Maybe. I think you can interact with trees and triangles without concepts though. I don't agree with the object - perception - concept - mind model except as a subset of what we do. — csalisbury

But I can't know a thing is a tree if I have no concept of a tree, so maybe it's about knowledge (and foreknowledge). But having said that, I think I've gone as far as I can in saying something about what concepts are and what it means to have one. I really don't know.

You can interact with something without knowing what it is. You have a vague sense of it, or sometimes not even that.

You can interact with something without knowing what it is. You have a vague sense of it, or sometimes not even that. — csalisbury

Do you mean like the cloud of unknowing? I haven't read that, BTW.

I don't mean that here. Cloud of unknowing (I've read it, though don't claim to truly understand it) I see as a very precise text for the practicing mystic, mostly about prayer, silence, loneliness, moods --- the affective states for the day-to-day mystic, and how to make sense of them.

I meant something simpler. The best thing I could think of is kids playing a game, like in a forest. The trees are there and part of it, but just part of it. In a weirder, mystic sense, we're all part of an ecosystem and are connected, sharing something, without feeling, at a given moment, how it relates together.

The moment where we identify a tree as a tree is already a kind of distance.

The moment where we identify a tree as a tree is already a kind of distance. — csalisbury

I know what you mean. Knowing the scientific name for the tree species would take you even further out of the moment.

It can be hard to get back once that happens. The tree doesn't come and go with this change in focus, though.

Hmm. Gotta sleep.

You know what a chair is and can describe it thus because its meaning is grounded in a community of users without which your description would carry no weight. That is the relevant individual vs group distinction here and the one which renders Terrapin's argument absurd. — Baden

I agree that most of everything Terrapin says is absurd, but I think there's a confusion between understanding chair as a nominatum (the thing named) and chair as nominans (the name 'chair'). Qua nominans, yes, to understand what a 'chair' is requires a community of users who use the word in that way, etc etc. Qua nominatum, you need a great deal more than that, including all the stuff I mentioned regarding the grammar of chair (used for sitting, moveable, etc). I only insist that we can't treat the two nomen separately, and its only at the 'shallow' level of the nominans that one can argue about individuals vs groups and so on.

(Sorry about the Latin terms, but it's just a useful distinction that I'm used to and work nicely here).

Shallow's an apt term. Thankfully, the thread is taking a more interesting direction now. It is a bit rough to put things as I did. A hammer for a nail. So yes, it's right to emphasize the layering and development of concept as nominatum (shape and personality) vs the static practicality of use of nominans (linguistic token of exchange). My idea of a concept qua nominatum would be a virtual form that straddles cognitive modalities, mercurial but with a stable core and structurally bound. I also like the Deleuzian idea of the concept as friend (although there's also a sense in which we possess concepts and they possess us). And yes, there's the issue of solving problems. Although I might put it that concepts address needs and then build the foundations for more as they build us as thinking things. Anyhow, I need to properly read the last couple of pages here and catch up.

With respect to 'correctness', that's also a poorly posed notion. Concepts are neither correct nor incorrect, but rather useful or not useful, felicitious or infelicitious. A horseshoe is neither correct nor incorrect, and it's simply bad grammar to consider it so, the kind of thing one corrects in grade school. They are however, more or less suited to their purpose, a better or worse response to the problem and constaints around keeping a horse's hoof from wearing out. — StreetlightX

There are correct and incorrect definitions of words. For example, the correct meaning of the word "chair" is "a separate seat for one person, typically with a back and four legs". Hardly disputable.

I agree that most of everything Terrapin says is absurd, but I think there's a confusion between understanding chair as a nominatum (the thing named) and chair as nominans (the name 'chair'). Qua nominans, yes, to understand what a 'chair' is requires a community of users who use the word in that way, etc etc. Qua nominatum, you need a great deal more than that, including all the stuff I mentioned regarding the grammar of chair (used for sitting, moveable, etc). I only insist that we can't treat the two nomen separately, and its only at the 'shallow' level of the nominans that one can argue about individuals vs groups and so on. — StreetlightX

In other words, it's one thing to study the word "tree" and another to study physical objects that can be represented by the word "tree". I am pretty sure most people here are aware of this distinction, so I would claim that no confusion is taking place. (Notice also how I didn't use a single Latin word to express myself.)

I believe this thread is about words and not about things that can be represented by words.

I don't agree with the object - perception - concept - mind model except as a subset of what we do. — csalisbury

What is it that we do, that these would only be a subset of?

For example, the correct meaning of the word "chair" is "a separate seat for one person, typically with a back and four legs". Hardly disputable. — Magnus Anderson

I'd take issue with your claim that you've given "the correct meaning". It's 'a' meaning but not the only one in current use.

New usages may even emerge in the future. These new usages, in my view, wouldn't be incorrect.

