understanding
The mind is in the philosophy of the assets , terms of forming and these to judgments connect to. The use of the term today was largely shaped by Immanuel Kant , who often contrasts reason with reason , but also distinguishes it from perception .
The term is the noun to “understand” from Old High German “farstān” with the original meaning “to stand in front of it” (through which, for example, one can perceive a thing exactly), which from the beginning in the figurative sense (“to understand”, “to see through ") has been used.
Explanatory quotes
In his anthropology, Immanuel Kant pragmatic (1798) defines the mind as follows:
"Understanding, as the ability to think ( to imagine something through concepts), is also called the upper cognitive faculty (to distinguish it from sensuality, as the lower one), because the faculty of perceptions (more pure or empirical) is only the individual in objects on the other hand, that the concepts contain the general of their representations, the rule, to which the manifold of sensible intuitions must be subordinated in order to produce unity for the knowledge of the object. - Understanding is certainly more distinguished than the sensuality with which the unreasonable animals can manage themselves according to implanted instincts, like a people without a head; instead, a leader without a people (understanding without sensuality) can do nothing at all. So there is no quarrel of rank between the two, although one is titled as superior and the other as lower.
But the word understanding is also taken with a special meaning: namely, since it is subordinated to the understanding in a general meaning as a member of the division with two others, and there the upper faculty of knowledge (materialiter, i.e. not for itself, but in relation to Knowledge of objects considered) from understanding, judgment and reason. "
The definition by Rudolf Eisler is comprehensive , who wrote in his dictionary of philosophical terms (2nd edition 1904):
"Understanding ( logos , epistêmê, intellectus, intelligentia, ratio, entendement, understanding) is, in the broader sense, the power of thought, intelligence compared to sensuality, in a narrower sense, compared to reason (sd), unity, ability to grasp the mind , des ( correct) comprehension (abstraction) and judgment, in short of relational-comparative, analyzing thinking, as well as "understanding", d. H. of knowing the meaning of words and concepts. "Healthy mind" ("bon sens") is the natural (even without special training effective) power of apprehension and judgment, normal, but unmethodical, and therefore also easily misguided thinking. "
For Arthur Schopenhauer , understanding is limited to recognizing cause and effect:
“The subjective correlate of matter or causality , because both are one, is the mind, and it is nothing else. Recognizing causality is its only function, its sole power. "
The psychologist and cognitive scientist Steven Pinker sees the mind as a tool for assessing probabilities and drawing conclusions from them:
"The mind is a neural computer that is equipped with combinatorial algorithms through natural selection in order to make causal and probabilistic conclusions about plants, animals, things and people."
“In a universe in which regularities occur at all, decisions made on the basis of experience are better than random decisions. This has always been the case and one would expect that organisms, especially information -processing ones like humans, have developed a strong intuition for probabilities . "
See also
Classical literature
Modern philosophy
- René Descartes , Treatise on the Method of Correct Thinking and Searching for Truth in the Sciences
- John Locke , attempt on human understanding : in four books, Vol. 1., Book I and II, 5th, Aufl. Meiner, Hamburg 2000. ISBN 978-3-7873-1555-0 , Vol. 2., Book III and IV, 3rd edition. Meiner, Hamburg 1988. ISBN 978-3-7873-0931-3
- John Locke: On the correct use of the mind , trans. by Otto Martin, Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 1920; unchangeable Reprint d. Issued from 1920, Hamburg: Felix Meiner, 1978, ISBN 3-7873-0434-7
- John Locke: The Direction of Mind . Translated by Jürgen Bona Meyer, Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, Schutterwald / Baden 1998, ISBN 978-3-928640-61-9
- David Hume , Inquiry into the Human Mind
- George Berkeley , Treatises on the Principles of Human Knowledge
- Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz , New Treatises on the Human Mind
- Immanuel Kant , Critique of Pure Reason, Critique of Practical Reason, Critique of Judgment
Web links
- J. u. W. Grimm: Art. Verstand , in: German Dictionary Vol. 25, Sp. 1523–1551.
Individual evidence
- ^ Friedrich Kluge: Etymological dictionary of the German language . 23rd edition. De Gruyter, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-11-016392-6 (edited by Elmar Seebold).
- ↑ Immanuel Kant, Collected Writings. Ed .: Vol. 1-22 Prussian Academy of Sciences, Vol. 23 German Academy of Sciences in Berlin, from Vol. 24 Academy of Sciences in Göttingen, Berlin 1900ff., AA VII, 196 .
- ↑ The world as will and imagination , first volume, first book §4 ( zeno.org )
- ^ D. Poole, A. Mackworth, W. Menzel: Artificial Intelligence - Chapter 6: Reasoning under Uncertainty , p. 2; 2010 and 2015 - "The mind is a neural computer, fitted by natural selection with combinatorial algorithms for causal and probabilistic reasoning about plants, animals, objects, and people." “In a universe with any regularities at all, decisions informed about the past are better than decisions made at random. That has always been true, and we would expect organisms, especially informavores such as humans, to have evolved acute intuitions about probability. The founders of probability, like the founders of logic, assumed they were just formalizing common sense. " Steven Pinker, How the Mind Works, 1997, pp. 524, 343.