CERCLE 1

27 F or philosophy, abstraction (from the Latin abstrahere : remove, subtract, separate) is a cerebral activity that allows us to conceptually isolate a particular quality, either physical or functional with the intention of reflecting on it, without considering theotherpropertiesof theobject inquestion. When thanks tosaid thoughtsor theactionof comparing things, wenotice that the isolatedquality iscommon toseveralof them, we say that the object abstracted is a ‘universal’. The discipline dedicated to investigating the (non-)existence of universals separated from reflection ismetaphysics. Therealandtheabstract What Plato sought tomake us understands is that aword that describes something and that everyone understands without referring to the specific object, like a ‘universal’, is a timeless idea, perfect and therefore immutable.Here, thespecific -or the real - comes into play, since thematerial world is an imperfect mirroror the realworld. Plato, therefore,was the first realist. Aristotle introduced the term aphaireis which was translated into Latin as abstractio. In contrast to Plato, who believed in a direct intuition of essences or ideas, Aristotle considered that all universal ideaswerebasedonempirical data. So, the idea (or concept) of table, comes from theprocessof comparingvarious objects of furniture that share similar characteristics that we can ‘abstract’ and be left withwhat they have in common. The thing that makes a table a table is not that it is square, round, rectangular,wooden,marble, green, yelloworred,butrather the fact thatweabstract thecolour, shapeandmaterial theseobjects have andkeep the ‘idea’ or the ‘concept’ of table. The thing that makes a table a table is not that it is square, round, rectangular, wooden,marble, green, yelloworred, but rather the fact thatwe abstract the colour, shape andmaterial these objects have and keep the ‘idea’ or the ‘concept’ of table. Ifuponreflectingonorcomparingmultipleobjects, theproperty that isdrawnout isconsideredcommontothem, theobjectofthe abstraction is a universal. The question of whether universals existornot insomewayseparatelyfroman intellectualreflection about them (i.e. if somethingcommon to theobjectsreallyexists beyond the hypothesis imagined by the person contemplating them)and, if theydoexist,what theirnature is in relation to the individual is one of the most disputed themes in metaphysics and one which separated empiricists and realists. The latter maintain that universals are realities independent from things, overbearingrealists(Plato is theprototypeof thisrealismandof thosewho think thatsuchuniversal ideasare in themindofGod, who creates thework following them in his Divine Providence plan), ormoremoderate realists, who think that universals are entitiesof reasonwithabase in reality’ (Modern scholastics). For St. Augustine, the attitude towards sensitive objects is Pla- tonic: you cannot get real knowledge from them due to their changeable nature, which deprives them of the status of a true object of knowledge, as described by Kant with the neologism ‘noumenon’. This isasensationcommontobothmanandanimal,andtheman isdifferentiated from theanimal by itsability torationallyknow bodily objects (inferior ratio), so that the levels of knowledge wouldbe the following: a) The lower level of knowledge ismade of sensation, common tomen and beasts; b) An intermediate level is where rational knowledge is found, directed at action, which supposes the use of thesensesand isdirectedatsensitiveobjects,but inwhich the mind judges the bodily objects according to eternal, unbodily models (inferiorratio); c)Thehighest level is thecontemplation the mind has of eternal things on their own terms, with no intervention from sensation, which is known as wisdom, in a purelycontemplative sense (superior ratio). St. Thomas Aquinas, by contrast, follows Aristotelian thinking, and was convinced that intelligibility was developed parallel to immateriality, and for this reasonmaterial things are more Escenadecaça/Escenadecaza/Hunting scene. 12.000a. de C./B.C. CovadeLascaux/CuevadeLascaux/Caveof Lascaux Francia. CONTEMPORANI -CONTEMPORÁNEO CONTEMPORARY theessenceof abstraction