Arthur H. Niehoff

On Being a Conceptual Animal Arthur H. Niehoff

A book of 24 essays that attempts to define the specifically human way of perceiving and understanding the universe through symbolic concepts. As we go through life, we learn through the adoption of new concepts that reorganize our thoughts. The human animal has developed language and thus concepts, which makes all manner of description possible. Learning thus needs to be a lifetime activity. The student in college should learn to open up mentally to the conceptual universe just as much as to get a credential for a higher paying job, while the oldster should keep learning as the world changes, to maintain his or her human credentials. This is described in On Being a Conceptual Animal, the lifetime field trip of the author as he progressed from the closed world of parochial concerns to the later open years when the most satisfying thing to be heard was "I learned something today."