[Undated] [10]. Cogitations

It would be useful to take a leaf out of the mathematical logician's book and consider concepts such as, ‘breast’, ‘penis’, etc., as conjunctions, or the emotions as connectives, or whatever it was that was thought to be most accurate. But in fact these terms are not very suitable for psychoses because I am concerned here with something that approximates to psychoanalysis of the state of mind that in one person becomes a psychosis and in another an invention of mathematical logic. The failed mathematical logician might develop a psychosis, and the aborted psychosis might determine its experiencer to turn to mathematical logic. We may have to invent, with such assistance from the mathematical logician as we can get, a mode of abstraction for terms such as, ‘penis’.

The first need is to consider what it is that we want to abstract from such a term: if it is its function, for which of its functions do we need to find an abstraction? At the same time the question obtrudes: how is the meaning of the original object, from which the abstraction is to be effected, to be retained? The answer is, by preservation of the visual image and hence the importance of the term, ‘penis’, for example, for this term has the merit of being able to evoke a visual image. So we must never attempt abstraction without concretization.

What is to be abstracted? Its quality as a link. Very well; call it, ‘a’. What of its meaning as a sexual symbol? Call it, ‘b’. But some people think it dirty and disgusting, and that it should not be mentioned because it is dirty and disgusting. Call it, ‘c’. But anatomists consider the term to connote a physical structure. Call it, ‘d’. The physiologists, on the other hand, consider it … Call it, ‘e’. And so on – almost for ever, one might think.

In these examples I have not been able to produce an abstraction without particularization. For example, ‘c’ has been chosen to represent that which stands for something very particular – a person or persons being disguste