How do you view the apprehensive nature of man in relation to His end in the beatific vision, and distinguish between concepts in the sense here, and the “impressa” and “expressa” dimensions of truth in Aquinas’ moderate realism? I think concepts that are entrenched in nominalism are quite problematic for several reasons, but the notion that the object can exist “in me” is intimate, and illustrates a type of communion with res,
Great questions - "a communion with res" is exactly what I'm seeking to articulate. Too often, concepts intervene as intermediaries that suggest that we cannot actually be related to reality itself. I haven't perfectly tried to harmonize my thinking with Aquinas's on this point, but a less radical way to make my point would be that the concepts we have are directly related to things themselves. My concept of "donkey" is nothing but my apprehension of the kind "donkey" itself.
Yah the abstracted knowledge I think can definitely be treated with a type of practical rationalism, where even thomists can approach reality with a type of disembodied gnosis. My thought goes to the married notion of knowledge and love for Aquinas, which I think escapes what I believe has been called an extrinsic dialectical approach. Because one encounters the transcendental of goodness through the intellectual appetite there is a type of communion of not merely informational data, but a type of possession of the good of that object within the soul. Mary “treasuring” for instances encounters with the Logos or magnifying (expressa) of the Word come to my mind as intimate acts of love with knowing. Albeit that drives us toward the higher call to love than to know when speaking about Persons.
How would we ever come up with a better, more efficient, objectively categorized anything if it wasn’t for tossing out a concept? A train load of the word salad.
Great question, Hudson. I think "tossing out a concept" is one of the main places we get our idea of a "concept." In a podcast recently, we came up with the "concept" of "evangelical learned helplessness" (ELH) for a certain pathology of my religious sub-culture.
There is something significant about naming a phenomenon. Coining a term. Identifying a pathology.
However, the only things that really exist here are 1) the phenomenon in the world that we are trying to name, 2) the word itself, and 3) our thoughts about the phenomenon. I don't think there is, in addition, a *concept* of "ELH" that is distinct from the word or the phenomenon itself.
Jason, concepts are supposed to be mental categories, more or less. They correspond to words, “feline,” “sex,” “cup,” “magnesium,” or noun phrases, “luxury beliefs,” “gender distress,” etc., to use some politically salient examples.
What I present here are propositions ;) - which correspond to sentences: “There are no such things as concepts.”
One caution: Present a balanced view, in which concepts are useful in some cases and detrimental in other cases. Don't cherry-pick the negative examples.
Thanks for the caution. I fear that too many balanced views on concepts accidentally give away the game to conceptual constructionism.
Here's an example: I keep hearing interviews about Rob Henderson's "concept" of a luxury belief. I would say that Rob *named* a sub-species of belief, and kudos to him for doing so! He coined a term; he identified a type of object. But what I won't say is that he created a concept. :)
"[Frege] held that concepts were objective, immaterial entities called “senses.” We successfully refer to objects in the world based on whether they match, or meet the criteria, of the senses we grasp."
Be careful here. You're partly right, but it helps to remember that Frege is committed to anti-psychologism.
_Concepts_ refer, senses are how individual minds understand or 'receive' the concept. There's a distinct separation between what's going on in my mind or your mind, and what's going on with the concept or proposition itself.
Sense is only a mind's way into the reference of a concept. The concept itself, including its semantic reference to an object (or not), is _not_ psychological.
Frege's trying to establish the independent reality of thoughts and propositions, and their truth conditions, independent of any presentation to a subject.
As far as your overall project, that's ambitious. How do you think you'll account for intelligibility (and related semantic properties) without concepts? It sounds like you want to go in the direction of Merleau-Ponty or Hubert Dreyfus.
Matt, thanks for your comment! Yes, Frege is anti-psychologistic - in the quote I meant to steer clear of psychologism. Frege thinks senses are objective just as objects are. And we refer to objects (or the referents of our words) via senses. In later philosophy, it's that extension is determined by the intension.
