This article containing an account of Heidegger's Dasein gives a backgound to my view of 'existence' being a function of human activity. — fresco

Even the philosophers that I consider myself a big fan of say at least as many things that I think are misguided, misconceived, etc. as they say things that I think are insightful, on-target, etc.

Heidegger is not at all someone that I'm a fan of. Heidegger, in my view, is easily one of the worst philosophers, along with folks like Hegel, Derrida, Sartre, etc. I see Heidegger as consistently being a combo of incoherent and extremely confused, off-track, misguided, etc. So appealing to him won't clarify anything and won't amount to successfully meeting any criticism I'm forwarding.

Okay. So our different allegiances mean we are going to continue to talk past each other.
But thankyou for trying.

Concepts are not about anything. They are focal nodes which facilitate human mutual communicative projects.
Your 'question' is merely an example of naive realism. (...turtles all the way down. )

Concepts are not about anything. — fresco

How do believe that concepts get started?

Read Heidegger on 'being thrown' ! :cool:

How would you say that "thrownness" addresses how concepts are started?

You are asking for speculation on the evolutionary origins of 'languaging' as a co-ordinating behavior. Being 'thrown' means we are molded by human languaging from birth.
(...or maybe you are just stringing me along. It's getting hard to tell )

You are asking for speculation on the evolutionary origins of 'languaging' as a co-ordinating behavior. — fresco

It depends on your view of how concepts work. Do you believe that we receive concepts from others?

Are you wanting to get into Kantian notions, synthetic apriori, in particular?
— creativesoul

...at the bottom of it all, this kantian scheme seems inescapable, so never mind, unless you have a better notion. I'm willing to listen. — Merkwurdichliebe

Kant's scheme is neither inescapable, nor adequate for accounting for thought/belief. There's much to be admired about Kant. To his credit, his CI is brilliant. To this day, it can be used as a standard by which to determine whether or not some thought, belief, and/or behaviour is good. And it is very easily taught and understood by impressionable children. Hence, it can still be used to cultivate a society of more conscientious moral actors/agents/citizens, and it inherently induces and/or promotes thoughtful consideration of others and consequences.

His failure to draw and maintain the actual distinction between thought/belief and thinking about thought/belief can be chalked up to the conventional (mis)understanding of his time. That neglect produced the notions of reason that are still all too prevalent in philosophical discourse. All of them conflate rudimentary thought/belief with more complex. There are a plurality of inadequate dichotomies at work in all philosophical discourse of the time. We've talked about many of these in past.


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Are you wanting to get into Kantian notions, synthetic apriori, in particular?
— creativesoul

Negative. I just wanted to hear your assessment of how the content of thought/belief can exist prior to thought/belief... — Merkwurdichliebe

Thought/belief is always about the world and/or ourselves.

How the content of thought/belief can exist prior to thought/belief depends upon the thought/belief candidate under our consideration. Thought/belief begins simply and grows in it's complexity. The simplest correlations are drawn between external things and internal things. The most complex are drawn between external things, internal things, and/or things that are both.

The screwdriver is a screwdriver in relation to its application. It doesn't need that relation to be a screwdriver... — Shamshir

This makes no sense. If a screwdriver is a screwdriver in relation to it's application, then it needs a relation to it's application in order to be a screwdriver.

If A is an A in relation to B, then A is existentially dependent upon being in relation to B.



Driving screws is something that all sorts of things other than screwdrivers are capable of doing in resourceful enough hands. Those things are not screwdrivers. If a screwdriver is so in relation to it's application, as you claim above, then all things used to drive screws would be screwdrivers.

You're conflating names of things with uses of things.

For a nondescript thing to change into something identifiable, like a screwdriver, because of its apprehension in thought/belief, would entail a problem of perpetual alteration, meaning that discovering anything new (qua functionality, correlations &c.) about the screwdriver would change it into something else. But, by presupposing all its properties in its propositional form (qua the existential constant), it retains its essentiality, despite any subsequent predication (true or false) — Merkwurdichliebe

Screwdrivers are existentially dependent upon us calling them by that namesake. There's nothing essential about being a screwdriver aside from being called such. Vodka and orange juice is, most certainly, a screwdriver... although one could not drive screws with one. If driving screws is essential to being a screwdriver, then a screwdriver is not always a screwdriver, but knives are.

