dan2100

I think possibly I am using 'concept' in a slightly more specific way than you are. I am suggesting the dog has a concept of his ball, not balls or round things in general. Similarly, he would have concepts of his owner, and other everyday things he is in contact with. I've created a new topic to discuss this: http://www.objectivistliving.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=8432 I'd say the problem is distinguishing what you believe is a highly specific concept from a non-conceptual association -- presuming such a distinction can be made and is defensible.

This question arises time and again in discussions of animal minds -- often enough in Objectivish circles discussing what makes humans different from other animals. I've suggested, in one ethics discussion here, a means to test whether an animal -- including a human - -is exhibiting conceptual behavior. The test is not original one; I'm not suggesting I came up with it. It's basically to set up situations where the animal would have to rely on some ability to abstract to perform some behave. The example I gave was teaching an animal to associate something -- e.g., such as a spoken word, a picture -- with roundness and have the animal pick out round objects from a pile of other objects. For example, let's say there's a dog named Rex that's believed to have such a conceptual ability. Somehow, Rex has acquired -- let's assume it's acquired and not innate, but it shouldn't matter for this test -- a concept of roundness and associates this concept with the spoken word "round." Imagine placing three round objects -- say, different sized, colored, scented, hardness, weight, and patterned balls (all dependent on Rex's abilities to perceptually discriminate) -- in a pile with boxy chew toys, blocks, sticks and the like. Let's say one ball is green and so are some of the non-round objects. And some of the non-round objects share other traits with the balls -- so that roundness is being isolated. A successful hit with this test might be Rex upon hearing "round" fetches one of the balls. In order to make Rex isn't merely remembering the three balls, one might then change them for other round things of different colors, sizes, etc. in different piles. The expectation would be that if Rex has this conceptual ability (and also can make the association), he will fetch the round and only the round objects. Also, one might try a pile with no round objects or only round objects. The expectation in the former would be that he fetches no objects or looks confused. The expectation in the latter might be that he fetches one of the objects. Note that the idea here is not merely to open the floodgates or allow subjective interpretation much leeway. To evince conceptual behavior, certain tests must be passed. Failing them means, at a minimum, that conceptual behavior for that test was not detected. This, of course, doesn't mean conceptual behavior is not there. It could be, as my parenthetic comments mention, that Rex lacks or has a perceptual ability that might go unrecognized by the tester or hasn't made the association with the word "round." (By "has a perceptual ability," imagine Rex can detect some other trait that the tester doesn't realize the objects she's using shares. For instance, imagine they were all sitting next to her lunch and Rex is actually associating "round" with the odors of the lunch.) One would suspect, though, that repeating the test using different traits, different objects, and other variations would eventually add up to detecting conceptual behavior -- or making its likelihood seem so low as to almost rule it out. The tests are also trying to isolate from simple associations, such as Rex might have for his favorite ball -- which he just remembers the perception of and does not really do, what is believed to be, any conceptual work. As a sort of analogy, imagine a person you believe understands the concept of prime number, but, in truth, he has merely memorized the first 100 primes. He could never tell you what the 101st prime is -- save by luck -- or what makes a number prime (much less extend this notion to things like "relatively prime" numbers). Note that in this case, though, he's still evincing some conceptual behavior by likely understanding what numbers are to some degree. My point is, though, he really has no concept of prime -- aside from a list of 100 numbers. (Is such a set a concept? If it is, it's certainly of a different kind than what might be called a classical concept.) Finally, these kinds of tests are not here to prove how special humans are or to knock out any other animal from the running of using concepts. I actually do expect most animals, especially vertebrates and some mollusks, to exhibit some level of conceptual behavior -- given my readings in ethology. (Also, similar tests have been done already and seem to show some ability to apply abstractions, ergo, some conceptual ability. I'm mainly bringing this up to focus discussion here -- rather than to shock the world with evidence for concepts in dogs, cats, parrots, and rats.) Any comments on this?

I never intended any condescension, I wonder how many others on the forum feel that it is condescending? I believe your comments can be reasonably read as condescending. In other words, I agree with George on this.

