Abstraction Quote by Anonymous
““The acts of the mind, wherein it exerts its power over simple ideas, are chiefly these three: 1. Combining several simple ideas into one compound one, and thus all complex ideas are made. 2. The second is bringing two ideas, whether simple or complex, together, and setting them by one another so as to take a view of them at once, without uniting them into one, by which it gets all its ideas of relations. 3. The third is separating them from all other ideas that accompany them in their real existence: this is called abstraction, and thus all its general ideas are made. John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1690)””
About This Quote
Source Book: An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 1690
Locke describes three mental operations: combining ideas into compounds, juxtaposing ideas to see relations, and abstracting to form general concepts.
In simple terms: The mind builds, compares, and abstracts ideas.
Key Takeaway
Use these operations to deepen thinking.
Themes
cognition
philosophy
learning
Mood
analytical
inquisitive
Type
philosophical
educational
When to use this quote
- problem solving
- creative writing
- education
- research
- philosophical analysis
Key Concepts
combination
relation
abstraction
Questions to Reflect On
- How do you combine simple concepts into complex ones?
- When do you need to abstract ideas?
A Different Perspective
These processes can be limited by bias or lack of prior knowledge.
![“We now come to the decisive step of mathematical abstraction: we forget about what the symbols stand for. ...[The mathematician] need not be idle; there are many operations which he may carry out with these symbols, without ever having to look at the things they stand for. Hermann Weyl, The…” quote by Anonymous](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/e1d/anonymous-1_abstraction_we-now-come-to-the-decisive-step-of-math_607659.jpg)
