[quote]Headhunter wrote:
What’d you say? I was looking at the ‘Golden Mountain’.
[/quote]
Kant, for all his genius, says a lot of dumb stuff. The modern account of descriptions is vastly different then Kant’s account of synthetic ideas.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
What’d you say? I was looking at the ‘Golden Mountain’.
You know, I present arguments and you name drop. “Well, no one today would agree with Aristotle.” And then, you DO realize that they use Aristotelian logic to attack the arguments…of…Aristotle?
Modern philosophers spend their lives trying to figure what a word is, never realizing that they use Aristotle’s ideas in the process. Kind of ironic in a cosmic sense, isn’t it? They choose to remain like grunting savages, never acknowledging that he did most the work for them. They remind me of Barney Fife, where Andy does 90% of the work and then Barney (who only has to do a touchup here and there) comes in and fucks it all up.
Please, now you’re acting like hedo and claiming that I’m just name dropping because I reference my arguments. I gave you a set of questions and problems for the theory you’re trying to advocate, and you completely ignored them. I said that today no one would agree with Aristotle ('s particular view on the essential/accidental predicate distinction) only as a prelude to referencing the issues surrounding that distinction.
As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.
As for your other comments on Aristotle, I never said Aristotle never gets anything right. I like Aristotle and think he gets much right. I specially said that Aristotle’s essential/accidental predicate distinction is one thing he is terribly confused on. The fact that most working philosophers today use Aristotle’s ideas without realizing it is trivial, since most working philosophers don’t specialize in Aristotle and hence don’t know his theories well, and since many of Aristotle’s ideas are very basic (although quite important). That’s not to take away from Aristotle, of course.
Anyway, I’m still waiting for you to answer my questions and at least sketch some sort of defense of your position. As of now you’re the one who’s just name dropping (Aristotle) and throwing ad hominem attacks out against modern philosophers who you seem to think are really dumb. So please, give me some sort of substantive response.
[/quote]
“How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?”
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.
[/quote]
Someone is an undergrad in college, huh?
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
What’d you say? I was looking at the ‘Golden Mountain’.
You know, I present arguments and you name drop. “Well, no one today would agree with Aristotle.” And then, you DO realize that they use Aristotelian logic to attack the arguments…of…Aristotle?
Modern philosophers spend their lives trying to figure what a word is, never realizing that they use Aristotle’s ideas in the process. Kind of ironic in a cosmic sense, isn’t it? They choose to remain like grunting savages, never acknowledging that he did most the work for them. They remind me of Barney Fife, where Andy does 90% of the work and then Barney (who only has to do a touchup here and there) comes in and fucks it all up.
Please, now you’re acting like hedo and claiming that I’m just name dropping because I reference my arguments. I gave you a set of questions and problems for the theory you’re trying to advocate, and you completely ignored them. I said that today no one would agree with Aristotle ('s particular view on the essential/accidental predicate distinction) only as a prelude to referencing the issues surrounding that distinction.
As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.
As for your other comments on Aristotle, I never said Aristotle never gets anything right. I like Aristotle and think he gets much right. I specially said that Aristotle’s essential/accidental predicate distinction is one thing he is terribly confused on. The fact that most working philosophers today use Aristotle’s ideas without realizing it is trivial, since most working philosophers don’t specialize in Aristotle and hence don’t know his theories well, and since many of Aristotle’s ideas are very basic (although quite important). That’s not to take away from Aristotle, of course.
Anyway, I’m still waiting for you to answer my questions and at least sketch some sort of defense of your position. As of now you’re the one who’s just name dropping (Aristotle) and throwing ad hominem attacks out against modern philosophers who you seem to think are really dumb. So please, give me some sort of substantive response.
“How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?”[/quote]
What does this have to do with anything?
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
What’d you say? I was looking at the ‘Golden Mountain’.
You know, I present arguments and you name drop. “Well, no one today would agree with Aristotle.” And then, you DO realize that they use Aristotelian logic to attack the arguments…of…Aristotle?
Modern philosophers spend their lives trying to figure what a word is, never realizing that they use Aristotle’s ideas in the process. Kind of ironic in a cosmic sense, isn’t it? They choose to remain like grunting savages, never acknowledging that he did most the work for them. They remind me of Barney Fife, where Andy does 90% of the work and then Barney (who only has to do a touchup here and there) comes in and fucks it all up.
