I was admitting that I may have made a mistake in my analysis of what you've been arguing. Perhaps a direct question would help.

Do you hold that universals are independent from language? — creativesoul

I’ve explained. Universals are constraints. Constraints are causal. Causal is real.

And then language is a semiotic constraint on meaning. Language can be generalised pansemiotically to talk about the machinery of constraints in general.

So in a loose sense - one far more general than your locution hopes to imply - all universals depend on language, or rather the semiotic relation by which constraints on being develop.

Most universals of course don’t rely on human language - human socio-cultural constraints. Tables and chairs do. Constructs like masculinity do. But a horse is a horse due to genetic level information, or constraints over bioiogical development. An electron is an electron due to more fundamental symmetry constraints over material development.

So the way you pose your question fails to recognise the greater metaphysical generality of the metaphysical framework I employ. Your question only seemed direct as it depends on a far more limited notion of causality and existence.

MU accepts unbroken as an antonym of continuous, but not as a synonym of undivided. — apokrisis

I don't know what you mean by "unbroken as an antonym of continuous". But in case you haven't noticed, definitions are usually composed of defining terms, not synonyms. Red is defined as a colour, but this does not mean that "red" and "a colour" are synonymous. So your reference to synonyms and antonyms, whatever you are trying to say here, is completely irrelevant and is in no way a representation of what I said.

Is a discrete entity continuous within itself? — Janus

I doubt that very much. And the reason that I doubt it is that we know things to be composed of parts, and we know the parts of one thing overlap with the parts of another. For instance, there is air within my body. And atoms, which are supposed to be things over lap each other as molecules. So it doesn't appear likely that a discrete thing is even continuous within itself. I think it is highly unlikely that a discrete thing is in any way continuous, and that is why we separate these two as mutually exclusive. Apokrisis likes to create ambiguity in well defined categorical differences, and this ambiguity allows the separation between the categories to be dissolved in support of a monist materialism.

But a discrete thing is considered to be one thing separate (or at least separable) from all others. If it is composed of parts and this entails that it is not a discrete thing then it cannot be a unity, surely. For me this actually goes more to apo's point that discreteness and continuity are limit cases which are only ever approached, never realized.

The traditional terminology for ‘discrete things’ is ‘particulars’, in distinction from ‘universals’. I think in the classical understanding, ‘particulars’ are only considered to be real insofar as they are ‘instances’ of universals; so for example an individual is an instance of the species. In fact the sense in which individual things can be considered real is one of the basic factors behind the whole discussion. I think we’re inclined nowadays to assume that individual particulars are the paradigm of what is real; this pen, that chair. But Greek philosophy was inclined to doubt that mere things, perishable as they are, ought to be considered real in their own right; that was the precursor to the idea developed in later philosophical theology, that individual beings ‘borrow’ their reality from the One, which alone truly is.

As to what is simple and what is complex - ‘the atom’ was supposed by atomic materialists to be simple, i.e. not composed of parts - indeed the word ‘atom’ means ‘uncuttable’. So atomism solved the problem of the relationship of ‘the One and the many’, by saying that ‘the imperishable’ existed as the fundamental matter from which everything was formed. This was obviously a hugely influential and important metaphysical theory in the grand scheme.

Whereas the Platonists argued that the fundamental entities were ideal forms, the Platonic geometric solids, and the Forms, which were metaphysical in their very nature.

But the central metaphysical question was the relationship of ‘the Uncreated’ and ‘the manifest domain’. Universals were understood to be nearer to the Uncreated, because less subject to change and decay; hence the attraction of mathematical objects and principles, as these remained constant, while individual things constantly arise and pass away.

But in case you haven't noticed, definitions are usually composed of defining terms, not synonyms. Red is defined as a colour, but this does not mean that "red" and "a colour" are synonymous. — Metaphysician Undercover

I realise you are just pissing about, but it is not a problem that a nested hierarchy of classification - one dependent on the bifurcating exactness of dichotomies - results in genus~species relations, or levels where the one is represented in terms of the many.

That was kind of the (Aristotelian) point. If you have a division defined in terms of opposing limits, then you also get the continuous spectrum of possibility that lies between.

So even with something as psychological as colour, if we have black and white as the limiting opposites - the extremes which lack particular hue - then we get a continuous spectrum of all the hues in-between.

