction; in my humble opinion it has run its course and seems to
have been demolished by the arguments of A J Ayer and P E Geach. The view of Geach (Mental
ActsRoutledge, London) is that abstractionism is wholly mistaken; that no concept at all is acquired
by the supposed process of abstraction. He claims that the limitations of abstractionism .are fully
exposed when considering logical concepts, particularly the concept of negation. How do we come to
the concept 'not red' ? This has to be derived not from abstracted particulars but from the prior
concept of 'red' and an awareness of the concept of 'negation,' to say nothing of the concept 'colour.'
We cannot learn any one of our concepts without calling another network of concepts into play.

The idea of abstraction seems very shallow, perhaps exposed by a child repeating names of colours
and shapes without any understanding of the use of the words. Also, we can hardly associate
mathematical concepts with abstraction. The evidence points to the abstractionist having to be
selective, forced into admission that certain concepts lie outside the notion of abstraction the case is
destroyed.

John Brandon