merjet

This is the the trite argument of Bertrand Russell. It fails to distinguish between an instance of similarity and the concept similarity. It also amounts to asserting the existence of innate ideas. Again, this is a failure to distinguish between an instance of similarity and the concept similarity, and it amounts to asserting the existence of innate ideas. Is Brendan next going to try to tell us that we can't observe green or the smoothness of a table as I rub my fingers on it?

Rand's explanation is neither drivel nor question-begging, but I think it could be better said. Words can be used as particular referents or as general terms. For example, when a mother points to a tree and says to her child, "that's a tree," the child does not have to already possess the concept tree in order to grasp what she means. After multiple observations of different trees, then the child can form the concept, or general term, tree.

The Peter Schwartz Principle on how to judge a speech: Judge it by the audience. Its content is irrelevant. Merlin

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Dragonfly wrote: This exemplifies the misuse of "representation" to describe perception. As I say in greater detail here here a representation requires three components. Dragonfly's description has only two. Completing the analogy takes a third component, the representer, e.g. a homunculus. Dragonfly denies there being a homunculus in his account, but something that plays that role is what is needed to complete the analogy. Otherwise, it is poor analogy. I can agree to his use of "mapping" in one sense. One sense I would not accept is a parcel of land, a map, and the maker or viewer of the map. The map does represent the parcel, the maker or viewer is the representer, so the analogy holds. The acceptable sense is the way "mapping" is used in mathematics, but that is not a "representation."