#abstraction

Our intelligence cannot wall itself up alive, like a pupa in a chrysalis. It must at any cost keep on speaking terms with the universe that engendered it. ↗

— William James

#intellect #spirituality #intelligence

Remember that every science is based upon an abstraction. An abstraction is taking a point of view or looking at things under a certain aspect or from a particular angle. All sciences are differentiated by their abstraction. ↗

— Fulton J. Sheen

#science #life

The propensity to excessive simplification is indeed natural to the mind of man, since it is only by abstraction and generalisation, which necessarily imply the neglect of a multitude of particulars, that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace a minute portion of the illimitable vastness of the universe. But if the propensity is natural and even inevitable, it is nevertheless fraught with peril, since it is apt to narrow and falsify our conception of any subject under investigation. To correct it partially - for to correct it wholly would require an infinite intelligence - we must endeavour to broaden our views by taking account of a wide range of facts and possibilities; and when we have done so to the utmost of our power, we must still remember that from the very nature of things our ideas fall immeasurably short of the reality. ↗

— James George Frazer

#generalisation #knowledge #science #art

All religions are good 'in principle' - but unfortunately this abstract Good has only rarely prevented their practitioners from behaving like bastards. ↗

— Paul Karl Feyerabend

#goodness #religion #religion

By object is meant some element in the complex whole that is defined in abstraction from the whole of which it is a distinction. ↗

— John Dewey

#complex #defined #distinction #element #meant

Dancing is the loftiest, the most moving, the most beautiful of the arts, because it is no mere translation or abstraction from life; it is life itself. ↗

— Havelock Ellis

#arts #beautiful #because #dancing #itself

Everything will be all right - you know when? When people, just people, stop thinking of the United Nations as a weird Picasso abstraction and see it as a drawing they made themselves. ↗

— Dag Hammarskjold

#drawing #everything #just #know #made

Abstraction is a mental process we use when trying to discern what is essential or relevant to a problem; it does not require a belief in abstract entities. ↗

— Tom G. Palmer

#abstraction #belief #discern #does #entities

Red Carpet has a nice package abstraction layer that allows us to support RPMs and DEBs transparently. ↗

— Nat Friedman

#allows #carpet #layer #nice #package

The dynamic element in my philosophy, taken as a whole, can be seen as an obstinate and untiring battle against the spirit of abstraction. ↗

— Gabriel Marcel

#against #battle #dynamic #element #obstinate