Word: abstraction
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...that dot my transcript, the problem as I see it had little to do with what I was learning, and everything to do with how it was taught, an error of method, not of content. In this light, the Task Force’s report seems too erudite and abstract for the dilemma at hand, like trying to fix a broken down car with a new theory of locomotion. The proposed shift from “ways of knowing” to “real-world context” will do little to address the Core?...
JOHN MCCAIN Studious, deliberate Indicates desire to estimate, weigh Triangular j Stubborn, abstract, visionary but narrow
...like when chunks of text are lifted from one source and plunked down into another. Cases of cut-and-paste can be pretty cut-and-dry. But the Da Vinci Code case deals with the intangible concepts of ideas, theories and themes. "Has Brown taken away abstract ideas from another source, ideas that are too general to get copyright protection?" says Caplin. "Or has he taken something that is an expression of an idea, which could have protection? Those questions were tested here and in making their decision, the judges have indirectly fallen on the side of freedom of artistic...
...coarsely woven, more or less circular bolt of red cloth. Suspended from the ceiling almost to the floor, it was made in 1969 by the great Polish sculptor Magdalena Abakanowicz, an early adopter of "humble" women's crafts like weaving as high-art techniques. She also understood how abstract images could be adjusted until they hinted again at something human. So the quasi-vaginal slit that runs the length of her piece shifts it from the realm of mere geometry to something much more intimate. And the scale, roughly 13 ft. in diameter, makes it not so much a thing...
There's psychology at work here too. Lawrence Solan, a professor at Brooklyn Law School and an expert in linguistics and the law, explains that we can process an abstract word like doubt only by contrasting two mental images. In a criminal case, the first image would be the prosecutor's version of events, showing the defendant as guilty. The second would portray the defendant as innocent. Only if the second were plausible, says Solan, would the jury have "doubt" about the first. Jurors might themselves be able to conjure the image of the defendant's innocence, but most need...