Favorite Approaches and Paradigms in Philosophy

Ren said:
So it’s not that there is a such a thing as a concept “prior to” its being named, but rather than the naming of it signals that a former cloud of experiences which our intuition had brought together as sharing family-like features has been formally made sense of – as a concept. This obviously differs very much from @John K's position, which I think is more Kantian/Platonic in spirit, according to which the pure form of concepts must somehow exist in us as a cognitive precondition of concepts being made sense of linguistically.
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I’ve been thinking about this over the last day and I’m not sure if we are that far apart in reality. Fundamentally it comes down to what we mean by language. All my mental experiences are symbolic, in the sense that they are artefacts of the way my mind structures both my perception and my responses to it - this includes both outer and inner world perceptions. The symbols are the mental structures that words attach to, but for me the words are merely arbitrary labels, not the contents, and I could change the labels without any damage. This is most obvious with proper names - I'd still be the same person if my given name were Bill, or Dave, or X3125. English seems to have quite a lot of synonyms for things - the London Underground is also the Tube, dispossession can be forfeiture, belongings can be possessions. OK sometimes there are finely nuanced differences of meaning between synonyms, but a lot of the time they are used interchangeably. I often replace a word with one of its synonyms in something I'm writing in order to avoid over repeating an expression (just done it there for example) - even if the synonym is not a precise fit, often the context will force it into the meaning I intended at the outset showing that the word does not constrain the symbol content but actually it's the other way round. Again, if the word is primal, how could "gay" or "sophisticated" come to label things so radically different from what they used to refer to. And of course metaphors are a major example of ways of refering to meaning by allusion rather than by using the most closely related word or words. So I think the main difference between us is that you have fixed labels on all your boxes, but I don't, and you equate the contents of the box with the label while I just think of it as a convenient but arbitrary handle when it has one. Either way, the manipulation of the symbol boxes is the same and the difference probably lies in how we describe it rather than how it actually is - we are probably just experiencing different aspects of the same process. I also lack your much more detailed knowledge of the philosophical foundations of all this - there's going to be a rough edge to my thinking, and my expression of it in comparison to your own, that will cloud the precision of what I'm trying to express.

Something that has been puzzling me since thinking about language this last day or two - there may be a case for saying that all words are universals as they appear in, say, a dictionary or thesaurus: they represent what each encapsulated little bit of meaning has in common when abstracted from a specific context. Just wondering if the philosophy of language deals with this sort of thing ........ it would certainly be bad news for any philosophy that denies universals. Perhaps it could also imply that a dictionary is a Platonic artefact :wink::laughing:.
 
John K said:
I’ve been thinking about this over the last day and I’m not sure if we are that far apart in reality. Fundamentally it comes down to what we mean by language. All my mental experiences are symbolic, in the sense that they are artefacts of the way my mind structures both my perception and my responses to it - this includes both outer and inner world perceptions. The symbols are the mental structures that words attach to, but for me the words are merely arbitrary labels, not the contents, and I could change the labels without any damage. This is most obvious with proper names - I'd still be the same person if my given name were Bill, or Dave, or X3125. English seems to have quite a lot of synonyms for things - the London Underground is also the Tube, dispossession can be forfeiture, belongings can be possessions. OK sometimes there are finely nuanced differences of meaning between synonyms, but a lot of the time they are used interchangeably. I often replace a word with one of its synonyms in something I'm writing in order to avoid over repeating an expression (just done it there for example) - even if the synonym is not a precise fit, often the context will force it into the meaning I intended at the outset showing that the word does not constrain the symbol content but actually it's the other way round. Again, if the word is primal, how could "gay" or "sophisticated" come to label things so radically different from what they used to refer to. And of course metaphors are a major example of ways of refering to meaning by allusion rather than by using the most closely related word or words. So I think the main difference between us is that you have fixed labels on all your boxes, but I don't, and you equate the contents of the box with the label while I just think of it as a convenient but arbitrary handle when it has one. Either way, the manipulation of the symbol boxes is the same and the difference probably lies in how we describe it rather than how it actually is - we are probably just experiencing different aspects of the same process. I also lack your much more detailed knowledge of the philosophical foundations of all this - there's going to be a rough edge to my thinking, and my expression of it in comparison to your own, that will cloud the precision of what I'm trying to express.
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I see where you are coming from. Perhaps what you mean by "symbols as mental structures" is more or less equivalent to what I mean by "concepts in the making". I do think, however, that concepts are formalized by being named, even if the attribution of the name is arbitrary in some sense. What is interesting is more the process of naming than the particular name that ends up working as the signifier of a particular concept. I think this process is inherent to the full articulation of the concept. The synthesis that does the "background work" of conceptualization, however, I see as being done (roughly speaking) by intuition based on perceptual data.