So colour arises between two uncoloured limits. White is all colours. Black is no colours. Then in-between we can count an almost unlimited variety of colours. With three-cone vision supporting a doubled-up set of opponent channel processing - a red~green channel and a yellow~blue channel - we don't get an actual infinity of hues. But we can discriminate hues in their millions.

Of course colour and red don't refer to phenomena at the same hierarchical level.

Colour is one of a variety of sensory modalities. Sensory modalities are the spectrum of possibility created by a more general dichotomy at the level of basic neural logic. In neurology, it is usual to oppose sensation to motor action - input vs output. Sensation involves some general semiotic neuro-receptor transduction which turns physical energies into useful information - a pattern of spikes.

Then red, as I said, is a particular that is "species to the genus" that is colour experience. But red is itself, in turn, a universal - a primary - in terms of colour experience. And that can again be seen directly from the dichotomous logic the brain employs to make reality intelligible. Red stands opposed to green in the circuits of the visual pathway. Neurons will respond to an absence of green as if they were seeing the presence of red.

That is why we look at the brain as a rather logical device. It reasons in precisely the way I say metaphysics reasons. Neuroanatomy finds that the best way to understand reality is dialectically. Not-green = red, and red = not-green. And by defining green~red in terms of limiting extremes in this fashion - repeating the black~white discrimination that is the more general - redness and greenness are sub-universals so far as colour vision goes (along with blue and yellow). As each others limit, they together anchor the range of colour experience we discover inbetween.

I think in the classical understanding, ‘particulars’ are only considered to be real insofar as they are ‘instances’ of universals; so for example an individual is an instance of the species. In fact the sense in which individual things can be considered real is one of the basic factors behind the whole discussion. — Wayfarer

Yep. MU is suddenly now an anti-Aristotelian atomist for some reason. But to call a thing an individual is only to point to something that has been individuated, or in-formed.

But a discrete thing is considered to be one thing separate (or at least separable) from all others. If it is composed of parts and this entails that it is not a discrete thing then it cannot be a unity, surely. — Janus

There is nothing about "discrete thing", which denies that the discrete thing can be made of parts. It is a unity and a unity may have parts. That it is bounded makes it a discrete thing. It is when we look at the parts as discrete things in themselves, that we put in jeopardy the unity of the original thing. To say that the parts are discrete things requires that we assume another principle to account for unity of the original thing. So it is by this other principle, the mereological principle, that the parts make up a whole. The nature of the mereological principle is what monists and dualists disagree on.

If we deny the need for a mereological principle we end up with apokrisis' systems approach. As a whole, or as a part, are two different ways of looking at the same thing. Whether it is related to a larger thing or to smaller things, determines whether it is a part or whether it is a whole. This denies the need for a mereological principle to account for unity, but a unity is just an arbitrary designation relative to one's perspective.

The traditional terminology for ‘discrete things’ is ‘particulars’, in distinction from ‘universals’. I think in the classical understanding, ‘particulars’ are only considered to be real insofar as they are ‘instances’ of universals; so for example an individual is an instance of the species. In fact the sense in which individual things can be considered real is one of the basic factors behind the whole discussion. I think we’re inclined nowadays to assume that individual particulars are the paradigm of what is real; this pen, that chair. But Greek philosophy was inclined to doubt that mere things, perishable as they are, ought to be considered real in their own right. — Wayfarer

In Aristotelian logic, "substance" is given to the individual, the particular. Substance is at the bottom, as that which validates the universals, and therefore is the most well known, the most real. This is evident in his law of identity, which puts the foundation of the entire logical structure in the identity of the thing, the individual.

If you have a division defined in terms of opposing limits, then you also get the continuous spectrum of possibility that lies between. — apokrisis

The problem I have with this, which I am trying to explain, is that if you place the opposing limits, within the same category, as "the continuous spectrum" which is assumed to be within that category, then these limits are not real. They are arbitrary because they are derived from what is observed as the maximum and minimum of that category. They are not derived from what is actually limiting that category. Once you allow that there is something real which is actually limiting that category, then the thing which is doing the limiting is necessarily outside of the category. Therefore the limits cannot be of the same category as the thing limited. If they were part of the same category, they wouldn't have the capacity to limit it.

In Aristotelian logic, "substance" is given to the individual, the particular. — Metaphysician Undercover

I don't think that's right. Again, I think you attribute far too much significance to the notion of the individual. It was barely present in classical philosophy. Individuals only exist because they are expressions of the universal.