Please, now you’re acting like hedo and claiming that I’m just name dropping because I reference my arguments. I gave you a set of questions and problems for the theory you’re trying to advocate, and you completely ignored them. I said that today no one would agree with Aristotle ('s particular view on the essential/accidental predicate distinction) only as a prelude to referencing the issues surrounding that distinction.
As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.
As for your other comments on Aristotle, I never said Aristotle never gets anything right. I like Aristotle and think he gets much right. I specially said that Aristotle’s essential/accidental predicate distinction is one thing he is terribly confused on. The fact that most working philosophers today use Aristotle’s ideas without realizing it is trivial, since most working philosophers don’t specialize in Aristotle and hence don’t know his theories well, and since many of Aristotle’s ideas are very basic (although quite important). That’s not to take away from Aristotle, of course.
Anyway, I’m still waiting for you to answer my questions and at least sketch some sort of defense of your position. As of now you’re the one who’s just name dropping (Aristotle) and throwing ad hominem attacks out against modern philosophers who you seem to think are really dumb. So please, give me some sort of substantive response.
“How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?”
What does this have to do with anything?[/quote]
Headhunter knows.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.
Someone is an undergrad in college, huh?
[/quote]
No, I’m not. What is that suppose to mean anyway? I really hope it’s not meant to imply that I’m just throwing around big words I don’t understand, or something like that. HH told me that today people still use Aristotle’s logic. I responded that sure, that’s true, but trivial. The only way to actually defend my claim that it’s trivial is to well, SAY WHY IT’S TRIVIAL!
If HH doesn’t know what prenex form monadic predicate formulas with only one quantifier are and how they relate to the larger predicate calculus (which is the standard logic used today), then that’s HH problem and he’s talking out his ass when he tells me that most working analytic philosophers “use Aristotle’s logic”.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
“How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?”
What does this have to do with anything?
Headhunter knows.[/quote]
I assume this is your way of saying that I’m just splitting hairs or something. That’s not exactly a good response unless, as I’ve asked, you actually explain how I’m just splitting hairs.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
“How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?”
What does this have to do with anything?
Headhunter knows.
I assume this is your way of saying that I’m just splitting hairs or something. That’s not exactly a good response unless, as I’ve asked, you actually explain how I’m just splitting hairs. [/quote]
As I said, Headhunter knows. It’s a reference from long ago that I use to bust the balls of philosophers.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
“How many angels can dance on the head of a needle?”
What does this have to do with anything?
Headhunter knows.
I assume this is your way of saying that I’m just splitting hairs or something. That’s not exactly a good response unless, as I’ve asked, you actually explain how I’m just splitting hairs.
As I said, Headhunter knows. It’s a reference from long ago that I use to bust the balls of philosophers.
[/quote]
Ah, I see. Forgive my presumptuousness.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.
Someone is an undergrad in college, huh?
No, I’m not. What is that suppose to mean anyway? I really hope it’s not meant to imply that I’m just throwing around big words I don’t understand, or something like that. HH told me that today people still use Aristotle’s logic. I responded that sure, that’s true, but trivial. The only way to actually defend my claim that it’s trivial is to well, SAY WHY IT’S TRIVIAL!
If HH doesn’t know what prenex form monadic predicate formulas with only one quantifier are and how they relate to the larger predicate calculus (which is the standard logic used today), then that’s HH problem and he’s talking out his ass when he tells me that most working analytic philosophers “use Aristotle’s logic”. [/quote]
I think it’s beginning to snow in here, as in ‘snow job’. And have you been reading Carnap again? He’s an idiot. Just ask Uncle Berty.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.
Someone is an undergrad in college, huh?
No, I’m not. What is that suppose to mean anyway? I really hope it’s not meant to imply that I’m just throwing around big words I don’t understand, or something like that. HH told me that today people still use Aristotle’s logic. I responded that sure, that’s true, but trivial. The only way to actually defend my claim that it’s trivial is to well, SAY WHY IT’S TRIVIAL!
If HH doesn’t know what prenex form monadic predicate formulas with only one quantifier are and how they relate to the larger predicate calculus (which is the standard logic used today), then that’s HH problem and he’s talking out his ass when he tells me that most working analytic philosophers “use Aristotle’s logic”.
I think it’s beginning to snow in here, as in ‘snow job’. And have you been reading Carnap again? He’s an idiot. Just ask Uncle Berty.
