Ontario Normal School Manuals: Science of Education

by Ontario. Department of Education

But Conception is Involved in Perception.—From what has been seen, however, it is evident that the development of our concepts does not proceed in any such formal way. If the mind perceives an individual object with any degree of clearness, it must recognize the object as possessing certain qualities. If, therefore, the child can perceive such an object as a dog, it implies that he recognizes it, say, as a hairy, four-footed creature. To recognize these qualities, however, signifies that the mind is able to think of them as something apart from the object, and the child thus has in a sense a general notion even while perceiving the particular dog. Whenever he passes to the perception of another dog, he undoubtedly interprets this with the general ideas already obtained from this earlier percept of a dog. To say, therefore, that to gain a concept he compares the qualities found in several individual things is not strictly true, for if his first percept becomes a type by which he interprets other dogs, his first experience is already a concept. What happens is that as this concept is used to interpret other individuals, the person becomes more conscious of the fact that his early experience is applicable to an indefinite number of objects. So also, when an adult first perceives an individual thing, say the fruit of the guava, he must apprehend certain qualities in relation to the individual thing. Thereupon his idea of this particular object becomes in itself a copy for identifying other objects, or a symbol by which similar future impressions may be given meaning. In this sense the individual idea, or percept, will serve to identify other particular experiences. Such being the case, this early concept of the guava has evidently required no abstraction of qualities beyond apprehending them while perceiving the one example of the fruit. This, however, is but to say that the perception of the guava really implied conception.

Comparison of Individuals Necessary for Correct Concepts.—It is, of course, true that the correctness of the idea as a class symbol can be verified only as we apply it in interpreting a number of such individual things. As the person meets a further number of individuals, he may even discover the presence of qualities not previously recognized. A child, for instance, may have a notion of the class triangle long before he discovers that all triangles have the property of containing two right angles. When this happens, he will later modify his first concept by synthesising into it the newly discovered quality. Moreover, if certain features supposed to be common are later found to be accidental, if, for instance, a child's concept of the class fish includes the quality always living in water, his meeting with a flying fish will not result in an utterly new concept, but rather in a modification of the present one. Thus the young child, who on seeing the Chinese diplomat, wished to know where he had his laundry, was not without a class concept, although that concept was imperfect in at least one respect.

Concept and Term.—A point often discussed in connection with conception is whether a general notion can be formed without language. By some it is argued that no concept could exist in the mind without the name, or general term. It was seen, however, that our first perception of any object becomes a sort of standard by which other similar experiences are intercepted, and is, therefore, general in character. From this it is evident that a rudimentary type of conception exists prior to language. In the case of the young child, as he gains a mental image of his father, the experience evidently serves as a centre for interpreting other similar individuals. We may notice that as soon as he gains control of language, other men are called by the term papa. This does not imply an actual confusion in identity, but his use of the term shows that the child interprets the new object through a crude concept denoted by the word papa. It is more than probable, moreover, that this crude concept developed as he became able to recognize his father, and had been used in interpreting other men before he obtained the term, papa. On the other hand, it is certain that the term, or class name, is necessary to give the notion a definite place in consciousness.

FACTORS INVOLVED IN CONCEPT

It will appear from the foregoing that a concept presents the following factors for consideration:

1. The essential quality or qualities found in the individual things, and supposed to be abstracted sooner or later from the individuals.

2. The concept itself, the mental image or idea representative of the abstracted quality; or the unification of a number of abstracted qualities, when the general notion implies a synthesis of different qualities.

3. The general term, or name.

4. The objects themselves, which the mind can organize into a class, because they are identified as possessing common characteristics. When, however, a single abstracted quality is taken as a symbol of a class of objects, for example, when the quality bitterness becomes the symbol for the class of bitter things, there can be no real distinction between the abstracted quality and the class concept. In other words, to fix attention upon the quality bitterness as a quality distinct from the object in which it is found, is at the same time to give it a general character, recognizing it as something which may be found in a number of objects—the class bitter things. Here the abstract term is in a sense a general notion representative of a whole class of objects which agree in the possession of the quality.