Witt's criticism of essentialism is apt here. The only thing that all screwdrivers have in common is being called such.

For a nondescript thing to change into something identifiable, like a screwdriver, because of its apprehension in thought/belief, would entail a problem of perpetual alteration, meaning that discovering anything new (qua functionality, correlations &c.) about the screwdriver would change it into something else. But, by presupposing all its properties in its propositional form (qua the existential constant), it retains its essentiality, despite any subsequent predication (true or false). — Merkwurdichliebe

This also harks back to Heraclitus' river and all of it's untenability.

This makes no sense. If a screwdriver is a screwdriver in relation to it's application, then it needs a relation to it's application in order to be a screwdriver. — creativesoul

Nay, lad.

A screwdriver does not need a relative application to be a screwdriver, it is a screwdriver a priori. A screwdriver will develop its relative application inadvertently, but not by necessity - ironic as it may sound.

Simply put: If a screwdriver was all there was, it would still be a screwdriver without any external relations; but its external relations being inescapable in this world, become inadvertently part of what a screwdriver is. But it is not dependent on them, they can be added and subtracted at will.

So A's an A in relation to B, as it is, but it is also A regardless of B, as it is always A relative to itself.

You're conflating names of things with uses of things. — creativesoul

Maybe - but I figure words derive their meaning in reference to application.

Like how shears are shears because they shear and apples are apples because they grow on apple trees.

A screwdriver does not need a relative application to be a screwdriver... — Shamshir

Then a screwdriver is not a screwdriver in relation to it's application...

Then a screwdriver is not a screwdriver in relation to it's application... — creativesoul

It is, in part - and that part is inadvertent, as I told you above.

A screwdriver is existentially dependent upon humans.

Agree?

I figure words derive their meaning in reference to application.

Like how shears are shears because they shear... — Shamshir

And yet we park on driveways and drive on parkways...

:joke:

And yet we park on driveways and drive on parkways... — creativesoul

An the ON button on the remote is the OFF button on the remote.

It's a strange world out there.

Simply put: If a screwdriver was all there was, it would still be a screwdriver without any external relations; but its external relations being inescapable in this world, become inadvertently part of what a screwdriver is. But it is not dependent on them, they can be added and subtracted at will. — Shamshir

A screwdriver is existentially dependent upon humans.

Agree?

This gets to an important historical issue in philosophy proper, namely the misguided notions of necessity/contingency...

...

Nay. The screwdriver is not existentially dependent on anything but existence. Its being perceived however, may be dependent on humans.

This gets to an important historical issue in philosophy proper, namely the misguided notions of necessity/contingency... — creativesoul

I would like to hear more about this.

A screwdriver is existentially dependent upon humans.

Agree? — creativesoul

How would we prove this? If man is the measure of all things, then we can only understand this "existential dependency" by the measure of man. It is a perplexing paradox.

Nay. The screwdriver is not existentially dependent on anything but existence. — Shamshir

The screwdriver is a human creation.

It's not. It's a human discovery.

What makes it a screwdriver a screwdriver? Its identity. Where does identity come from: the thing (its inherent properties/attributes) or the one identifying the thing (a cognitive representation)?

I don't know.

It's identity and what it is identified as, are different - because they can overlap, wouldn't you agree?

The screwdriver is a human creation. — creativesoul

It's not. It's a human discovery. — Shamshir

Creativity and discovery - Man as artist, versus man as journeyman...a very interesting debate. And if both, which is primary?

A screwdriver is existentially dependent upon humans.

Agree?
— creativesoul

How would we prove this? — Merkwurdichliebe

If one cannot simply agree that screwdrivers are human creations and all human creations are existentially dependent upon humans, then there's not much more I can say to such a skeptic.

It's not. It's a human discovery. — Shamshir

We discover things that exist in their entirety prior to our discovery. Screwdrivers are products of our own manufacture.

It's identity and what it is identified as, are different - because they can overlap, wouldn't you agree? — Shamshir

I might agree, while I do incline towards a rejection of "man as the measure of all things", for argument's sake, I would have to be very clear about what we are talking about by identity to settle on one side or the other.

This gets to an important historical issue in philosophy proper, namely the misguided notions of necessity/contingency...
— creativesoul

I would like to hear more about this. — Merkwurdichliebe

Wait. I think it's coming.