There’s a relevant Wikipedia entry on the principle of individuation, which says that Aristotle did regard the individual as having to be accounted for, which is why he introduced the distinction between specific and numerical unity. So Socrates is both an individual, but is also a member of a species; he is an instance of the type Man, but also an individual, although his individuality is accidental. The given citation from The Metaphysics says:

The whole thing, such and such a form in this flesh and these bones, is Callias or Socrates; and they are different owing to their matter (for this is different), but the same in species, for the species is indivisible.

This was interpreted by Boethius to mean that things which are discrete only in number (i.e. individuals) differ only in accidental properties, or in other words, they're essentially similar.

And that actually conforms with the quote on Thomist philosophy that we discussed in the other thread:

if the proper knowledge of the senses is of accidents, through forms that are individualized, the proper knowledge of intellect is of essences, through forms that are universalized. Intellectual knowledge is analogous to sense knowledge inasmuch as it demands the reception of the form of the thing which is known. But it differs from sense knowledge so far forth as it consists in the apprehension of things, not in their individuality, but in their universality.

That is why we are able to have theories in the first place! It's because when we apprehend the qualities of such and such a chemical substance, and we know the (universal) rules which govern the behaviour of its components, then we can predict that this piece of material is going to behave like such and such (which is why Greek philosophy has such seminal importance in the formation of science.)

But there's something else that needs to be spelled out here. I think you're assuming that individual particulars are real tout courte - real in their own right. But I'm sure the classical tradition didn't believe this - individuals are only real by virtue of the fact that they instantiate the universal form of which they are examples. Again, it's not an individualist philosophy. But in order to make sense of that it's necessary to understand what, exactly, is meant by 'real'. From an IETP article, 17th Century Theories of Substance, note the following:

Degrees of reality In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is.

This is a clue to why universals, numbers, ideas, and the like, were held to have a higher degree of reality than individual particulars in pre-modern philosophy. While individual things were perishable, evanescent, corruptible, the ideas which they exemplify are imperishable and if not eternal, then nearer to their eternal source than are individual particulars. Now of course this is generally rejected by moderns, in fact it's rejection is one of the hallmarks of modern philosophy. And that goes back to the realist v nominalist debates in the medieval era, in which the nominalists generally triumphed. But recall that in Aquinas, the 'rational intellect' is to all intents synonymous to 'the soul' as being the immortal part of Man, because it is that which 'sees the real', or 'what truly is'.

(Some of this is quite compatible with what Apokrisis is saying, except that he rejects the kind of theistic undertones of a 'higher intelligence', which I do not. But it is worth recalling that the Platonists did not actually understand themselves as a branch of Christian theology at all, and that their understanding of The One was later appropriated by Christianity to provide a philosophical scaffolding around which they could construct their Hebraic theology, although arguably the marriage was never that happy. That, however, is a different topic.)

I think you're misunderstanding what realism about universals entails. — Andrew M

Quite possible.

Here's a specific example. Aristotle defined humans as the rational animal. For arguments sake, let's suppose that rationality just is the ability to use language. So humans are the language-using animal.

Does this mean that the existence of humans is dependent on language? Obviously if there was no language, then there would be no humans per the above definition. (Just as there weren't earlier in evolutionary history.)

But it doesn't follow that being human is therefore a language construct or human creation (as if humans created themselves via definition!) Instead that language-using ability is a feature of the world as exhibited by select individuals of the animal kingdom. And it is that feature of the world that is being picked out in the definition as the essential distinguishing feature between humans and other animals.

It follows that being a human is existentially contingent upon language. No language... no humans, according to that definition, anyway. Being existentially contingent upon language and being a language construct are not equivalent.

Do you hold that universals are independent from language?
— creativesoul

I’ve explained. Universals are constraints. Constraints are causal. Causal is real.

And then language is a semiotic constraint on meaning. Language can be generalised pansemiotically to talk about the machinery of constraints in general.

So in a loose sense - one far more general than your locution hopes to imply - all universals depend on language, or rather the semiotic relation by which constraints on being develop.

Most universals of course don’t rely on human language - human socio-cultural constraints. Tables and chairs do. Constructs like masculinity do. But a horse is a horse due to genetic level information, or constraints over bioiogical development. An electron is an electron due to more fundamental symmetry constraints over material development.