I must have missed that. I don't think that's an example of conceptuality in action -- or, at least, it's not an unambiguous case of it. I think a better example of conceptuality in a non-human would be trying to evince something more abstract. Imagine, for example, trying to see if your dog could get the concept of "roundness" by asking for a round object out of a pile of many different -- many not round -- objects and mixing this up so that each time the differentiating feature is roundness. (This sort of test is much more in line with ethological studies. It might be good to look the actual science here rather than just assume that because Rex fetches the ball, he has a concept of "ball.") Are you serious? You want me to ask my dog to pick out a round object from a pile of objects? Look, if I ask him to get his ball and he does then he obviously knows what I'm talking about. In fact, not only does he have a concept of his ball, he even associates a label with it. What I was getting at with picking something from a pile -- as a means to test whether an organism understood a concept -- was to be clear that conceptuality was involved. Associating a sound with an object, in my book, is not conceptuality -- or, if it is, then you have to expand the range of beings that are conceptual to anything that can be conditioned to respond in such a way. Now, granted, this might not rule out conceptuality, but I think yours is not a good test for it. In other words, your observation allows, in my view, for too many false positives or, at least, ambiguous cases. How would distinguish "conceptual" behavior?

You left out the rest of my post -- the part where I tried to explain my use of that analogy. Why did you do that? I don't know. Why? Well, think of those sleppy years before World War 1 when "militant Islam," if such existed, had little impact on the wider world. Why was that? I'm not trying to blame it all on blowback, but was there much of a separation between "Mosque and State"? Also, my guess is, without an outside force to unite them, various militant Islamic groups would be at each other's throats. This does fit the history of the region rather well -- and also of ideological groups in general. Cf. Stephen M. Walt's The Origins of Alliances on both the Middle East and on ideological similarity as a force for disunity. You do realize that the Renaissance didn't result from a separation of Church and State. In fact, that separation really only came about in any practical way after the Thirty Years' War -- and that was an extremely bloody conflict. (And even then there were still state churches/religions. Heck, this is partly why there was an English Civil War and why some English left for British North America -- at least, in my understanding.) Also, the result was mixed in some ways. States got much more power. (Granted, I'm not trying to promote Church power here, but there was a balance during the Middle Ages, especially in the Late Middle Ages that allowed people to repair to one or the other. In other words, almost like market capitalism, there were competing legal authorities. In my view, this is partly responsible for the growth of freedom and of markets in the Late Middle Ages. The Renaissance was, in some ways, a turning back politically because it's legacy is statist ideologies leading eventually to absolutism.) I don't know the future, but I think there's some hope to shrink if not abolish the state. I also think states and empires can collapse relatively quickly. Anyhow who's looked back on the last two or three decades should see that. Where is the Soviet state now? What about the Somali one? How about Yugoslavia? How about the Soviet empire? These all seem to be gone -- and gone in very short order.

This partly the problem with mandatory schooling, don't you think? Don't you think the coercive nature of schooling today makes for disruptive students? Yes, for some. Although coincidentally, I only ever taught (and teach) non-mandatory subjects. My job is to teach the subject as best I can and if a student is in the way of that, they're gone. I suppose it is indeed different if the student must be there and doesn't have a choice. You mean elective subjects? But are these the sort of "you must take one of these, but you have a choice over which one" or "you don't have to take any of these, but you can if you want to"? The alternative is, obviously I thought, allowing people to choose whether to be schooled. I.e., no mandatory schooling. I'm not sure it protects children in the first place, but, even if it did, I'm not sure compounding one form of coercion to protect against another (I presume you mean protects them from child abuse even if only in the form of neglect) is not the solution. (Of course, it's unlikely mandatory schooling will disappear next Tuesday and all these kids will be left at the mercy of abusive parents.) And my experience, too, was that much abuse takes places in school -- not so much teachers beating up on students, mind you, but other students picking on students sometimes with the passive support of the teachers. At least, I have witnessed such during my time in school.

I'm not sure that's Smith per se, but it is how he's normally taken, I believe. In other words, an Adam Smith conservative, to you, means someone who is for economic and social freedoms as instrumental to some other goal, such as having a prosperous nation. In other words, this type of conservative would give up economic and social freedoms in a pinch if she or he thought that other goal could be achieved via, say, mercantilism or government management of the media. That what you mean?

