Who thinks in the abstract? - according to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is a German philosopher, creator and principal representative of classic German idealism. In his pamphlet "Who thinks abstractly?", Hegel expresses his ideas for abstract and concrete thinking. His main thesis is that an uneducated person thinks abstractly and not educated. People who think they are well educated to know different concepts and categories in the real world do not make a difference between abstract and specific thinking. Abstract thinking is thinking according to the concepts of the person (the subject); how he perceives the objects around him. He uses the abstraction to get to know the more complex form of the world around him, but the abstraction does not quite fully reveal the essence of things, it simply links the different objects we see and perceive sensitively to build our common knowledge of the world. Knowledge can not only be sensory, it is thoughtful, that is why we use abstraction and we speak abstractly so often without even realizing it.

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Hegel warns in advance the reader and the critics of his ideas that he does not really try to explain what is "abstract" and what "thinking" is because these two concepts are quite familiar to a decent society. To a large extent, he tries to provoke, expose the qualities of an orderly society. This is evident in the first example he presents: They lead a killer to the place of execution. For the crowd he's just a killer. The aristocratic ladies, perhaps, will notice that he is a strong, handsome, interesting man. But such a mind will upset the crowd: how? A beautiful killer? Can you think so superficially, can you call a killer beautiful? So they (educated ladies) are probably no better! (by the criminal). It is the moral degradation of the aristocracy, and the priest who is accustomed to staring deeply in things and hearts. Hegel ask the question: What is a decent society? and whether people perceive it simply as an abstraction. In the combination of the phrase "beautiful assassin" is the essence of the problem: how can a killer be beautiful, the term killer excludes the possibility, according to the crowd (universal understanding), that he be beautiful physically after being spiritually devastated, but the connoisseur of the human soul, as Hegel calls the education, will seek the cause-and-effect nature of the subject "killer," because the murderer itself is an abstraction, an educated person thinks specifically. The educated person will seek the opportunity to justify this killer for his deeds, for out of the image of a murderer he is predominantly a person of flesh and blood and not the object of his own deeds. However, in order to specify the reasons for turning man into a killer, they must be proven. That is why the next story that Hegel describes is related to the story of a whole novel by the German writer Goethe - "The Sorrows of Young Werther " Hegel remembers that when a young man was a manager he complained about writers who tried to justify suicide, breaking the foundations of law and Christianity, but according to the story of the novel, the main character Werther had a reason for this suicide - love, which clouds his mind and he falls into a feeling of melancholy. Hegel himself accepts suicide for a terrible sin, but that does not mean that the suicide is less human than any other. Hegel seems to invite the reader and, above all, the explorer of the complex human nature to use his mind rather than the emotions that conquer him. Suicide is scary, but love is cruel. It is necessary to specify the reasons even if they contradict the path of simple logic because the senses are powerless to the invisible human gusts, the senses can not explain the situation, they only find it is so.
Against this background, the author opposes killing and suicide with the cross symbol combined with flowers (roses). He says this is also an abstraction because it unites two completely opposite things - the cross that has lost its one-sided meaning over time a device of shameful hanging, and flowers that contradict the setting itself. Although the cross is a crucified crucifix, it has become a symbol of supreme suffering and profound sacrifice. This contradiction arises from the collision between emotions and reason, from the strong contrast between the abstract and the concrete.

No less controversial is the next story of how an old, naive woman has seen in the cut head of the scaffold, the "solar" mercy of God. At this point, she realizes that a split head has more qualities than the abusive "killer," it is worthy of being lit by the sun. Abstraction is a complex and powerful method that serves to form concepts, categories, systems of knowledge. It builds patterns of behavior, as is the case with the following stories about the buyer and the egg salesman. Both concepts have completely opposite functions but are interconnected. The vendor has some qualities that the egg buyer does not possess to distinguish it from the first. When a dispute arises between these two subjects, which one perceives mentally as an abstraction, distinguishing them visually and qualitatively, the buyer offends the salesperson for its commodity, one of the qualities of the egg seller is questioned and, according to the pattern of behavior built through abstract thinking, the vendor protects this quality by insulting the buyer - "Your ruffled shirts came out!" In fact, the salesperson sees no more beyond the bounds of the controversy, and without thinking of the buyer's attack, and as Hegel sums up "she and the crumb of goodness did not notice the offended buyer." The same is true of the different values ​​of the aristocratic and French society - the aristocrat is familiar with the servant, the Frenchman is even a good friend to him. Although both the aristocrat and the French perform the same role of the servant's masters, they have different qualities that are evident in society. They are not just an abstract image of a higher category of people, although they have all the distinctive qualities (richness, power, freedom) to translate to it. Here too, there is a need for specification. In the case of the differences between the military - the ordinary soldier is "abstraction of a subject stamping beatings" because the term soldier as an abstraction transcribes the obligatory condition of the soldier to suffer pain and this is accepted by the officer. However, the lord in uniform and with arms in his hand is extremely uncomfortable doing such an act, but he conforms to the pattern of behavior that is learned. If the abstraction is a sort of summing up of things, then the concretization must challenge it and make it clear for the abstraction to be accepted, because the very concept is abstract.