Looking at the next paragraphs, I don't think this is accurate about Frege: "Sense is only a mind's way into the reference of a concept. The concept itself, including its semantic reference to an object, is not psychological."
Frege's senses are what I am calling "concepts." (Frege wouldn't; he uses concepts for, basically, predicates.) Frege believes that senses are not psychological.
Thanks for your interest - one source of inspiration has been Charles Taylor and Hubert Dreyfus's Retrieving Realism where they appeal to Merleau-Ponty. They object to perception being "only through" anything, concepts included. I have other inspirations thought, John McDowell and Ruth Millikan among them!
Intelligibility I'll have to think about; generally, I'm going to take it that meaning is in virtue of relation to the objects, properties, and kinds in the world, rather than via concepts.
I wrote my PhD thesis partly on Charles Taylor's work on human agency. Have a look at his first volume of collected papers, especially chapters 9-10 on language. You'll find a lot to like there.
Reread those - I think there’s a viable denotative theory, as opposed to Taylor’s expressive theory. I think that a denotative theory that centers reference and dispenses with sense can provide what Taylor and Dreyfus are searching for in Retrieving Realism. But that’s what I have to prove!
For what it's worth, the expressivist families of language theory as Taylor sees them aren't opposed to modes of designation (etc.). Some take him to say that, but he's not a Romantic or postmodernist type of skeptic about truth, rationality, and science.
He's not denying that words can refer to objects or designate/name and that kind of practice. His arguments are more aimed at the assumed priority of description over expression, at which of the two modes is the essential and proper activity of language, and such. Description is an act of real beings expressing themselves, to put it summarily, rather than objective claims made from subject-independent stance.
Interesting thesis. I am curious to see where it goes. The only philosopher I have read who rejected concepts/abstract ideas was Berkeley. I assume we aren't going in that direction, although that would be a lot of fun!
Thanks, Matthew! Question: Did this go to your email inbox, or did you just find it in the app? I'm not sure if this delivered to people.
On another note, I'm thinking that my thesis goes quite in the opposite direction of Berkeley - did Berkeley reject abstract ideas for sensory experience only?
As for Berkeley, he took a nominalist position. Berkeley's position was that no one thinks of a general triangle, but instead thinks of a specific triangle as a sign or symbol of all triangles. One then just ignores things like color, angle and size. This is because he rightly noticed that Locke's (at least I believe it is Locke's, although it probably doesn't originate with him) account of abstraction as removing characteristics until you are left with just the general concept. But, of course I cannot really imagine a triangle which isn't scalene, isosceles or equilateral. From this he concludes that there are no abstract ideas. He is what Ed Feser calls an imagist, if I remember correctly. he does not believe in ideas that aren't fundamentally sensory in nature.
As much as I love Berkeley, who is a great writer as well as a great philosopher, and as much as I think he and Hume were the most consistent empiricists who ever lived, I have always found this particular argument far weaker than most of those he makes. It assumes we actually have to have an image of a general triangle to have an abstract idea of it. The idea of a triangle is not itself a triangle. It is the quality of being three-sided in which all triangles participate. What they participate in is the form of triangularness. But I digress.
Great stuff here. Just to clarify, Berkeley and Hume have the modern empiricist position that knowledge is only from the senses, which reduces to phenomenalism.
I have an empiricism where empirical input is a condition on having knowledge; empirical is a necessary input for knowledge but not the only thing. I associate that with Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and modern science.
“Nothing is in the intellect which was not first in the senses.” (Ar. and Aq.)