I must admit to being a little confused here. Once you have that gap -- between Ought and Is -- then you're embracing some form of anti-realism in morality. (Moral realism is the view that there are moral truths -- so, in some sense, it presumes the Ought-Is gap is crossable. Moral anti-realism is the view that there are no moral truths. Both sets of view -- moral realism and moral anti-realism -- can take many different forms, but it seems, from your comments, you're definitely in the anti-realist camp.) So what would evidence or "E-V-I-D-E-N-C-E" have to do with anything here? I mean, isn't that a clear contradiction? Either there is a gap and no evidence will suffice to cross it or there isn't. That you have no means of arguing for using more or less force here or anything. It's all a matter of just personal preference, so why bother to even talk of morality at all? Surely, if there are no moral truths, then what would be the point of using moral arguments? Everytime you say, "it'd be good to do X" or "one should do X" or "X is the right thing to do under these circumstances," you'd be more precise just to say, "I prefer doing X" or "I prefer you do X," etc. I don't know about that. I actually accept moral realism and think Rand was on the right track in many places. I do think she made a number of mistakes, but I think your brand of thinking on this subject is completely on the wrong track -- or off the track all together. I'm unsure what you mean by a "reality check" on her premises. Maybe you could elaborate. If you just mean stuff like people behaving altruistically, at times, that's not much of an argument or a reality check. One wouldn't argue, I trust, that since people get sick on occasion that they shouldn't strive to be healthy...

I am a teacher and that's not my purpose. My purpose is to do the best job I can and to help students learn as much as possible. Enjoying the journey will help learning, but enjoyment is not the primary goal. Sometimes, you can't learn something unless you show up on time, sit down and shut up. Or, the kid next to you can't learn unless you do so. Either way, do it, or get out. This "pointless" activity is a side-effect, not a goal. This partly the problem with mandatory schooling, don't you think? Don't you think the coercive nature of schooling today makes for disruptive students?

What is meant by "Adam Smith sense" conservative? (Not being sarcastic. I really want to know what you mean here.) No philosophy should get a free ride, in my view.

Yup.

Reality police! The world we live in is a rather muddy, murky place. Instead of floating above the muddy water by using extreme examples that are rare, unlikely, and mainly exist in your heads, you should get your hands dirty once in a while. I always find it funny when people who know nothing about my life tell me I should get my hands dirty or something along those lines. The things I could show you! Again, I see the program as bad and likely to lead to worse things. Granted, any bad program that paves the way for worse things is something most of us will have to learn to live with -- and, it's quite likely, most of us will not live in constant agony over the program. But what are the silver linings you see to this very dark cloud? Well, when are you going to write the article George asked for? What's the "useful contribution to the health care conversation" to be made here? I think the most useful contributions anyone can make at this time are to persuade as many people as possible to go against this program and to find ways around it. That's for the short run. In the long run, I think the best contribution would be getting as many people as people to understand what a free market in healthcare could be like. My remarks are based on what I've read here. I'm sure there's plenty I don't know about you and would hope that there is something you have to contribute to the world (I hadn't assumed you didn't, but thanks for making that clear)! Oh, that's not what I meant. I meant the argument I often see along the lines of that all too often used TR quote -- the one where he attempted to silence his critics: "It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat." Of course, it's not exactly that. But you seemed to think that those who are criticizing the healthcare program are somehow not having to deal with muddy reality. Actually, the problem is we do have to deal with that -- a reality far more muddier because of the program. That was joke on my part. Obviously, one that misfired... So, I won't be doing stand up anytime soon... I'm unsure what that respect is supposed to mean here. I also think the cure for murkiness is to clarify -- not merely admit it's murky and put on a bright face. But I'm unsure if you meant that either. Perhaps you could draw me a map from "intelligent people who hold different opinions" to "middle ground." That opinions, even intelligent ones, differ seems, to me, not a call for a middle ground, but one for examining how and why they differ and looking for a means to come to the truth in the matter. I think you're making a false dichotomy here between an individualist and the wrong view on one's life with regard to others. An individualist can and should care about others, but, also, others can impact an individual living in society. You are, I believe, confusing individualism with social atomism -- the latter being the view that each person is some sort of isolated social atom unaffected by his or her follow atoms. Often people caricature individualism in those terms. I actually call this the Crusoe Fallacy. I'm not saying this is originally my label, but I use it. The idea being that the would be anti-individualist tends to see things in terms of either accepting social atomism or accepting some form of communitarianism or collectivism -- often because the would be anti-individualist identifies individualism not with how people are to live as individuals in society but as how people are live as individuals apart from society. But individualism as a philosophy is about how to get along in society -- not how to eject oneself from society. It's a failure of imagination, I believe, to see the problem as either giving in to others or living completely apart and separated from them. Don't you agree? And what can one do here? Persuading others that this is a bad idea is also a step toward stoking resistance to the program. That's one way of dealing with the muddy, murky place you talk about, no?

