The Human Question

Perhaps instinct is a necessary condition for morality.  But our capacity for abstraction results in our desiring these same goods in a kind of infinite manner.  Let's call our capacity for abstraction our "instinct" for the infinite: it forces us to make comparisons, to relate each good to all of being and to the goodness of the world.  Abstraction transforms our instincts into something much more.

An intellectual grasp is frequently called an abstraction.  And in literature and philosophy we talk of abstraction as a kind of diluted colorless version of the concrete... as a concept in the mind rather than something really present to the senses. But to think of tasting food, for example, is to think of something in a way more attractive than this or that food that lies before one's eyes.  In a sense "to taste food" is infinitely more alluring than "this food": for the former gives rise to a kind of creativity that is unlimited: new foods, new ways of preparing old foods, obsession with food, food food food.  Why?  Is a neurological account of an obsession with food able to give an adequate explanation?  No.  An intentional analysis is needed.  And it reveals that there is a kind of unlimited nature to human  activities directed to the enjoyment of food because the object of desire is BEING, and there is something unlimited to being. Maybe...

This from Descent of Man (henceforth DoM). When a dog recognizes another dog a great distance away, it doesn't think of this or that individual, but of dog in general. This example is weak: you might be unable to distinguish whether THIS dog is Fido or Rover, but you are still thinking of THIS dog at this place and time, not of being-a-dog as common to many individuals at different places and times. The latter and not the former constitutes abstract thought. Sorry, Charlie.