Is a circle really anything?

Ernie Stanley

Excerpt from Orality and Literacy:

In a study on cognitive development done by A.R. Luria,

"Oral subjects identified geometrical figures by assigning them the names of objects, never abstractly as circles, squares, etc. A circle would be called a sieve, plate, bucket, watch or moon; a square would be called a mirror, door, house, apricot drying-board."

The subject of the study identified the world around them with situational items, rather than odd categorical abstractions. To oral people, the terms "square", "circle", etc. are meaningless. It might strike someone in the civilized world as odd, but in fact there are no circles or squares outside of a scientific, abstract context which seeks to name and categorize things beyond how they appear.

And is anything beyond how it appears? Doubtfully. The goal of science appears to reduce everything into meaningless parts in some sort of search for prime reality. However, to oral people the prime reality of things is already known. Metaphysics is accepted as ultimate within these people, and thus reducing things to categories is not only impractical but also meaningless. Imagine how much time you waste learning things that don't exist. Will ever find something called a circle outside a text book? It may appear as a circle, but only because we have created the word circle. The circle-appearing object is in fact going to be called something different and far more meaningful and contextual.