The problem I see with the idea of conceptual names denoting pure conceptual forms is that once you accept it, it looks like you have to accept the existence of any possible conceptual form whatever, which seems problematic to me. Take the difficult Heideggerian concept of anticipatory resoluteness, for example. Does it really have a pure form existing somewhere, whose content Heidegger just happened to be the first to uncover and name thus? I'm less convinced by that than by the idea that alternatively, Heidegger observed certain things about human being's manner of relating to the world which he synthesized into a more or less harmonious whole, which he named "anticipatory resoluteness" and birthed the concept in that way. I think concepts describe aspects of reality but lack independent reality. But then again, I'm a monist, so it's not like I have a choice!

John K said:
Something that has been puzzling me since thinking about language this last day or two - there may be a case for saying that all words are universals as they appear in, say, a dictionary or thesaurus: they represent what each encapsulated little bit of meaning has in common when abstracted from a specific context. Just wondering if the philosophy of language deals with this sort of thing ........ it would certainly be bad news for any philosophy that denies universals. Perhaps it could also imply that a dictionary is a Platonic artefact :wink::laughing:.
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I don't think it would be controversial to state that words are universals, in the sense of having generality. But that doesn't mean that they would have ontological universality, i.e. be Platonic Forms or whatever. Names are not an ontological category, if you like.
 
I'm not sure that I would say that there is a floating concept with separate reality within us with regards to concept... perhaps there is. That could make sense psychologically and, sociologically speaking as our realities are subjective and, cultures do measure e.g. happiness differently.
The measure of happiness were I come from is when you follow your intuition, and hygge (basically 'cozy) is combined. Giving you that feeling of internal calm, where you are content with yourself in the present mixed with joy, and looking towards the future. However, someone from same culture as me but has a different social background and been conditioned slightly different has disagreed with me and, not associate exactly those words the his subjective experience of what happiness is but his notion of what happiness is includes hygge.

However, one friend of mine who is South-American measures happiness completely different from what I'm familiar with: that everything is going 'according to plan and that God is on her side, and paving the way'. That definition I really cannot relate to at all as to me that isn't happiness. Negative things are bound to happen and, those negative things should not (depending on gravity) affect your happiness.
One thing I can say, is that her preconceived notion that 'good things happen to good people' is very culturally based and at times I can see how that can contribute to my friends level of happiness whereas, I think that no negative things create ignorance as life doesn't challenge you but then what you do with that experience, to me, defines the person.

I absolutely agree that it is like an abstract family but due to it being an abstract family the context can be different. Each language has their own abstract family with the 'main' word as the umbrella but still, that doesn't mean that the direct translation matches the full meaning of the word, and that cultures experience the word same way. I do to think that there is a separate reality within us both personally and, culturally and therefore their respected languages draw different experiences and associate different meanings to the concept.

I think I am leaning towards @John K point of view. Pure form of concepts exist within us and might be some form of preconception. However, I'm not sure if its a preconception, or linguistically constructed socially along with preconceived cultural and social notions.
I mean, if that wasn't the case then how do misunderstandings happen when two people are saying the same thing? How we express ourselves is drawn from how we perceive the context being presented and, at times the association of it differs.:blush:
 
Deleted member 16771 said:
As I say, personally I'm kind of undecided on this, but I have noted that most of my thinking about it falls into materialist conceptions of how we may think, or in other words, how does the brain construct 'concepts'.

So to me it is quite clear that objects in the physical world have an existence which is separate from nouns, and therefore it might be a simple analogy to say something like 'prelinguistic concepts are akin to images', but that's not quite right.

It is equally clear that, say, other mammals are capable of conceptualising of objects in their environment - to learn, for instance, how to categorise a new creature and to learn how it behaves, &c.

However to me it is quite important to know which part/s of the brain are doing this kind of conceptualisation (I mean the categorisation and generalisation of sense impressions into a 'concept').

So with my evolutionists hat on, I can easily conceive of a reality whereby there is a spectrum of conceptualisation performed by certain areas of the mammalian brain, and therefore the difference is rather one of degree/intensity than type. We could say that at the extreme end of the spectrum is language, while somewhere further down is a panda's 'concept' of a predatory lion, based on the panda's observation of the creature (I'm choosing species that wouldn't live in the same environment here).