Dan! I didn't say George was appealing to authority when he wrote that I said he was appealing to authority when he name dropped the three or four philosophers and their titles that happen to agree with him. It wasn't his mentioning of Russel or Blandshard that I was talking about either. It also has nothing to do with Wittgenstein's philosophy. You're confused and I'd advise you to go back and read our discussion before you reply. This all started earlier on than the examples you're citing. I think even George would agree with this assessment of your comments. Why not just point me to the comments you mean? This would all be better in person. I would be able to extract the information from all of you much more easily.

I wasn't making an appeal to Wittgenstein as an authority figure in any of my comments, Dan. I was stating that George was indeed trying to appeal to the authority of the men he mentioned to prove that he couldn't have been "duped" or "fooled". I agree with you, I don't care what the majority of the field says as I really don't care that George can name three or four people who agree with him - that was my point. I used Wittgenstein as one example of a "good" philosopher of language who may say something contrary to what George stated in his comment: "as any good philosopher of language will tell you, to employ metaphors in definitions is rarely a good idea." I didn't realize that George was the arbiter of who is and isn't considered a "good" philosopher (I had no idea at the time that aphorisms = not good). So I was pointing out that if George can deny Wittgenstein, why shouldn't I or anybody else deny the men he's used to back up his claim? Another question: Why do you feel the need to come to George's defense, especially when you're not familiar with the whole context of the argument? I truly didn't think George was appealing to authority when he wrote "any good philosopher of language..." I thought he was appealing to a standard of what should be good philosophy of language. That is, that definition by metaphor is a bad way of defining things -- at least, if clarity and precision is the goal of definition. I thought George gave a good reason for this -- one that should not be controversial -- too. That is, that metaphors always have to be reduced to non-metaphor anyway and, so, [not his exact words] any metaphor is even further removed and introduces further problems with being unclear or other mistakes. I also didn't think him mentioning Russell and Blanshard was an appeal to authority. I thought he was merely telling everyone that others have also criticized Wittgenstein. (Russell actually could be considered a mentor of sorts of Wittgenstein. Not that that matters -- just bringing in some biographical detail.) Nor did I think it name-dropping. In other words, it didn't seem to me he was saying, "Oh, Russell and Blandshard thought Wittgenstein was a dufus, so let's dump on W." (I must confess to liking "Dump on W," but he's no longer in office, so it seems kind of old hat now, no? ) Rather, I thought he was trying to show that others have brought up reasons for doubting Wittgenstein's views. Of course, he didn't go over the particulars... That would be the next step here, but, my guess is, no one's going to take that. I wanted to give my opinion on Wittgenstein in the context of this discussion more than defend George's view. It just so happens that, in this case, his and my views on the subject are much the same. Minor quibble with this whole discussion: I think we should start another topic on the board -- just to separate this out of the ethics or altruism discussion.

What I said was that I don't regard Wittgenstein as an "especially good" philosopher of language. I said this because, despite his flashes of insight, Wittgenstein's remarks about language are mainly aphoristic, and I don't regard aphorisms as a good way to do philosophy. I would say a similar thing about Nietzsche -- even though I like him in some respects -- to the extent that some of his more significant points, however suggestive, are expressed in aphorisms that lack detailed arguments and analyses. Various philosophers, such as Bertrand Russell and Brand Blanshard, have made similar observations about Wittgenstein's' approach to linguistic philosophy. Moreover, I didn't mention various philosophers who take Rand seriously to "prove" anything. Learn to read, for crying out loud. Ghs I'm in general agreement with you on Wittgenstein and on his approach to philosophy. (Even his notebooks are much the same. I'd originally thought, when I approached studying him, that he was too busy moving from one idea to the next to write out a long treatise for mere mortals to read and had hoped his notebooks and other writings would contain such a treatise.) In my opinion, Wittgenstein does have some merit, but I think he's vastly overrated and I see him as, in many ways, a distraction if not a deadend, in the history of philosophy. Also, for Pantopic, I would never gauge a thinker -- in philosophy or any field -- by looking at what the majority in that field -- even a majority of the serious -- at a given time think or believe about said thinker. Of course, I'd likely read or listen to what they wrote or have to say, but what they wrote or said would be judged, by me, based on how reasonable it was and how well it fit the facts (allowing, true, as I see reasonability and facts) and not merely on their authority. I hope you'd agree with me on this. If not, then I suppose you should read off what you think of all thinkers based on polls and let's forget about a serious discussion here.