So the way you pose your question fails to recognise the greater metaphysical generality of the metaphysical framework I employ. Your question only seemed direct as it depends on a far more limited notion of causality and existence. — apokrisis

Muddle.

Yes. No. Maybe so.

A propensity for self-contradiction...

Call it what you want.

There is nothing about "discrete thing", which denies that the discrete thing can be made of parts. It is a unity and a unity may have parts. — Metaphysician Undercover

Why would you consider something that is made op of parts to be a unity rather than a multiplicity?

That it is bounded makes it a discrete thing. It is when we look at the parts as discrete things in themselves, that we put in jeopardy the unity of the original thing.

Boundaries are notoriously imprecise, so it seems we cannot rely on them to define what counts as a discrete thing. Say a discrete thing is an individual; the etymology of 'individual' is 'not divisible', and yet something made up of parts can be divided into those parts, or may even be able to be arbitrarily divided. Would you say you ceased to be an individual if I cut off your arm, for example?

To say that the parts are discrete things requires that we assume another principle to account for unity of the original thing. So it is by this other principle, the mereological principle, that the parts make up a whole. The nature of the mereological principle is what monists and dualists disagree on.

I haven't read up much on mereology, but as far as I know it is a contentious field; so I'm not convinced there would be an unambiguous "mereological principle" that could be relied upon. Now I can say, for example, that my body is a unity of discrete parts, so what kind of "unity" is that, if not a functional unity? And to think of unity in functional terms would seem to be thinking in terms of systems rather than entities.

If we deny the need for a mereological principle we end up with apokrisis' systems approach. As a whole, or as a part, are two different ways of looking at the same thing. Whether it is related to a larger thing or to smaller things, determines whether it is a part or whether it is a whole. This denies the need for a mereological principle to account for unity, but a unity is just an arbitrary designation relative to one's perspective.

Of course we do commonly speak and think mereologically, if that is just taken to mean something like "in terms of parts and wholes". But we are here questioning whether or not that thinking, on analysis, remains unambiguous. I don't think we can fairly claim that it does.

It follows that being a human is existentially contingent upon language. No language... no humans, according to that definition, anyway. Being existentially contingent upon language and being a language construct are not equivalent. — creativesoul

That doesn't follow; the definition doesn't say that we became human by beginning to use language, or that we would cease to be human if language use somehow disappeared. it just says that humans are currently distinguished from other animals by the fact that they are language users. That definition doesn't rule out any number of alternative distinguishing features, that could be used to identify humanity, either.

It follows that being a human is existentially contingent upon language. No language... no humans, according to that definition, anyway. Being existentially contingent upon language and being a language construct are not equivalent.
— creativesoul

That doesn't follow; — Janus

Quote the entire argument, then explain how your objection is appropriate.

Aristotle defined humans as the rational animal. For arguments sake, let's suppose that rationality just is the ability to use language. So humans are the language-using animal.

Humans are the language-using animal. No language, no using language. No using language, no language using animals. No language using animals, no humans.

It follows that humans are existentially contingent upon language. If humans are existentially contingent upon language, then being a human is as well.

QED

The objection is appropriate because that is your conclusion, whether correct or incorrect, from the "whole argument"; and thus I don't need to address the "whole argument". The conclusion is flawed for the reasons I already gave.

In other words, Aristotle may have, according to your definition of 'rational', defined humans as the language-using animal; but this can be taken as meaning 'the animal that now uses language" and need not be taken as 'the animal that always used language' or 'the animal that always will use language".

The objection is appropriate... — Janus

You sure about that?

;)

No reason to doubt it...

The argument just provided says otherwise. Your objection is irrelevant to what's being argued. Which part are you having trouble understanding?

Doubt is belief based, by the way. Justified doubt is well-grounded belief.

Aristotle may have, according to your definition of 'rational', defined humans as the language-using animal; but this can be taken as meaning 'the animal that now uses language" and need not be taken as 'the animal that always used language' or 'the animal that always will use language". — Janus

That's not what Aristotle wrote, granting that Andrew M's reporting is accurate.

Aristotle defined humans as the rational animal. For arguments sake, let's suppose that rationality just is the ability to use language. So humans are the language-using animal.

It was you that concluded that the cited definition entailed "no language use, no humans". I showed you why that conclusion is erroneous.