[/quote]
So, let me get this straight. First you accuse me of name-dropping while ignoring everything substantive I’ve said, then I half beg you for what I hope is a thoughtful response to what I’ve said, but in the end all I get is more insults from you? You’re the one who won’t give straight answers and acts as if their so smart, not me.
Besides, I’m getting the feeling that you know as much about epistemology as hedo knows about mathematics.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
FightinIrish26 wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
As for the other crap about Aristotle that you said, of course people today use “Aristotlian logic”, since Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is basically just a small fragment of first-order predicate calculus, while the modal syllogistic is a small fragment of (some) first-order modal predicate calculus (exactly which one depends on how you interpret Aristotle’s modal syllogistic, which is inconsistent!!!). To be precise, Aristotle’s categorical syllogistic is first-order predicate calculus restricted to prenex form monadic predicate formula’s with only one quantifier.
Someone is an undergrad in college, huh?
No, I’m not. What is that suppose to mean anyway? I really hope it’s not meant to imply that I’m just throwing around big words I don’t understand, or something like that. HH told me that today people still use Aristotle’s logic. I responded that sure, that’s true, but trivial. The only way to actually defend my claim that it’s trivial is to well, SAY WHY IT’S TRIVIAL!
If HH doesn’t know what prenex form monadic predicate formulas with only one quantifier are and how they relate to the larger predicate calculus (which is the standard logic used today), then that’s HH problem and he’s talking out his ass when he tells me that most working analytic philosophers “use Aristotle’s logic”.
I think it’s beginning to snow in here, as in ‘snow job’. And have you been reading Carnap again? He’s an idiot. Just ask Uncle Berty.
So, let me get this straight. First you accuse me of name-dropping while ignoring everything substantive I’ve said, then I half beg you for what I hope is a thoughtful response to what I’ve said, but in the end all I get is more insults from you? You’re the one who won’t give straight answers and acts as if their so smart, not me.
Besides, I’m getting the feeling that you know as much about epistemology as hedo knows about mathematics.[/quote]
You didn’t ask any questions. You simply kept refraining: “You could never find anyone nowadays who agrees with Aristotle.”
Alright, I’ll assume you actually thought you asked me a question. IMO: modern philosophy no longer seeks to make the connection between an objective world and the words we use to describe that world. Russell, Carnap, and company can’t decide on what a word is (not realizing they’re using words) and therefore we have the mismash today. Modern philosophy has devolved into a Clintonesque: 'It all depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’, is."
That’s why I got out and went into mathematics. Philology has replaced Philosophy. The horrible world around us is a result of the modern philosophers abnegation of their task.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
You didn’t ask any questions.
[/quote]
What? I did ask questions. I said:
These are questions. The hint is that they end in question marks, ‘?’. The first question about why you think Russell’s talk of knowledge by description is bunk really isn’t that important, but the questions about how your supposed theory of concept acquisition is suppose to account for concepts of objects for which we have no precepts is an important one. The other empirical fact that Humans in actually only need single, or at least very few, tokens of precepts–IE, just one time–requires an explanation from you as well, since on your theory we seem to need many tokens of the same precept in order to acquire a concept. Modern research in linguistics shows this just isn’t true.
No, that’s just wrong. Are you intentionally ignoring what I say? In addition to what I just quoted, other substantive responses include:
So clearly I did not in fact just keep reiterating that you can’t find people who agree with Aristotle, nor did I EVER even say that in the first place.
These weren’t my direct questions, and in fact I even addressed this objection already. You have chosen to ignore my response. I’ll repeat, and then try to elaborate. In response to this objection I said:
The point is this: Modern philosophy more then ever seeks to make a connection between words and the real world. It is just that modern philosophy–philosophy starting around Frege–has realized just how complicated these issues are. It is the Ancients, and to a large extent the medievals, who grossly misunderstood the connection between words and objects.
Russell and the rest of them know quite well what a word is. The problems aren’t with words, the problems are understanding the semantics of our natural language–understanding how words contribute to the overall meaning of a proposition. How a proposition–the “content” of a sentence or expression or word–relates to some state in the world is taken generally as obvious–one only needs read Tarski’s seminal work on truth and Davidson’s work on meaning. If you aren’t aware of these, I can sum it up simply as a “correspondence theory” of truth. Words, phrases, sentences have a certain content and those words, phrases, or sentences are true when that content corresponds to some actual state in the world. The connection then between words and objects is implicit and obvious in this. Now, the actual enterprise of figuring out which objects actually exist is in the realm of metaphysics and science, and is not a linguistic question.