That is to say that there is a certain 'concept forming' function of the brain - an 'abstraction centre' which is simply very highly developed in humans. The utility of language seems to be that many more such abstractions can be processed simultaneously.

In other words, this perspective implies both that 'concepts are prelinguistic' and 'concepts are necessarily linguistic' simultaneously, because we have placed language into a broader model of 'mental abstraction/conceptualisation' conceived as a spectrum of competency.
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Well whatever you guys, I quoted myself because I think I'm right. *sticks out bottom lip*

There is a spectrum of 'conceptualising thought' that we share with other animals, and giving names to these conceptualisations just rests on the extreme end of advancement.
 
Ren said:
I see where you are coming from. Perhaps what you mean by "symbols as mental structures" is more or less equivalent to what I mean by "concepts in the making". I do think, however, that concepts are formalized by being named, even if the attribution of the name is arbitrary in some sense. What is interesting is more the process of naming than the particular name that ends up working as the signifier of a particular concept. I think this process is inherent to the full articulation of the concept. The synthesis that does the "background work" of conceptualization, however, I see as being done (roughly speaking) by intuition based on perceptual data.

The problem I see with the idea of conceptual names denoting pure conceptual forms is that once you accept it, it looks like you have to accept the existence of any possible conceptual form whatever, which seems problematic to me. Take the difficult Heideggerian concept of anticipatory resoluteness, for example. Does it really have a pure form existing somewhere, whose content Heidegger just happened to be the first to uncover and name thus? I'm less convinced by that than by the idea that alternatively, Heidegger observed certain things about human being's manner of relating to the world which he synthesized into a more or less harmonious whole, which he named "anticipatory resoluteness" and birthed the concept in that way. I think concepts describe aspects of reality but lack independent reality. But then again, I'm a monist, so it's not like I have a choice!
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We may be at cross purposes here - is a pure conceptual form concept the only possible alternative to naming? I think we individuate our thoughts and perceptions quite happily without necessarily naming them with a word, but this doesn't push them necessarily into a seperate idealised existence of their own. Like I said with my driving analogy, though, I'm experiencing the world, but not constantly in the form of words: "car in front", "bend coming up", "car slowing down in front", "clutch and brake","change gear","front passenger gasping", "child", "pavement", "ball", "child kicking ball", "ball shooting into the road", "ball could end up in front of me", "child running", "child probably not looking at cars", "slow down", "sun", "sun's in my eyes", "difficult to see clearly", "dazzled", "child", "where???!!!!", "cyclist", "very close behind", "emergency stop!!??", "will cyclist hit my rear?", etc, etc. The actual experience of the situation is impossible to express in this way because the detail is too rich and 3-dimensional, too fast moving, and far more integrated than any linearly expressed narrative could express - even less so in real time. But I apprehend it OK, and stop the car in time to avoid the child yet give the cyclist a bit of warning too. I'm clearly conceptualising everything around me sufficiently to navigate the situation OK, but appart from a quite natural expletive it's totally non verbal while the drama plays out, at least for me. Like I said, I don't think my process of being in this situation consciously but non-verbally has necessarily involved me in idealised concepts with some kind of mystical transcendent reality though. I agree with @Deleted member 16771 that word-labelled concepts are probably just refinements of what exists in all higher animals - it's as though the way animals experience the world has gone through a phase state change in people to provide a higher order development of it.

I'd most certainly agree that Heidegger invented both the concept and the term anticipatory resoluteness rather than discovering it, but it sounds to me like he started the process of individuating the structured concept at first, then named it rather than the other way around - then probably iterated between the conceptualisation, the naming process and his philosophical system until the idea was stable. As an example, this sort of thing happens all the time in computer programming - you have a feeling within a given project that there is a cluster of related computer logic that could usefully be individuated from the rest as a functioning self contained subset. You work on it and the idea develops, often spinning off function and benefits you didn't anticipate and because you are referring to it a lot, both in coding and in meetings, you give it a name which acts as a shortcut. The name is then both a useful handle, but it also acts as a focusing glass that helps to sharpen up the boundaries and if it's a good name it expresses the relationship between the named code and the things it interacts with. The naming process is also restrictive though, in that it can inhibit the use of that code for other purposes that cross the individuation boundary. A good coding engineer will spot this and develop a whole series of related, but different sets of code based on the original, each eventually with their own separate but overlapping individuations and names.
 
