Thought itself operates as an epitomist that foreshortens events into abstractions.
Evidence
In the Lectures on the Philosophy of History, Hegel argues that ‘Thought … is the most trenchant epitomist (der mächigste Epitomator).’ Events that traverse ‘long periods of time’end up ‘foreshortened in abstractions (mit Abstraktionen abkürzen)’: in other words, as pure thought-determinations. At the level of generality, everything essential to thought is an abbreviation: For what a host of particulars of outer existence and actions is embraced by a conception - battle, war, nation, ocean, or animal, for example. — Catherine Malabou, The Future of Hegel, 1022
Categorization
- DEFINE: Defines thought’s essential operation as abbreviation/epitomization — the universal is a shortening of temporal passage.
- XREF: Connects to the plasticity-as-shaping/annihilating core the reader is tracing from Hegel into Malabou’s later work on brain plasticity. — connects to: Abstraction, enlightenment’s tool, liquidates its objects as fate once did.; Abstraction, modern thought’s key power, operates by effacing the human face; Reaching the concrete in thought requires successive abstractions that add conditions of existence. (+3 more)
Broader Connections
- Conceptual abstraction is itself a metaphorical act because it posits resemblance among distinct existents
#expands(0.85) — Fredric Jameson, Postmodernism, or, The Cultural Logic…, 507 - Abstraction, modern thought’s key power, operates by effacing the human face
#expands(0.82) - Reaching the concrete in thought requires successive abstractions that add conditions of existence.
#qualifies(0.78) - Ideologies apply the logic of an idea to history as an unfolding process.
#exemplifies(0.72) — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1061