Ergo, I’m not really sure why you keep saying that those like Russell and all those after him are confused about language. In essence the way they understand the relationship between words and objects is beautiful simple. It’s just that they also understand that working the details out is far more complicated then anyone had ever imagined. Besides, you are giving some really silly arguments. Even, for the sake of argument, if Russell and those after him didn’t think they understood what a word was, what would their using words have anything to do with it? There is nothing paradoxical about using something you don’t understand. A close example is the connection between biological brain states and thoughts. We really have very little understanding of the connection, but yet obviously that connection is constantly there as we think about it. In a similar way, using words doesn’t presuppose understanding words. But anyway, that’s all a mute point.
I hope you understand mathematics better then you understand language, although I vaguely remember you as telling someone here something silly like that a derivative is the slope of a line. (come on, it’s a joke)
Anyway… I’m really trying to think of some way to tie this all together so it’s not just some mess. At the end of the day my point is that your simple explanation of concept acquisition isn’t sufficient. There are many questions it leaves open (see above), while ignoring the possibly of acquiring concepts in other ways. At the end of the day, the reasonable view that I buy into is that concept acquisition is a very complicated matter, and that there are a variety of ways in which one can acquire a concept. I would probably guess that the most fundamental of these of vaguely Wittgenstinian, in that we as young children learn “concepts” by learning how to use a language. The association of words with objects is secondary to the game like aspects of language, and ultimately the lofty heights of abstract conceptualizing come later. In the end the exact relationship between words and objects isn’t even really that important for concept acquisition anyway.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
In the end the exact relationship between words and objects isn’t even really that important for concept acquisition anyway.
[/quote]
And THAT’S why I didn’t answer your ‘questions’.
[quote] stokedporcupine8 wrote: “blah blah blah”
headhunter wrote: “blah blah blah” [/quote]
Erudite, yet pedantic. How about “off topic”?
Get a room (or, another thread).
[quote]SteelyD wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote: “blah blah blah”
headhunter wrote: “blah blah blah”
Erudite, yet pedantic. How about “off topic”?
Get a room (or, another thread).[/quote]
I know, I feel bad about stuff like this. Normally I try to contain it to otherwise dead threads like this one or the suppressed EPA report one. I think this thread was dead after the first page, ha.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
In the end the exact relationship between words and objects isn’t even really that important for concept acquisition anyway.
And THAT’S why I didn’t answer your ‘questions’.
[/quote]
Do you wish to elaborate, or are you just going to continue throwing out cryptic responses while accusing me of name dropping? I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t think my replies were worth responding too, because hey, maybe they’re not. It’s annoying though when you pretend to have the reading comprehension of a 9-yr-old and ignore the substantive comments I make while accusing me of not making substantive comments at all.
Look, I’m not looking for you to give some detailed and elaborate explanation or some detailed account. I certainly haven’t given you that myself. All I want is some sort of sketch of a real response so I have some idea of what your arguments are.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
In the end the exact relationship between words and objects isn’t even really that important for concept acquisition anyway.
And THAT’S why I didn’t answer your ‘questions’.
Do you wish to elaborate, or are you just going to continue throwing out cryptic responses while accusing me of name dropping? I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t think my replies were worth responding too, because hey, maybe they’re not. It’s annoying though when you pretend to have the reading comprehension of a 9-yr-old and ignore the substantive comments I make while accusing me of not making substantive comments at all.
Look, I’m not looking for you to give some detailed and elaborate explanation or some detailed account. I certainly haven’t given you that myself. All I want is some sort of sketch of a real response so I have some idea of what your arguments are. [/quote]
Okay . Spelling it out. (BTW: as a teacher, I get tired of having to go over basic stuff, over and over and over.)
When you speak to another person, you have both implicitly agreed to a common definition for a word. For ex, when you say ‘chair’ and your friend sits down, you have both agreed that this word means this thing. That’s what language is for (why do I have to explain this?). A proper word references an object in reality and allows us to relate this concept to another person (the concept of chair, which refers to the object he is sitting on.)
To say what you did (at the top of this post) makes this discussion pointless. Ah fuck it, figure it out for yourself.
[quote]Headhunter wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
In the end the exact relationship between words and objects isn’t even really that important for concept acquisition anyway.
