From will to representation and back

On switching between sensing and thinking

The past few weeks I’ve been wondering if my cognitive development hasn’t mirrored evolutionary history. I’ve been thinking in terms of a three-stage model:

Stage 1: Grasping Particulars — The experiential foundation
Stage 2: Grasping Universals — The conceptual expansion
Stage 3: Skilful Oscillation — The ability to switch

In my early life (let’s say, 0-16), I remember every moment seeming unique, as indeed it was. But I had limited ability to generalise. In my later years (say 16-30), I became very conceptual. I learned a lot of academic abstractions, and probably over-applied them in my life. It wasn’t until my early thirties that my intensely conceptual way of seeing began to subside a bit.

Stage 1: Grasping Particulars

Aristotle (384–322 BC) recognised the evolutionary priority of objects in the world, which he calls “particulars,” in his hierarchical theory of the soul’s faculties. This is in De Anima (~350 BC, 414a29-415a13). Basically he said that the “plant soul” has nutritive and reproductive faculties. The “animal soul” included the “plant soul” but added locomotion, desire, and perception of individual things. The “human soul” includes both the other souls, but adds “the faculty of understanding” (rationality, the intellect, and abstract thought).

“Now, the other animals live by appearances and memories, and have but a small share in [connected] experience, whereas humankind lives also by craft knowledge and rational calculations.” (Metaphysics I.1, 980b25-981a1)

Schopenhauer (1788–1860) makes an almost identical point in World as Will and Representation, vol. I. In this context, following Kant, you can understand “intuitive” as “perceptual”:

“The main difference among all our representations is that between the intuitive [perceptual] and the abstract. The latter constitutes only one class of representations, namely concepts; and on earth these are the property of man alone. The capacity for these which distinguishes him from all animals has at all times been called reason (Vernunft).” (§3)

Neither Schopenhauer nor Aristotle noted that children have to develop most of these faculties. For example, to go through a few of Aristotle’s faculties, children are first able to eat, then perceive movement, then move themselves, but only much later to engage in abstract thought. Aristotle lumps these together as human capacities.

In childhood, we learn like other animals, at least until we start to speak. It is at this point, as Vygotsky (1896–1934) noted, that things begin to differ:

What most investigators do not acknowledge is that with speech the child acquires a fundamentally different attitude toward the entire situation in which the solution of practical problems is carried out, and that the child’s practical actions represent, from a psychological point of view, a completely different structure. (Tool and Symbol in Childhood Development, 1930, but published 1970s).

Although language begins to transform experience, we still use language primarily to engage with particular objects and our immediate experience. So I think this stage relates to what Schopenhauer calls the “will” — direct, embodied, experiential engagement with the world.

Vygotsky's research in Thought and Language (1934) documented how children initially organize their world through what he called “syncretic heaps” and “complexes” — collections of concrete objects grouped by perceived similarities in experience, rather than a list of abstract properties. A young child might group objects because “they go together” in their experience — not because they share features.

Alexander Luria (1902–1977), Vygotsky’s collaborator, provided fascinating evidence for this stage in his studies of non-literate people in remote parts of Uzbekistan in the 1930s. In Cognitive Development (1936; English translation published 1976), Luria showed that adults without formal education continued to categorise objects based on practical, situational relationships rather than abstract categories, which he called “graphic-functional” (which relates to particular things) as opposed to “abstract-logical” (which relates to concepts).

This overall distinction between other animals and humans is supported by modern evidence. In Michael Tomasello’s The Cultural Origins of Human Cognition (1999) he writes:

All mammals live in basically the same sensory-motor world of permanent objects arrayed in a representational space; primates, including humans, have no special skills in this regard. Moreover, many mammalian species and basically all primates cognitively represent the categorical and quantitative relations among objects as well.

