A Class Room Logic: Deductive and Inductive, with Special Application to the Science and Art of Teaching — John Shaqi
A Class Room Logic: Deductive and Inductive, with Special Application to the Science and Art of TeachingMcNair, George Hastings
Philosophy
A Class Room Logic: Deductive and Inductive, with Special Application to the Science and Art of Teaching
McNair, George Hastings
Logic
(1) As I raise my eyes a figure comes to view. My mind knows
_instantly_ that it is the figure three. (2) The ear catches
_immediately_ a tune which is being sung in the room below. Without
deliberation the mind recognizes the tune as America. The mind may
thus know by intuition through any one of the five senses. These are
the wires of connection between the outer world and the mind within
and transmission over these wires may be instantaneous or intuitive.
This is not all. (3) My mind may center its attention on itself and
may recognize there a mental picture or image of a pet dog. Since
this activity is without any apparent deliberation the process must
be intuitive. To define intuitive knowledge as that which comes to the
mind through the senses only is incorrect, as it leaves out altogether
the knowledge the mind may obtain of its own activity as in
illustration “(3).”
Knowledge is anything known. _Intuitive knowledge is knowledge which
comes to the mind immediately by direct observation._ The field for
intuitive knowledge may be the external world or the internal world
though, of course, the former is the more common ground. It is here
that the mind by intuition secures the most of its raw material which,
through the process of thinking, is worked over into a connected,
unified system of lasting value.
The intuitions are the beginning and the basis of all knowledge, and
knowledge gained by intuition is the basis of all thinking.
=3. THE THINKING PROCESS.=
It is claimed that _think_ comes from the same root as _thick_. From
this one would conclude that the process of thinking is virtually a
process of thickening. Surely as one thinks he enriches or thickens
his knowledge. As one thinks percepts into concepts and concepts into
judgments he makes richer in meaning the various notions concerned.
Thinking is largely a matter of pressing many into one: of linking
together the disconnected fragments of the conscious field.
DEFINITION:
_Thinking is the deliberative process of affirming or denying
connections._
The same idea may be expressed in a variety of ways as the following
indicate.
(1) “Thinking is the conscious adjustment of a means to an end in
problematic situations.” Miller.
(2) “To think is to designate an object through a mark or attribute
or what is the same thing, to determine a subject through a
predicate.” Bowen.
(3) “Thought is the comprehension of a thing under a general notion
or attribute.” Wm. Hamilton.
(4) “To think is to make clear through concepts the perceived
objects.” Dressler.
In the foregoing definitions it is implied that thinking is a
connecting or _thickening_ process. In all forms of thinking from the
simplest to the most complex the knowing mind hunts for some basis of
connection and having found it _thinks_ the relationship into a unified
whole.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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