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John K said:
We may be at cross purposes here - is a pure conceptual form concept the only possible alternative to naming? I think we individuate our thoughts and perceptions quite happily without necessarily naming them with a word, but this doesn't push them necessarily into a seperate idealised existence of their own. Like I said with my driving analogy, though, I'm experiencing the world, but not constantly in the form of words: "car in front", "bend coming up", "car slowing down in front", "clutch and brake","change gear","front passenger gasping", "child", "pavement", "ball", "child kicking ball", "ball shooting into the road", "ball could end up in front of me", "child running", "child probably not looking at cars", "slow down", "sun", "sun's in my eyes", "difficult to see clearly", "dazzled", "child", "where???!!!!", "cyclist", "very close behind", "emergency stop!!??", "will cyclist hit my rear?", etc, etc. The actual experience of the situation is impossible to express in this way because the detail is too rich and 3-dimensional, too fast moving, and far more integrated than any linearly expressed narrative could express - even less so in real time. But I apprehend it OK, and stop the car in time to avoid the child yet give the cyclist a bit of warning too. I'm clearly conceptualising everything around me sufficiently to navigate the situation OK, but appart from a quite natural expletive it's totally non verbal while the drama plays out, at least for me. Like I said, I don't think my process of being in this situation consciously but non-verbally has necessarily involved me in idealised concepts with some kind of mystical transcendent reality though. I agree with @Deleted member 16771 that word-labelled concepts are probably just refinements of what exists in all higher animals - it's as though the way animals experience the world has gone through a phase state change in people to provide a higher order development of it.

I'd most certainly agree that Heidegger invented both the concept and the term anticipatory resoluteness rather than discovering it, but it sounds to me like he started the process of individuating the structured concept at first, then named it rather than the other way around - then probably iterated between the conceptualisation, the naming process and his philosophical system until the idea was stable. As an example, this sort of thing happens all the time in computer programming - you have a feeling within a given project that there is a cluster of related computer logic that could usefully be individuated from the rest as a functioning self contained subset. You work on it and the idea develops, often spinning off function and benefits you didn't anticipate and because you are referring to it a lot, both in coding and in meetings, you give it a name which acts as a shortcut. The name is then both a useful handle, but it also acts as a focusing glass that helps to sharpen up the boundaries and if it's a good name it expresses the relationship between the named code and the things it interacts with. The naming process is also restrictive though, in that it can inhibit the use of that code for other purposes that cross the individuation boundary. A good coding engineer will spot this and develop a whole series of related, but different sets of code based on the original, each eventually with their own seperate but overlapping individuations and names.
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Thanks for this John, that was very clear and helpful! I realize now that we are almost in complete agreement. I think the source of confusion is definitional. I’ll explain more in a little while.
 
Hmh... ..I guess ..it's important to keep in mind that concepting is actually a very internal process .. and writing a concept out.. in order to share it.. is by itself an act of translation. Using words, pictures, (symbols), (phonetic or plain) sounds..etc.. is an helping tool... but it will toss you way much into the studies of media and communication.. and looking deeper even more into the studies of language ...semionic terminology (the difference of the word itself that differs in each language PLUS the not so completely meaning aka "concept" behind the words that shift and sometimes barely touch at the same amount..when you compare nuanced or different languages... not to mention the different underlining connotations that are mixed into this and the feeling of phonetical sounds of a word..and the idea that each dictionary is nothing more than a consensed decission on a cultural identity).. and how this effects expression, reception and re-sending of a message..

I'm always dazzled by the fine and underlining differences in English and German.. especially when I read originally german thoughts translated into english.. it's never quite there completely...as my thoughts are (very) probably never really (completely) clear to you to to my shortcomings in delivering it :3 (Plus: If this wasn't so interesting.. it would be a nightmare. *hihi*)

Eineindeutigkeit is pure idealization.
 
Ok, so at this stage I’m wondering if the issue might not be one of definition, mixed with another one of category perhaps. It seems to me that we don’t all mean the same by the term concept. My initial questioning was with regards to whether concepts are universals or particulars; and if they are universals, then whether they are nominal universals or real universals. Those thoughts were sparked by mentions of the prelinguistic domain, on the one hand, and conceptual forms on the other. Perhaps concepts are neither kind of universal, nor particulars. But then, what are they?