However, as he notes in Becoming Human (2019), even other great apes are more limited in their ability to abstract:

Whereas great apes could abstract common features across exemplars and form an abstract representation of a set of entities, early humans could not only do this but also see the same entity from different perspectives, under different descriptions (for example, as stick and as tool), both at the same time. This form of cognitive representation is responsible for much of the remarkable flexibility and power of human conceptual activity. (p16)

They’re also far less capable of collaboration:

The point is thus that although chimpanzee collaboration appears on the surface to be similar to the human version, in reality—in terms of the psychological processes involved—it is less like working together mutualistically and more like individuals using one another to achieve their individual ends. Overall, perhaps with some exceptions, we may say that chimpanzees view others mostly instrumentally: as social obstacles in competition, or as social instruments in collaboration. (p194)

So although they don’t give much of a developmental account, both Aristotle (~350 BC) and Schopenhauer (~1818 CE) are supported by modern psychology and primatology.

“Thinking about anything in particular?”

Stage 2: Grasping Universals

As we develop, we gain increasing capacity for abstract, conceptual thinking. This is what Aristotle identified as the uniquely human ability to grasp “universals,” which builds beyond the mere sensory particulars. These are what I’m calling “concepts.”

“Thus sense-perception gives rise to memory, as we hold; and repeated memories of the same thing give rise to experience; because the memories, though numerically many, constitute a single experience. And experience, that is the universal when established as a whole in the soul—the One that corresponds to the Many, the unity that is identically present in them all—provides the starting-point of art and science: art in the world of process and science in the world of facts.” (Posterior Analytics, trans. Tredennick, II.19, 100a3-9)

For Aristotle, this ability to move from particular perceptions to an understanding of universals represents the distinctive power of human intellect (nous). This insight parallels Schopenhauer’s distinction between intuitive representations and abstract concepts:

“Thus language, like every other phenomenon that we ascribe to reason, and like everything that distinguishes man from the animal, is to be explained by this one simple thing as its source, namely concepts, representations that are abstract, not perceptive, universal not individual in time and space.” (WWR Vol 1, §12)

Neuroimaging evidence confirms this developmental trajectory. Iroise Dumontheil (2016), for example, found that abstract reasoning abilities specifically continue to develop during adolescence and early adulthood, correlating with prefrontal cortex maturation.

This corresponds to what Schopenhauer calls “representation.” Schopenhauer emphasizes the profound difference this conceptual capacity creates between humans and animals. He also foreshadows how this uniquely sets us up to suffer:

“[Man] far surpasses [other animals] in power and in suffering. They live in the present alone; he lives at the same time in the future and the past. They satisfy the need of the moment; he provides by the most ingenious preparations for his future, nay, even for times that he cannot live to see. They are given up entirely to the impression of the moment, to the effect of the motive of perception; he is determined by abstract concepts independent of the present moment. He therefore carries out considered plans, or acts in accordance with maxims, without regard to his surroundings, and to the accidental impressions of the moment.” (WWR Vol 1, §8)

This stage represents a powerful expansion of human capability — allowing us to reason about things not present, to think hypothetically, and to create cultural institutions that persist across generations.

“Animals without eyes know only by touch what is immediately present to them in space, what comes in contact with them. Animals that see, on the other hand, know a wide sphere of what is near and distant. In the same way, the absence of reason restricts the animals to representations of perception immediately present to them in time, in other words to real objects. We, on the other hand, by virtue of knowledge in the abstract, comprehend not only the narrow and actual present, but also the whole past and future together with the wide realm of possibility. We survey life freely in all directions, far beyond what is present and actual. Thus what the eye is in space and for sensuous knowledge, reason is, to a certain extent, in time and for inner knowledge.” (§16)

However, this same capacity can cause us problems. Here’s Schopenhauer on some of these:

“It is indeed remarkable how, through the mere addition of thought, which the animal lacks, there should have been erected on the same narrow basis of pain and pleasure that the animal possesses so vast and lofty a structure of human happiness and misery, and man should be subjected to such vehement emotions, passions and convulsions that their impress can be read in enduring lines on his face; while all the time and in reality he is concerned only with the very same things which the animal too attains, and attains with an incomparably smaller expenditure of emotion.” (Essays and Aphorisms, “Essays on the Suffering of the World,” 1851)

And back to WWR:

“For generally our greatest sufferings do not lie in the present as representations of perception or as immediate feeling, but in our faculty of reason as abstract concepts, tormenting thoughts, from which the animal is completely free, living as it does in the present, and thus in enviable ease and unconcern.” (WWR I §55)

In other words, the very ability that distinguishes us from other animals in terms of ability to abstract also makes us uniquely susceptible to existential suffering.