Mine are; 1. The word is not the thing it represents 2. There is no such thing as an object in perfect isolation How do these contradict or replace the Law of Identity or Existence Exists? Furthermore, did Rand maintain, anywhere, that the word is the thing? Who are the other thinkers of note you believe maintain the word is the thing? And who maintains that there are things existing in perfect isolation? (I wouldn't rule out the possibility, but something existing in perfect isolation would never enter into relations to be known as long as continued to be perfectly isolated. I'm unsure why this becomes a basis for much of anything. It seems to me like a non-issue.)

Leave the Lord Protector out of this!

For starters, the "Law of Identity" and "Existence Exists". You believe these are incorrect? Or do you believe that she misapplies them?

How often did Ayn Rand "lighten up" on other folks? Ba'al Chatzaf What is that supposed to mean? That we should go after Rand for a thought crime? -- condemning her for a creative process that she transcribed in her private journal during her early twenties? I don't recall Rand ever doing anything this silly, however judgmental she may have been. Ghs Which famous author was it that said something along the lines of keeping journals during bouts of madness or depression and then burning them afterward... Was it Kafka or Gide? Probably not Gide given that so many of his survived... Anyhow, had Rand only destroyed all her journals, no one would be attacking her based on what was in them.

I agree with Bob. Just to back up a little: which of her "foundational ideas" do you disagree with here?

You have to be careful here. Ireland and Botswana have, in recent years, been moving away from the pro-market policies that helped to grow their economies... This seems the typical fatten-the-goose-before-cooking-it pattern in history: a period of liberalization leads to a growing economy and then taxes and regulations are put back into place. (I'm not saying this is planned ahead of it -- just that there's a pattern there.) As for Latin American countries, I'd be careful with them too as statism appears to be on the rise again there after some flirtation with liberalism. Of course, history is never over and it's likely that these trends can be reversed. NZ also has a decent-sized libertarian movement. I'm surprised no one's mentioned any of the Scandinavian countries. (Or I missed that. )

That's awesome Brant! Way to make another useful contribution to the debate! I'm curious: Why did you not complain about GS's similarly "useful contribution to the debate"? Because although everyone here is quick with the insults, rarely do they dedicate an entire post to it without at least pretending to make another point that is relevant to the topic of the debate. I was rather shocked by GS's one line attack on George H. Smith -- the one about wasting his life on philosophy. That appears to be dedicating an entire post to an insult. Why didn't that register with you? Did you interpret it as something else? Just curious...

I already explained that, but I shall try again. If I ask my dog "where's the ball?" and he goes and gets it I claim that he has a concept of 'ball' in his brain. I must have missed that. I don't think that's an example of conceptuality in action -- or, at least, it's not an unambiguous case of it. I think a better example of conceptuality in a non-human would be trying to evince something more abstract. Imagine, for example, trying to see if your dog could get the concept of "roundness" by asking for a round object out of a pile of many different -- many not round -- objects and mixing this up so that each time the differentiating feature is roundness. (This sort of test is much more in line with ethological studies. It might be good to look the actual science here rather than just assume that because Rex fetches the ball, he has a concept of "ball.")

This rings true for me and Korzybski actually created a system to facilitate "the ability to reduce abstract concepts back to concrete reality". In his language, he says we must always differentiate orders of abstraction. Words like 'altruism' represent higher order abstractions and observations we make are lower order abstractions and if you confuse them, or act as if the words have objective existence then you are becoming deranged. Don't you see, though, my last statement was aimed at your earlier one? If you agree with what I said, then do you still maintain what you do about definitions and having clear concepts? Regarding making mistakes here, I don't think this is a problem of mental illness -- whatever that means (I think there's some cogency to the often ignored arguments of Thomas Szasz here) -- but one of not learning the proper way to deal with concepts. Put another way, humans might be conceptual animals -- maybe not the only ones, but humans certainly rely on concepts in a big way -- but knowing how to use concepts correctly is not innate or automatic. Were this not so, logical and other fallacies wouldn't abound and conceptuality would not be much of a topic for discussion. At worst, there might be a few specialist dealing with conceptual problems for those who had difficulties -- just as there are speech therapists for those few who have speech problems while almost everyone else does quite well at being able to speak (whether their speech is beautiful or reasonable is, of course, another matter). This isn't to say there are no serious deluded or deranged people out there. Rather it's to say that almost all conceptual problems -- even of the sort under discussion here -- are errors of knowledge and of ignorance. (And probably character flaws and a habituation of errors help this along. Both of these might be fostered by many people in one's peer group likewise being ignorant and arrogant. But such is, in my opinion, not insanity.)

That's awesome Brant! Way to make another useful contribution to the debate! I'm curious: Why did you not complain about GS's similarly "useful contribution to the debate"?