And THAT’S why I didn’t answer your ‘questions’.
Do you wish to elaborate, or are you just going to continue throwing out cryptic responses while accusing me of name dropping? I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t think my replies were worth responding too, because hey, maybe they’re not. It’s annoying though when you pretend to have the reading comprehension of a 9-yr-old and ignore the substantive comments I make while accusing me of not making substantive comments at all.
Look, I’m not looking for you to give some detailed and elaborate explanation or some detailed account. I certainly haven’t given you that myself. All I want is some sort of sketch of a real response so I have some idea of what your arguments are.
Okay . Spelling it out. (BTW: as a teacher, I get tired of having to go over basic stuff, over and over and over.)
When you speak to another person, you have both implicitly agreed to a common definition for a word. For ex, when you say ‘chair’ and your friend sits down, you have both agreed that this word means this thing. That’s what language is for (why do I have to explain this?). A proper word references an object in reality and allows us to relate this concept to another person (the concept of chair, which refers to the object he is sitting on.)
To say what you did (at the top of this post) makes this discussion pointless. Ah fuck it, figure it out for yourself.
[/quote]
If this post is too long for you, skip down the last big paragraph.
First, your own silly example in some ways only reinforces what I said about concept acquisition having little to do with the relation between words and objects. What I mean is that the fact that you and I both understand what object you are referring to when we both stand in the same room and you say ‘this chair’ has nothing to do with how I acquired the concept chair. It may very well be that I acquired the concept of chair through some abstraction process that you described, or I could have acquired the concept wholly through some other means like description. How I acquire the concept has little to do with how the concept relates to the object. The former is an epistemic matter, while the latter is a linguistic matter. Really, I don’t know what I have to explain that to you.
Now, your silly example is useful in illustrating some of the other issues that I’ve raised. While everyone can nod their head and agree with you that in some sense the explanation you gave is certainly “how language works”, your explanation leaves a lot to be desired. There are lots of ambiguities in language and other problems associated with demonstratives and indexicals that make it hard to give a precise explanation of the correct referring that seems to go on in your example, or an explanation of how those demonstratives and indexicals contribute to the overall content.
Basically what I’m saying is that your cute example, while a nice description of how people do in fact manage to correctly refer, just begs all the sorts of questions that modern philosophers and linguists care about. Mainly, just how the hell DO we manage to refer and how the hell does the content of complex sentences build up from the content of similar ones.
Again though you are remarkably good at leading things off topic. The original topic was how concepts are acquired. I still am waiting for your response to what I’ve said regarding this topic. Somehow we got on the topic of how supposedly modern philosophers don’t understand language. I offered an explanation for this one too, but you’ve chosen to ignore that as well. Now, towards the end I mentioned that these two topics don’t really affect each other, since (I’ll say it again) concept formation is an epistemic issue that has little to do with the linguistic problems of semantics and referring. You did try to respond to this, but all gave me here was a cute little example that was suppose to show me how simple all these issues really are and how dumb us philosophers are for over thinking them or something.
So, now I have given a substantive reply to this cute example and said why I don’t think it matters in the least for the issue of how concept formation relates to semantic problems in language.
You can try again if you like to sketch why you think abstraction is the only way we form concepts. After your story I think I can piece together your reply though. You would say something like, “We see certain objects over and over again. Objects that we see a lot or that are useful to us we give names, say like ‘chair’. As in my cute little example, we see that this must be true because when we all stand together in a room and I say ‘chair’, we all know immediately that I’m referring to a type of object from which we’re abstracted the concept of ‘chair’ from.” Essentially I don’t see anything wrong with this type of story, in that sure, sometimes this is in indeed how we develop concepts and this possible is an ok account of how we successfully refer to objects. My points have been that this is neither the only way we can successfully acquire concepts nor is this the only explanation for how we manage to successfully refer to objects. Furthermore, this sort of cute story brushes over many complicated issues in language that modern philosophers care about. For example, how does this story explain how we learn to use prepositions, quantifiers or other such words and explain how those words contribute to the content of a sentence?
Honestly at this point I really don’t know what to say though.
[quote]stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
Headhunter wrote:
stokedporcupine8 wrote:
In the end the exact relationship between words and objects isn’t even really that important for concept acquisition anyway.
And THAT’S why I didn’t answer your ‘questions’.