Stage 3: Skilful Oscillation

The final stage of development — one that perhaps we never fully achieve — is learning when and how to deploy each mode of cognition appropriately. I.e., should we operate using perception or concepts? In some cases, e.g. playing sports, the answer is obvious. Conceptual strategies may help, but it is mostly a matter of perception and action, i.e., Stage 1.

Other domains, e.g., much of modern knowledge work, depend much more heavily on conceptual capacities, Stage 2, than they do on the ability to manipulate physical objects in the world.

But there are limitations from taking either capacity too far. Each has its uses but also its limitations, and, especially today, we can run into problems with too much conceptual thought. “Overthinking” and “rumination” (which is associated with anxiety and depression) both, I will argue, lead to unnecessary suffering. The solution to such problems is usually to go back to Stage 1, e.g., returning to perception in meditation, or doing exercise or other embodied practices.

Both Aristotle and Schopenhauer recognised that abstract concepts must remain grounded in perception to maintain their value. Aristotle wrote that “one who did not perceive anything would neither learn nor understand anything,” (De Anima III.8, 432a7-8), emphasising that all knowledge begins in experience.

Kant famously expressed this interdependence in his Critique of Pure Reason (1781):

“Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind. […] The understanding is not capable of intuiting anything, and the senses are not capable of thinking anything. Only from their unification can cognition arise.” (A51/B75)

Similarly, Schopenhauer warned against concepts becoming detached from their experiential origins:

“Consequently, immediate evidence is everywhere far preferable to demonstrated truth, and the latter is to be accepted only when the former is too remote, and not when it is just as near as, or even nearer than, the latter.” (WWR Vol 1, §14)

“It is true that, so far as the abstract representation, the concept, is concerned, we also obtained a knowledge of it according to its content, in so far as it has all content and meaning only through its relation to the representation of perception, without which it would be worthless and empty.” (WWR Vol 1, §17)

Finally, an overreliance on abstraction does not just apply to individual experience. The whole of philosophy is guilty of doing too much abstraction without enough perception:

“Since Plato and Aristotle, philosophy has been for the most part a continued misuse of universal concepts, such as, for example, substance, ground, cause, the good, perfection, necessity, possibility, and very many others. A tendency of minds to operate with such abstract and too widely comprehended concepts has shown itself at almost all times. Ultimately it may be due to a certain indolence of the intellect, which finds it too onerous to be always controlling thought through perception.” (WWR vol II, Chapter IV, p54)

Neither/Nor is concerned with this stage. Over the next few months I’ll be describing how to enhance experiential and conceptual knowledge, and how to cultivate the wisdom to know when each is appropriate.

Modern Life

Modern educational systems excel at developing Stage 2 capacities, i.e., abstract reasoning through concepts. However, they often neglect both the experiential foundation (Stage 1) and the skillful integration of the two skills (Stage 3).

The result has been a few generations formed of individuals who can reason well within existing conceptual frameworks. But we struggle to connect these concepts back to their own lived experience. Crucially, we also struggle to listen to other people’s experiences when they don't fit well into our existing concepts. We also struggle to know how to produce new concepts to characterise new experiences.

I’m generally not too keen on “stage” structures, so please remember these are just categories I made up to describe my own experiences age 0–16, 16–30, and 30+. I don’t claim any universality to these stages.

Nonetheless, the idea of oscillation offers a lens for examining both individual development and societal patterns. In my next post, I'll explore how the tension between “universal” and “particular” thinking manifests in our social structures and interpersonal relationships. See these earlier posts for some thinking in that direction:

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Bryan

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