If we suppose that concepts have generality, which seems plausible, then I think it’s worth asking whether they might be either real universals or nominal universals. But this would not include the categories of thoughts, perceptions, instincts, etc. in the discussion directly. I don’t think a perception is a concept, and neither is a thought. I have a lot of particular thoughts, i.e. particulars, or particular perceptions, and make particular decisions, but it’s not so obvious that I have particular concepts, prima facie. I am open to that argument, but it would have to be a good one, let’s say.

If we suppose for the time being that concepts are universals of some sort, then the question “nominal or real” is probably inevitable, though it’s possible that other kinds of universals may be brought to the table. What would be a universal that is neither real nor nominal, yet is still a universal? As far as concepts go, I personally don’t know. But I guess that pending not knowing, it’s useful to focus on the real versus nominal distinction. And as far as that distinction goes, if we decide that concepts are real universals, I think we should be able to describe them in their real generality, in the same way that Plato gives an extensive description of the Forms.

If I mentally construct a concept, does it have generality prior to my naming it? I think that’s where the definitional issue comes to the fore in vivid clothing. I seem to be fairly committed to the view that it is part of the definition of a concept that it has generality, in such a way that it may be discussed, agreed upon, disagreed upon, etc. by various people wielding the concept in question. This seems tied to the notion of the prelinguistic domain, and the numerous instances of disagreements and misunderstandings between cultures of different tongues over the meaning of certain concepts. Sure, but I think that any concept should, by definition, be possible to grasp, even in its fine subtleties. Otherwise, my position is that it is not a concept, but something else.

My issue with concepts as real universals is not really that I am a monist, of course, for otherwise I would be intellectually dishonest. Rather, I struggle to get a sense of what they would be. It seems to me that we tend to simply infer that they must be real universals, given that we can understand them, share them, and that their ‘content’ is obviously much greater than their arbitrarily chosen names. But this does not say much about what they would be as real universals. This reminds me a little bit of the Kantian noumena, except that I would not be satisfied with an explanation to the effect that the real universality of concepts is unavailable to our cognition/perception.

I think the attractiveness of nominal universality with regard to concepts comes from the fact it would free us from the need to describe what their “reality” consists of, since on that interpretation, they would have no separate reality as universals. Of course, there is such a thing as concepts, and they are immensely more than just their names. But I do wonder whether it is not also their naming, whatever the attributed name (or even just sign) may be, that gives them the generality required for them to be genuine concepts, rather than fleeting thoughts, perceptions, mental images, mental symbols, and the like. All these go into the content of the concept, without a doubt. But isn’t the naming, i.e. the attributing a sign, involved in giving the concept generality?

Furthermore, in terms of the genealogy of concept formation, I am an adherent to the idea that concepts and their naming emerge from within a pre-existing linguistic context, which in turn influences how the concept is formed through different synthetic stages from its “brute content”, giving it the subtle nuances associated with different cultures and tongues. In the same way, though, that pre-existing socio-linguistic context suggests that concepts are not really privately individuated. The context itself plays a role in the generality of the concept. If Heidegger had said “anticipatory resoluteness is a concept” without giving any context, we should have not accepted his statement, unless we had figured out its tacit context by ourselves.

Anyway, this is a long post to give a bit of background on where I’m coming from. I've written quite a bit recently on the topic of concept formation, and I had the feeling that until now, my position had been misunderstood somewhat.
 
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Ren said:
Nothing to be shameful about, Kierkegaard is a very profound philosopher! What have you been reading of his?

I should make some Kierkegaard videos.
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Read? No time. Although, I do plan on reading Either/Or in two months.

Is Kierkegaard anti-Hegel?
 
Pin said:
Read? No time. Although, I do plan on reading Either/Or in two months.

Is Kierkegaard anti-Hegel?
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Either/Or is a great book, though it is very long. Be prepared for that.

Yes, Kierkegaard was fairly anti-Hegel. For the former, the individual is almost everything; for the latter, not much of anything. That's the core issue I think.

Pin said:
In Kierkegaardian terms... I fit the Ethicist box. I wonder what he thought about Bonaparte.
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That's already good. In any case, not many people can claim to be a "knight of faith" :D

I don't know about KK's views on Bonaparte. Ethicist, probably - in the KK terminology, that is.
 
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Anyone interested in postmodernism / postmodern philosophy?

I don't find it very often discussed on this forum. I wonder if INFJs are not well-disposed towards postmodernism (this is probably a huge generalisation). Most poststructuralists/postmodernists seem to be ENxPs or INxPs.

Do you guys have thoughts on this?
 
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