On Concepts VI

"The analysis of concepts is for the understanding nothing more than what the magnifying glass is for sight." (Moses Mendelssohn, 1763)

"Philosophical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from concepts; mathematical knowledge is the knowledge gained by reason from the construction of concepts." (Immanuel Kant, "Critique of Pure Reason", 1781)

"The principle of contradiction establishes merely the agreement of concepts, but does not itself produce concepts." (Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation", 1819)

"To repeat abstractly, universally, and distinctly in concepts the whole inner nature of the world, and thus to deposit it as a reflected image in permanent concepts always ready for the faculty of reason, this and nothing else is philosophy." (Arthur Schopenhauer, "The World as Will and Representation", 1819)

"The relation of word to thought, and the creation of new concepts is a complex, delicate and enigmatic process unfolding in our soul." (Lev N Tolstoy, "Pedagogical Writings", 1903)

"The reason why new concepts in any branch of science are hard to grasp is always the same; contemporary scientists try to picture the new concept in terms of ideas which existed before." (Freeman J Dyson, "Innovation in Physics", Scientific American, 1958)

"This language controls by reducing the linguistic forms and symbols of reflection, abstraction, development, contradiction; by substituting images for concepts. It denies or absorbs the transcendent vocabulary; it does not search for but establishes and imposes truth and falsehood." (Herbert Marcuse, "One-Dimensional Man", 1964)

"A concept is a brick. It can be used to build a courthouse of reason. Or it can be thrown through the window." (Gilles Deleuze, "EPZ Thousand Plateaus", 2004)

“Everything that the greatest minds of all times have accomplished toward the comprehension of forms by means of concepts is gathered into one great science, mathematics.” (Johann F Herbart)

"Scientific understanding is an essential step to our finding a home for ourselves in the universe. Through understanding the universe, we become at home in it. In a certain sense we have made this universe out of human concepts and human discoveries. It ceases to be a lonely place, because we can to some extent actually navigate in it." (Isidor Isaac Rabi)