The right answer is that concepts are what you list as (1), and that predicates (with semantics attached to them), classes and resemblance to paradigmatic particulars (for some reason you misread me as saying that the mereological category is included here--I was lumping the resemblance nominalism category with it rather) are all simply concepts.Consul wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 8:07 pmAs for the ontology of concepts:Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 7:30 pmOn my view, classes, concepts, predicates and a resemblance to paradigmatic particulars all analyze to the same thing. We could say that they're superficially different in that predicates could be looked at purely as text strings or sounds in the context of sentences and concepts are mental states, for example, and text strings and mental states are not identical, but then we lose any semantic connotation of predicates. Essentially, all four of those things are ways of talking about concepts.
QUOTE:
"There are three main views on the nature of concepts:
(i) Mental representations: concepts are mental particulars that are the constituents of beliefs and other propositional attitudes. As such, concepts are internal symbols with representational properties.2
(ii) Abstract entities: concepts are abstract (i.e., non-spatio-temporal) entities that are the constituents of propositions (e.g., Fregean senses).3
(iii) Abilities: concepts are cognitive abilities or capacities—e.g., the ability to draw certain inferences, classify objects based on perceptions, or react to stimuli in various ways.4
…
2 Advocates include Fodor (1975, 1987, 1998, 2004) and Carruthers (1996, 2000).
3 Advocates include Peacocke (1992), Zalta (2001), and Chalmers (2011).
4 Advocates include Evans (1982), Dummett (1993), Brandom (1994), and Millikan (2000)."
(Scharp, Kevin. Replacing Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. p. 35)
QUOTE-END
Also see: Concepts: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts/
In cognitive science, concepts in sense 1 usually aren't regarded as linguistic objects, and hence aren't equated with linguistic predicates. (However, items in "the language of thought" are para-linguistic, i.e. distinct from but analogous to linguistic items.)
Concepts in sense 2 are abstract objects which are the nonlinguistic meanings or senses of linguistic predicates. Predicates qua linguistic types are abstract objects too, whereas predicates qua linguistic tokens are concrete (mental or physical) objects.
Classes/sets are abstract objects that are often regarded as extensions of concepts (in sense 1 or 2), but others think they exist independently of concepts.
Classes/sets are different from (mereological) sums/fusion, because the former aren't identical to their members (taken together), whereas the latter are identical to their parts (taken together).
Magical thinking in science and philosophy
- Terrapin Station
- Posts: 6227
- Joined: August 23rd, 2016, 3:00 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell and WVO Quine
- Location: NYC Man
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
-
- Posts: 2540
- Joined: January 30th, 2018, 1:18 pm
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
Based on the fact that there's no known way how animal brains would produce them. Nor should they do that in principle either.
It's common to fall into such basic traps with physicalism, and then miss out on the whole issue with consciousness.
No categories.What are the alternate (or at least the third) ontological categories you'd propose?Nor are there mental and physical things at all.
- Terrapin Station
- Posts: 6227
- Joined: August 23rd, 2016, 3:00 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell and WVO Quine
- Location: NYC Man
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
How would that suggest that mentality occurs elsewhere, so that it's not restricted to animal brains? You'd need evidence of it occurring elsewhere.
So would you say whatever phenomena you have in your ontology "occur nowhere"?No categories.What are the alternate (or at least the third) ontological categories you'd propose?
- Consul
- Posts: 6136
- Joined: February 21st, 2014, 6:32 am
- Location: Germany
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
Do you seriously believe the world (in itself) is just an indistinct blob, an "amorphous lump" (M. Dummett), a "formless, kindless, no differences, no similarities, noumenal 'blah'" (C. B. Martin)?Atla wrote: ↑January 21st, 2020, 1:16 pmNo categories.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 6:29 pmWhat are the alternate (or at least the third) ontological categories you'd propose?
QUOTE:
"[Quine's] is most aptly characterized not as a one-category ontology – the one category being ‘thing’ in the broadest possible sense, or ‘entity’ – but rather as a no-category ontology. On Quine’s view, all that we can ever do is to disagree about how to describe what there is, not over the nature of what there is to be described.