How do you view the apprehensive nature of man in relation to His end in the beatific vision, and distinguish between concepts in the sense here, and the “impressa” and “expressa” dimensions of truth in Aquinas’ moderate realism? I think concepts that are entrenched in nominalism are quite problematic for several reasons, but the notion that the object can exist “in me” is intimate, and illustrates a type of communion with res,
Great questions - "a communion with res" is exactly what I'm seeking to articulate. Too often, concepts intervene as intermediaries that suggest that we cannot actually be related to reality itself. I haven't perfectly tried to harmonize my thinking with Aquinas's on this point, but a less radical way to make my point would be that the concepts we have are directly related to things themselves. My concept of "donkey" is nothing but my apprehension of the kind "donkey" itself.
Yah the abstracted knowledge I think can definitely be treated with a type of practical rationalism, where even thomists can approach reality with a type of disembodied gnosis. My thought goes to the married notion of knowledge and love for Aquinas, which I think escapes what I believe has been called an extrinsic dialectical approach. Because one encounters the transcendental of goodness through the intellectual appetite there is a type of communion of not merely informational data, but a type of possession of the good of that object within the soul. Mary “treasuring” for instances encounters with the Logos or magnifying (expressa) of the Word come to my mind as intimate acts of love with knowing. Albeit that drives us toward the higher call to love than to know when speaking about Persons.
How would we ever come up with a better, more efficient, objectively categorized anything if it wasn’t for tossing out a concept? A train load of the word salad.
Great question, Hudson. I think "tossing out a concept" is one of the main places we get our idea of a "concept." In a podcast recently, we came up with the "concept" of "evangelical learned helplessness" (ELH) for a certain pathology of my religious sub-culture.
There is something significant about naming a phenomenon. Coining a term. Identifying a pathology.
However, the only things that really exist here are 1) the phenomenon in the world that we are trying to name, 2) the word itself, and 3) our thoughts about the phenomenon. I don't think there is, in addition, a *concept* of "ELH" that is distinct from the word or the phenomenon itself.
For those of us less schooled in philosophy, a definition of "concept" would be helpful.
Interesting concept you are presenting. 😀
Jason, concepts are supposed to be mental categories, more or less. They correspond to words, “feline,” “sex,” “cup,” “magnesium,” or noun phrases, “luxury beliefs,” “gender distress,” etc., to use some politically salient examples.
What I present here are propositions ;) - which correspond to sentences: “There are no such things as concepts.”
Thanks. I've gotten to where I don't trust words; they change meaning with some regularity.
One caution: Present a balanced view, in which concepts are useful in some cases and detrimental in other cases. Don't cherry-pick the negative examples.
Thanks for the caution. I fear that too many balanced views on concepts accidentally give away the game to conceptual constructionism.
Here's an example: I keep hearing interviews about Rob Henderson's "concept" of a luxury belief. I would say that Rob *named* a sub-species of belief, and kudos to him for doing so! He coined a term; he identified a type of object. But what I won't say is that he created a concept. :)
I'm really curious about the alternative to "concepts" you'll be presenting! I can't imagine a working mind without it.
Thanks, Kahlil! Well, to anticipate, the alternative will be *names* for objects and kinds of objects.
"[Frege] held that concepts were objective, immaterial entities called “senses.” We successfully refer to objects in the world based on whether they match, or meet the criteria, of the senses we grasp."
Be careful here. You're partly right, but it helps to remember that Frege is committed to anti-psychologism.
_Concepts_ refer, senses are how individual minds understand or 'receive' the concept. There's a distinct separation between what's going on in my mind or your mind, and what's going on with the concept or proposition itself.
Sense is only a mind's way into the reference of a concept. The concept itself, including its semantic reference to an object (or not), is _not_ psychological.
Frege's trying to establish the independent reality of thoughts and propositions, and their truth conditions, independent of any presentation to a subject.
As far as your overall project, that's ambitious. How do you think you'll account for intelligibility (and related semantic properties) without concepts? It sounds like you want to go in the direction of Merleau-Ponty or Hubert Dreyfus.
Matt, thanks for your comment! Yes, Frege is anti-psychologistic - in the quote I meant to steer clear of psychologism. Frege thinks senses are objective just as objects are. And we refer to objects (or the referents of our words) via senses. In later philosophy, it's that extension is determined by the intension.