:s

Makes life tough for deaf-mutes - might get hauled up on anti-discrimination grounds :-(

@mitchell - you might find this interesting. Meaning and the Problem of Universals, Kelley Ross.

You do realize that that is what I was addressing, right?

I was granting the definition as a means to see where it led... necessarily so. Reductio ad absurdum.

The premiss is false. Humans are not the language using animal. Some humans are. Those are all matters of fact. We can look and see all for ourselves.

Makes life tough for deaf-mutes - might get hauled up on anti-discrimination grounds :-( — Wayfarer

NO, no...what's the matter with you... they simply cease to be human. Aristotle knew that, why can't you accept it? ;)

By and large and/or ideally, humans are the "rational animal" or "langauge-using animal" (whichever you prefer) among other things: of course it doesn't follow from that that all humans are rational. So, I see nothing wrong with Aristotle's definition, however much about humanity it might leave out; and consequently I still think your conclusion that his definition is flawed is flawed.

Quote the argument in it's entirety and then make your case. In what way is the conclusion flawed? I'm not claiming it's true. I'm claiming that the argument necessarily follows from the premiss, as it is written. You're objecting based upon something other than what was written. You're changing the terms of the premiss. Different terms, different truth conditions. Different truth conditions, different meaning. You're changing the meaning.

In other words, Aristotle may have, according to your definition of 'rational', defined humans as the language-using animal; but this can be taken as meaning 'the animal that now uses language" and need not be taken as 'the animal that always used language' or 'the animal that always will use language". — Janus

"Humans as the language using animal" is not semantically equivalent to "the animal that now uses language".

Understand yet?

I directly addressed the original. You objected based upon something else. Thus, neither certainty nor objection is well-grounded.

...the definition doesn't say that we became human by beginning to use language, or that we would cease to be human if language use somehow disappeared. — Janus

So what?

I addressed what it did say.

It does say "the language using animal". It does not say "the animal that does not use language". All your examples are of not using language.

Nor is it semantically equivalent to 'the animal that has always used language' or 'the animal that will always use language'. If I am identified as the man who wears a red cap, it does not follow that I always wore a red cap, or always will wear a red cap. Say I just starting wearing the red cap last week, I was the same person before I began wearing it and will be the same when I cease. Get it now?

All your examples are of not using language. — creativesoul

No, the examples were just to show that your conclusion certainly does not follow from Aristotle's definition that someone before they could use language or someone that was incapable of using language or lost the ability, would thereby not count as human, as you seem to think it does. Nor does it follow that humans were not humans before they could use language. You erroneously think that those things do follow, and you think that is what is wrong with Aristotle's definition. Well, as I have shown, it doesn't follow, or at least it only follows on a simplistically narrow interpretation. You surely must impute a dire stupidity to Aristotle if you think he would have thought that such a conclusion follows from his definition, or that he would have mistakenly thought that it didn't follow.

From Wayfarer's article:

...Although Aristotle said that Socrates had never separated the Forms from the objects of experience, which is probably true, some of Socrates's language suggests the direction of Plato's theory. Thus, in the Euthyphro, Socrates, in asking for a definition of piety, says that he does not want to know about individual pious things, but about the "idea itself," so that he may "look upon it" and, using it "as a model [parádeigma, "paradigm" in English]," judge "that any action of yours or another's that is of that kind is pious, and if it is not that it is not" [6e, G.M.A. Grube trans., Hackett, 1986]. Plato concludes that what we "look upon" as a model, and is not an object of experience, is some other kind of real object, which has an existence elsewhere. That "elsewhere" is the "World of Forms," to which we have only had access, as the Myth of Chariot in the Phaedrus says, before birth, and which we are now only remembering.

What the above calls the "idea itself", to be looked upon as a model looks to be nothing more and nothing less that one's notion and/or conception of...

Concepts are linguistic. Notions are linguistic. World Of Forms, to which we have access before birth and we are now remembering...

Fine idea, I suppose. I find no need to posit such a thing. What is clearly explained by invoking such talk? There's good reason this view has fallen out of favor.

Ideas are mind-dependent. Mind consists entirely of thought and belief(drawing mental correlations). Ideas are existentially contingent upon thought and belief. The content, however, can shed light upon that which is not. Some ideas talk about things that we discover. These things are not existentially contingent upon being discovered. These are the sorts of things that we can be fundamentally wrong about. Things that exist, as they are, prior to and after our becoming aware of them.

Thought and belief are two such things.