But a no-category ontology is an incoherent ontology, I believe. For either it maintains that what there is is many, or that what there is is one, or that what there is is neither many nor one. As I have already explained, my own view is that the only coherent position is that although reality is one, it contains multiplicity, so that what there is is many. Quine himself seems to suppose so too, for he holds that “to be is to be the value of a variable” and seems to be committed to the multiplicity of such values. Pythagoreanism would certainly respect the principle that what there is is many: many mathematical objects, including all the numbers. But Quine also espouses the dictum “No entity without identity” (…) and in some sense that must be correct too. For how can there be multiplicity where there is neither identity nor distinctness? There can only be many if each of the many is a one that is identical only with itself and distinct from each of the rest. However, a no-category ontology leaves no scope for any real difference between one and many nor between identity and distinctness. Given his no-category ontology, Quine’s one-word answer to the question “What is there?” – “Everything” – is misleading to the extent that it suggests that what there is is determinately and objectively either one or many. For the Quinean, all questions concerning “how many” things there are and which things are identical with or distinct from one another have to do with how we describe reality, not with what reality contains prior to or independently of our attempts to describe it. Thus Quine is implicitly quite as committed to the “amorphous lump” conception of reality as Michael Dummett is explicitly committed to it (…). Both of them are anti-realist metaphysicians in the fullest sense of the term, because the distinction between an utterly formless ‘something’ and nothing at all is a distinction without a meaningful difference. Indeed, in the end they are both nihilist metaphysicians, because there is no coherent way for them to exempt us and our descriptions of or thoughts about reality from the annihilating acid of their anti-realism."
(Lowe, E. J. "An Essentialist Approach to Truth-Making." In Truth and Truth-Making, edited by E. J. Lowe and A. Rami, 201-216. Stocksfield, Acumen: 2009. pp. 205-6)
QUOTE-END
- Consul
- Posts: 6136
- Joined: February 21st, 2014, 6:32 am
- Location: Germany
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
You may say so, but that's an expression of antirealism (rather than of reductive realism) about predicates, classes/sets, and sums/fusions.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 8:15 pmThe right answer is that concepts are what you list as (1), and that predicates (with semantics attached to them), classes and resemblance to paradigmatic particulars (for some reason you misread me as saying that the mereological category is included here--I was lumping the resemblance nominalism category with it rather) are all simply concepts.
- Terrapin Station
- Posts: 6227
- Joined: August 23rd, 2016, 3:00 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell and WVO Quine
- Location: NYC Man
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
Yes. Predicates, classes/sets are not real (not objective/extramental) things.Consul wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 12:26 amYou may say so, but that's an expression of antirealism (rather than of reductive realism) about predicates, classes/sets, and sums/fusions.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 20th, 2020, 8:15 pmThe right answer is that concepts are what you list as (1), and that predicates (with semantics attached to them), classes and resemblance to paradigmatic particulars (for some reason you misread me as saying that the mereological category is included here--I was lumping the resemblance nominalism category with it rather) are all simply concepts.
Aside from that, why can't you get straight that I said something different about the mereology category?
-
- Posts: 2540
- Joined: January 30th, 2018, 1:18 pm
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
No, and your question is ridiculous
-
- Posts: 2540
- Joined: January 30th, 2018, 1:18 pm
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
It's nonsensical to call qualia + the first person view "mentality".Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 21st, 2020, 4:27 pm How would that suggest that mentality occurs elsewhere, so that it's not restricted to animal brains? You'd need evidence of it occurring elsewhere.
There is also no scientific evidence connecting them to animal brains, so people shouldn't act like there was. We can merely observe subjectively that they are happening there.
That's a bit vagueSo would you say whatever phenomena you have in your ontology "occur nowhere"?