Looking at the next paragraphs, I don't think this is accurate about Frege: "Sense is only a mind's way into the reference of a concept. The concept itself, including its semantic reference to an object, is not psychological."
Frege's senses are what I am calling "concepts." (Frege wouldn't; he uses concepts for, basically, predicates.) Frege believes that senses are not psychological.
Thanks for your interest - one source of inspiration has been Charles Taylor and Hubert Dreyfus's Retrieving Realism where they appeal to Merleau-Ponty. They object to perception being "only through" anything, concepts included. I have other inspirations thought, John McDowell and Ruth Millikan among them!
Intelligibility I'll have to think about; generally, I'm going to take it that meaning is in virtue of relation to the objects, properties, and kinds in the world, rather than via concepts.
I wrote my PhD thesis partly on Charles Taylor's work on human agency. Have a look at his first volume of collected papers, especially chapters 9-10 on language. You'll find a lot to like there.
Reread those - I think there’s a viable denotative theory, as opposed to Taylor’s expressive theory. I think that a denotative theory that centers reference and dispenses with sense can provide what Taylor and Dreyfus are searching for in Retrieving Realism. But that’s what I have to prove!
For what it's worth, the expressivist families of language theory as Taylor sees them aren't opposed to modes of designation (etc.). Some take him to say that, but he's not a Romantic or postmodernist type of skeptic about truth, rationality, and science.
He's not denying that words can refer to objects or designate/name and that kind of practice. His arguments are more aimed at the assumed priority of description over expression, at which of the two modes is the essential and proper activity of language, and such. Description is an act of real beings expressing themselves, to put it summarily, rather than objective claims made from subject-independent stance.
I’ll look back at those - have them sitting right by my desk as it happens! Read them and heard him speak when I was at U of C.
Interesting thesis. I am curious to see where it goes. The only philosopher I have read who rejected concepts/abstract ideas was Berkeley. I assume we aren't going in that direction, although that would be a lot of fun!
Thanks, Matthew! Question: Did this go to your email inbox, or did you just find it in the app? I'm not sure if this delivered to people.
On another note, I'm thinking that my thesis goes quite in the opposite direction of Berkeley - did Berkeley reject abstract ideas for sensory experience only?
It went directly to my email.
As for Berkeley, he took a nominalist position. Berkeley's position was that no one thinks of a general triangle, but instead thinks of a specific triangle as a sign or symbol of all triangles. One then just ignores things like color, angle and size. This is because he rightly noticed that Locke's (at least I believe it is Locke's, although it probably doesn't originate with him) account of abstraction as removing characteristics until you are left with just the general concept. But, of course I cannot really imagine a triangle which isn't scalene, isosceles or equilateral. From this he concludes that there are no abstract ideas. He is what Ed Feser calls an imagist, if I remember correctly. he does not believe in ideas that aren't fundamentally sensory in nature.
As much as I love Berkeley, who is a great writer as well as a great philosopher, and as much as I think he and Hume were the most consistent empiricists who ever lived, I have always found this particular argument far weaker than most of those he makes. It assumes we actually have to have an image of a general triangle to have an abstract idea of it. The idea of a triangle is not itself a triangle. It is the quality of being three-sided in which all triangles participate. What they participate in is the form of triangularness. But I digress.
Great stuff here. Just to clarify, Berkeley and Hume have the modern empiricist position that knowledge is only from the senses, which reduces to phenomenalism.
I have an empiricism where empirical input is a condition on having knowledge; empirical is a necessary input for knowledge but not the only thing. I associate that with Aristotle, Aquinas, Kant and modern science.
“Nothing is in the intellect which was not first in the senses.” (Ar. and Aq.)
“Concepts without percepts are empty.” (Kant)
“Learned helplessness” was the intention…..