Do you wish to elaborate, or are you just going to continue throwing out cryptic responses while accusing me of name dropping? I wouldn’t mind if you didn’t think my replies were worth responding too, because hey, maybe they’re not. It’s annoying though when you pretend to have the reading comprehension of a 9-yr-old and ignore the substantive comments I make while accusing me of not making substantive comments at all.
Look, I’m not looking for you to give some detailed and elaborate explanation or some detailed account. I certainly haven’t given you that myself. All I want is some sort of sketch of a real response so I have some idea of what your arguments are.
Okay . Spelling it out. (BTW: as a teacher, I get tired of having to go over basic stuff, over and over and over.)
When you speak to another person, you have both implicitly agreed to a common definition for a word. For ex, when you say ‘chair’ and your friend sits down, you have both agreed that this word means this thing. That’s what language is for (why do I have to explain this?). A proper word references an object in reality and allows us to relate this concept to another person (the concept of chair, which refers to the object he is sitting on.)
To say what you did (at the top of this post) makes this discussion pointless. Ah fuck it, figure it out for yourself.
If this post is too long for you, skip down the last big paragraph.
First, your own silly example in some ways only reinforces what I said about concept acquisition having little to do with the relation between words and objects. What I mean is that the fact that you and I both understand what object you are referring to when we both stand in the same room and you say ‘this chair’ has nothing to do with how I acquired the concept chair. It may very well be that I acquired the concept of chair through some abstraction process that you described, or I could have acquired the concept wholly through some other means like description. How I acquire the concept has little to do with how the concept relates to the object. The former is an epistemic matter, while the latter is a linguistic matter. Really, I don’t know what I have to explain that to you.
Now, your silly example is useful in illustrating some of the other issues that I’ve raised. While everyone can nod their head and agree with you that in some sense the explanation you gave is certainly “how language works”, your explanation leaves a lot to be desired. There are lots of ambiguities in language and other problems associated with demonstratives and indexicals that make it hard to give a precise explanation of the correct referring that seems to go on in your example, or an explanation of how those demonstratives and indexicals contribute to the overall content.
Basically what I’m saying is that your cute example, while a nice description of how people do in fact manage to correctly refer, just begs all the sorts of questions that modern philosophers and linguists care about. Mainly, just how the hell DO we manage to refer and how the hell does the content of complex sentences build up from the content of similar ones.
Again though you are remarkably good at leading things off topic. The original topic was how concepts are acquired. I still am waiting for your response to what I’ve said regarding this topic. Somehow we got on the topic of how supposedly modern philosophers don’t understand language. I offered an explanation for this one too, but you’ve chosen to ignore that as well. Now, towards the end I mentioned that these two topics don’t really affect each other, since (I’ll say it again) concept formation is an epistemic issue that has little to do with the linguistic problems of semantics and referring. You did try to respond to this, but all gave me here was a cute little example that was suppose to show me how simple all these issues really are and how dumb us philosophers are for over thinking them or something.
So, now I have given a substantive reply to this cute example and said why I don’t think it matters in the least for the issue of how concept formation relates to semantic problems in language.
You can try again if you like to sketch why you think abstraction is the only way we form concepts. After your story I think I can piece together your reply though. You would say something like, “We see certain objects over and over again. Objects that we see a lot or that are useful to us we give names, say like ‘chair’. As in my cute little example, we see that this must be true because when we all stand together in a room and I say ‘chair’, we all know immediately that I’m referring to a type of object from which we’re abstracted the concept of ‘chair’ from.” Essentially I don’t see anything wrong with this type of story, in that sure, sometimes this is in indeed how we develop concepts and this possible is an ok account of how we successfully refer to objects. My points have been that this is neither the only way we can successfully acquire concepts nor is this the only explanation for how we manage to successfully refer to objects. Furthermore, this sort of cute story brushes over many complicated issues in language that modern philosophers care about. For example, how does this story explain how we learn to use prepositions, quantifiers or other such words and explain how those words contribute to the content of a sentence?
Honestly at this point I really don’t know what to say though. [/quote]
That’s okay, just use your words.
Question: what is the purpose of philosophy? To tear apart words and to wonder exactly how sentences come about as descriptors?
I don’t debate the merits of such nonsense and I wouldn’t write a Phd dissertation about such silliness. If you must know, since you seem fairly bright, I am on strike. I left philosophy after discovering it had left me. If philosophers want to present such nonsense to the world as philosophy, they can easily do it without me. Now let the world judge if it wants to fund ‘philosophy’.