Question about "abstraction of thought"

[Led Zeppelin]

Originally posted by Tolstoy
In general, I was beginning to get the better of my youthful defects, with the exception of the principal one--the one of which I shall often again have to speak in relating my life's history--namely, the tendency to abstract thought.

What does he mean by the tendency to abstract thought?

Thank you.

[black magick hustla]

Originally posted by Massoud+May 25 2006, 01:49 AM--> (Massoud @ May 25 2006, 01:49 AM)
Tolstoy
In general, I was beginning to get the better of my youthful defects, with the exception of the principal one--the one of which I shall often again have to speak in relating my life's history--namely, the tendency to abstract thought.

What does he mean by the tendency to abstract thought?

Thank you. [/b]
probably to tend to muse about idealistic stuff, like platonism and religion.

i am not sure though

[peaccenicked]

I think I know exactly what Tolstoy means, thought is supposed to correspond to real life, that is a view of truth called corresponce theory. Abstract thought here is
the set of ideas set up apriora of what should be and not of what is. Tolstoy is merely suggesting he was thinking more about ideals than the subject matter of life. He is alluding to the time wasting and frustration involved. However, I would contend that some level of absract thought is needed to improve things.

[Led Zeppelin]

Yeah, peaccenicked is correct, I found this yesterday:


Originally posted by Tolstoy
What a pitiful spring of moral activity is the human intellect! My faulty reason could not define the impenetrable. Consequently it shattered one fruitless conviction after another--convictions which, happily for my after life, I never lacked the courage to abandon as soon as they proved inadequate. From all this weary mental struggle I derived only a certain pliancy of mind, a weakening of the will, a habit of perpetual moral analysis, and a diminution both of freshness of sentiment and of clearness of thought. Usually abstract thinking develops man's capacity for apprehending the bent of his mind at certain moments and laying it to heart, but my inclination for abstract thought developed my consciousness in such a way that often when I began to consider even the simplest matter, I would lose myself in a labyrinthine analysis of my own thoughts concerning the matter in question. That is to say, I no longer thought of the matter itself, but only of what I was thinking about it. If I had then asked myself, "Of what am I thinking?" the true answer would have been, "I am thinking of what I am thinking;" and if I had further asked myself, "What, then, are the thoughts of which I am thinking?" I should have had to reply, "They are attempts to think of what I am thinking concerning my own thoughts"--and so on. Reason, with me, had to yield to excess of reason.

[peaccenicked]

Thanx, that sounds very reasoable. ;)