Abstract Concepts Quotes

“The abstract concepts at the center of our oldest cognitive systems constitute a primordial 'blessing of abstraction,' counter to long-standing intuitions concerning what is learned or innate, and what is unique to our species or shared by other animals. For millennia, thinkers have supposed that knowledge begins with modality-specific sensations and culminates in abstract concepts only late in ontogeny and phylogeny. Multidisciplinary research in the developmental cognitive sciences turns this assumption on its head. Although we do not routinely articulate our abstract concepts, they are foundations for learning about things, places, and events at all ages and in a wide range of species. Ancient cognitive systems capture properties of the world that apply to all the diverse environments in which these creatures live.”
― Elizabeth S. Spelke, What Babies Know: Core Knowledge and Composition Volume 1