If you follow and learn this three-step method for analyzing published essays that I show here, you will be able to understand published essays and write your own essays about them.
Carl Sagan has written an excellent essay, “The Abstraction of Beasts,” which provides another strong example of the old view: the new pattern of view used intuitively in all published essays.
#1 – Usually, in the first paragraph, an old point of view is established which leads directly to a new point of view thesis, most often a reversal of the old point of view. The new view thesis is stated at the end of that paragraph or within the next paragraph or two or so, depending on the length of the essay.
You did notice, right, that Sagan immediately identifies the above view in the first sentence of the first paragraph:
“Beasts do not abstract,” John Locke announced, expressing the prevailing opinion of mankind throughout recorded history.
Hard to miss, right? But did you see the new view thesis in his second paragraph? There, Sagan suggests his new reverse view thesis to the previous one with two questions:
Could abstract thought be a matter not of class but of degree? Could other animals be capable of abstract thought, but more rarely or with less depth than humans?
Note that although he is suggesting a reversal of the previous view, Sagan is saying: not of kind but of degree Y but more rarely or less deeply than humans. So you’re suggesting that the opposite of abstract beasts no it is possible- that the beasts actually do abstract, but perhaps not a complete inversion, not completely at the level of human abstraction. Now read paragraphs three and four of the essay (begin, We have the impression that) and four (start, There is, of course,). In that third paragraph – after reaffirming in the first sentence the idea that animals are not very smart-Sagan asks a long question: But have we examined the possibility of animal intelligence carefully enough, or, as in Francois Truffaut’s moving film “The Wild Child,” do we simply equate the absence of our intelligent expression style with the absence of intelligence?
The important part of that question is the last part: Or do we simply equate the absence of our intelligence expression style with the absence of intelligence?
To answer that question, Sagan provides a quote from Montaigne (who in 1580 published the first book on essays) that questions the ability of man to communicate, not the ability of animals to communicate. (Ignore the footnote in the essay, but read it later, okay?)
The first sentence of the fourth paragraph begins by reversing the first sentence of the third paragraph (animals are not very smart), or at least indicating that there is an exception: There is, of course, a considerable body of anecdotal information suggesting chimpanzee intelligence.
With that beginning, you expected to find more about intelligent chimpanzeeCorrect?
Now read paragraphs five (begins, Wallace concluded), six and seven to see if you can figure it out. Pay special attention to the last sentence of that seventh paragraph.
Paragraphs five, six, and seven provide examples of animals that show some signs of intelligence: the baby orangutan, the chimpanzee genius, the two chimpanzees abusing the chicken and the newborn chimpanzee with the newborn baby being raised as equals in a human home. But at three years old, the chimpanzee could only say three words, with enormous difficultywhile the human child I was babbling happily.
Sagan then summarizes those examples by stating that chimpanzees are just minimally competent with language, reasoning, and other higher mental functionsand repeats the old point of view again: abstract beasts no. That could be a sign that new view support is about to kick in.
Now, in Sagan’s essay, read the next four paragraphs, beginning with the paragraph that begins, But thinking about these experiments and reading the paragraph that begins with, there is for now.
In the first three of the next four paragraphs (beginning with, But thinking about these experiments), Sagan points out how Beatrice and Robert Gardner had the brilliant idea of teaching chimpanzees a language they didn’t have to use with their mouths, American Sign Language, Ameslan. Sagan doesn’t use enough keywords to let us know that he’s switching back to the new view, but that’s exactly what he’s doing, and support immediately follows, starting with, there is for now.
#two – Immediately after the thesis of the new vision is established, the support begins with a story, an example or an argument.
And in the paragraph that begins, there is for nowSagan generalizes that there is a great library of descriptions and movies of chimpanzees using sign language, and then reduces his information to the fact that chimpanzees are extraordinarily inventive in constructing new words and phrases. In other words, chimpanzees are recorded on film, and in other ways, often in the act of abstraction with Ameslan. (It would have been helpful if Sagan had gone straight out and used the keywords abstract Prayed abstracting Prayed abstractionsCorrect?)
So despite not using introductions like for instance Prayed for instance for the next six paragraphs, Sagan gives specific examples of words and exact phrases of abstractions created and used by chimpanzees.
Take a good look at that by going back to the essay and reading from the opening paragraph, seeing for the first timeto the end of the beginning paragraph, Having learned the sign ‘open’ with a door. Then come back here so we can complete our discussion of support for the new view thesis.
After all those examples of abstractions, the rest of the support for the new view thesis that beasts abstract as much as humansIt includes-
- Boyce Rensberger, the American reporter, discussing Ameslan with Washoe the chimpanzee (Ameslan was Rensberger’s first language)
- Chimpanzees and other primates learning other sign languages
- Signing primates compared with microcephalic humans
- Chimpanzees have parts of their left brain removed, resulting in loss of language ability, just as removal does in humans.
- Primates transmit information from generation to generation.
- The mini-story of Helen Keller learning languages
- A quote from Charles Darwin on the effects of the use of language
#3 – The conclusion should briefly restate the thesis of the new point of view, summarize the body paragraphs’ support for the thesis, and consider some future aspect of the new point of view.
In the fifth paragraph before the conclusion, which begins, continued useSagan begins to look into the future.
Go ahead and read that paragraph, and read to the end of the essay.
In that paragraph, Sagan asks questions about what would happen if chimpanzees established a tradition of using sign language for a couple of hundred years, or even for a couple of thousand years, as we humans have done with sign language. . And he speculates that in a few thousand years chimpanzees might have myths and legends about the origins of their language, just as we have our Prometheus legends about the origins of human language.
Then, in the last paragraph of the essay, Sagan backs off and starts talking about the possibility that we humans have systematically exterminated or killed nonhuman primates because they were competition for us, thus cutting short their progression toward a civilized language. -facing the future:
We may have been the agent of natural selection by suppressing intellectual competition. I think we may have pushed back the boundaries of intelligence and linguistic ability among nonhuman primates until their intelligence became simply indistinguishable. By teaching chimpanzees sign language, we are beginning a belated attempt to make amends.
Sagan’s conclusion falls short in reaffirming the old viewpoint and summarizing the main points that support the new viewpoint’s thesis. But the last sentence of Sagan’s essay does it suggest a future continuation of humanity’s current effort to teach sign language to chimpanzees with, We’re starting a belated attempt to make amends. Yew we are startingso that strongly suggests more to follow in the future.