- Terrapin Station
- Posts: 6227
- Joined: August 23rd, 2016, 3:00 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell and WVO Quine
- Location: NYC Man
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
When were you going to get to the part of something suggesting that mentality occurs elsewhere?Atla wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:09 pmIt's nonsensical to call qualia + the first person view "mentality".Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 21st, 2020, 4:27 pm How would that suggest that mentality occurs elsewhere, so that it's not restricted to animal brains? You'd need evidence of it occurring elsewhere.
There is also no scientific evidence connecting them to animal brains, so people shouldn't act like there was. We can merely observe subjectively that they are happening there.
That's a bit vagueSo would you say whatever phenomena you have in your ontology "occur nowhere"?
-
- Posts: 2540
- Joined: January 30th, 2018, 1:18 pm
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
When you quote me saying that "mentality occurs elsewhere".Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:15 pmWhen were you going to get to the part of something suggesting that mentality occurs elsewhere?Atla wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:09 pm
It's nonsensical to call qualia + the first person view "mentality".
There is also no scientific evidence connecting them to animal brains, so people shouldn't act like there was. We can merely observe subjectively that they are happening there.
That's a bit vague
- Terrapin Station
- Posts: 6227
- Joined: August 23rd, 2016, 3:00 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell and WVO Quine
- Location: NYC Man
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
"The "constant first person view" you can observe, and the qualia you can observe, aren't restricted to animal brains."Atla wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:16 pmWhen you quote me saying that "mentality occurs elsewhere".Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:15 pm
When were you going to get to the part of something suggesting that mentality occurs elsewhere?
"Aren't restricted to" means that it occurs elsewhere (in addition, at least)
-
- Posts: 2540
- Joined: January 30th, 2018, 1:18 pm
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
So you can't quote me calling those things "mentality".Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:24 pm"The "constant first person view" you can observe, and the qualia you can observe, aren't restricted to animal brains."
"Aren't restricted to" means that it occurs elsewhere (in addition, at least)
- Consul
- Posts: 6136
- Joined: February 21st, 2014, 6:32 am
- Location: Germany
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
If there weren't even concrete (mental or physical) tokens of linguistic predicates, we couldn't have written our posts, since these abound with predicate-tokens.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 11:19 amYes. Predicates, classes/sets are not real (not objective/extramental) things.
Antirealism (eliminativism/nihilism): Xs don't exist.
Reductive realism: Xs do exist but they are identical to Ys.
So you're not a mereological nihilist denying that two or more (simple) things ever compose something, i.e. that there are wholes which are sums/fusions of two or more things?Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 11:19 amAside from that, why can't you get straight that I said something different about the mereology category?
- Terrapin Station
- Posts: 6227
- Joined: August 23rd, 2016, 3:00 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell and WVO Quine
- Location: NYC Man
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
Did you read the parenthetical in what you quoted from me?Consul wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:41 pmIf there weren't even concrete (mental or physical) tokens of linguistic predicates, we couldn't have written our posts, since these abound with predicate-tokens.Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 11:19 am Yes. Predicates, classes/sets are not real (not objective/extramental) things.
- Terrapin Station
- Posts: 6227
- Joined: August 23rd, 2016, 3:00 pm
- Favorite Philosopher: Bertrand Russell and WVO Quine
- Location: NYC Man
Re: Magical thinking in science and philosophy
Oy vey. I'm asking you for the evidence you're appealing to in saying that "The 'constant first person view' you can observe, and the qualia you can observe" occur elsewhere.Atla wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:28 pmSo you can't quote me calling those things "mentality".Terrapin Station wrote: ↑January 22nd, 2020, 1:24 pm
"The "constant first person view" you can observe, and the qualia you can observe, aren't restricted to animal brains."
"Aren't restricted to" means that it occurs elsewhere (in addition, at least)
2023/2024 Philosophy Books of the Month
Mark Victor Hansen, Relentless: Wisdom Behind the Incomparable Chicken Soup for the Soul
by Mitzi Perdue
February 2023
Rediscovering the Wisdom of Human Nature: How Civilization Destroys Happiness
by Chet Shupe
March 2023