Terrapin for instance has, in the past, vocalized a problem he has that people seem frustrated by his way of holding a conversation in a way he personally finds baffling — csalisbury

Not sure what that's referring to.

the absence of responsibility for the effects of one's words, — csalisbury

In cases where utterances are not causal. There can be cases where utterances are causal. For example, a bomb that's triggered by a voice command--"Alexa, set off the bomb."

In other words, it's one thing to study the word "tree" and another to study physical objects that can be represented by the word "tree". — Magnus Anderson

Unless my overactive imagination is projecting stuff that isn't there, I think there was more to it than that.

Re concepts as solutions to problems, would you characterize the concept of "food" for example as "the solution to the problem of finding sustenance/recognizing substances that won't be dangerous/deadly to ingest"?

So that you'd be saying that it's often an attempt to find a solution to a problem where we're not at all thinking about it in those terms?

I'd take issue with your claim that you've given "the correct meaning". It's 'a' meaning but not the only one in current use.

New usages may even emerge in the future. These new usages, in my view, wouldn't be incorrect. — ChrisH

It's important to understand what the other is saying before one proclaims that what they are saying is true or false.

Specifically, it's important to understand what it means to say that a word is being using in a way that is incorrect. What it means is that the word is being used in a way that is not used or that was not used by some group of people at some point in time.

"Word W is used incorrectly" simply means "Word W is used in a way that is different from the way that it is used or was used by some group of people G during some period of time P."

Nowadays, when people use the word "chair" what they mean is "a separate seat for one person, typically with a back and four legs". In the future, the definition might change, but when I say that this is the correct definition of the word, what I mean is that this is how people use the word nowadays.

(Notice also how I didn't use a single Latin word to express myself.) — Magnus Anderson

:up:

Nowadays, when people use the word "chair" what they mean is "a separate seat for one person, typically with a back and four legs". In the future, the definition might change, but when I say that this is the correct definition of the word, what I mean is that this is how people use the word nowadays. — Magnus Anderson

I think you're mistaken.

Any good dictionary (essentially a record of existing usages) will give at least 6 different meanings.

Or are you saying that the one used most frequently is the correct meaning?

I think you're mistaken.

Any good dictionary (essentially a record of existing usages) will give at least 6 different meanings. — ChrisH

That's true. Maybe I can correct myself by saying that's one of several correct meanings of the word?

I'd take issue with your claim that you've given "the correct meaning". It's 'a' meaning but not the only one in current use. — ChrisH

And I'd take issue with your interpretation of what he meant. I don't think that he meant that it's the only one in current use at all. I think he meant something along the lines that that's what it generally means in typical circumstances. I think that it's quite uncharitable to assume that he was unaware that oftentimes a word carries a number of definitions.

That's true. Maybe I can correct myself by saying that's one of several correct meanings of the word? — Magnus Anderson

Or that it's the correct meaning in the appropriate circumstance, that being the typical circumstance of referring to the familiar item of furniture we use to sit on, namely a chair.

I don't think that you've anything to correct. I think he just misinterpreted you.

<---doesn't for a second believe that anyone here is actually using "correct" to simply descriptively refer to what's conventional, with no hint of a prescriptive connotation to it.

So what? There's nothing wrong with that. As you said to me last night, that's your problem. It isn't a problem for the rest of us. The rest of us do not have a chip on the shoulder about this.

You're right. He assumed that I'm claiming the word "chair" has only one correct definition. He somehow ignored my main point which is that the word "chair" has a number of correct meanings (one or more) and a number of incorrect meanings (again, one or more.) The exact numbers are irrelevant. Even if I did make a claim that there is only one correct definition of the word "chair" it's irrelevant.

<---doesn't for a second believe that anyone here is actually using "correct" to simply descriptively refer to what's conventional, with no hint of a prescriptive connotation to it. — Terrapin Station

The correct answer to the question "Is 2 + 2 = 4?" is "Yes". What's prescriptive about that?

So what? There's nothing wrong with that. — S

The problem would be if one is claiming that anything prescriptive is objective, and of course I'm not a fan of people putting prescriptive social pressure on others.

The correct answer to the question "Is 2 + 2 = 4?" is "Yes". — Magnus Anderson

Are you just saying that that's the popular way to think about mathematics?

"2 + 2 = 4" is a statement that claims that the symbol "2 + 2" is equivalent to the symbol "4". It's a statement about language. So yes, it has to do with conventions.

The correct answer to the question "Is 2 + 2 = 4?" is "Yes". What's prescriptive about that? — Magnus Anderson

Nothing, and I take that to be a true analogy, given the implicit context of what you're saying about correct meaning. But why would it even be a problem if it was prescriptive to some extent? I can conceive how there might well be some accompanying thought along the lines of, "This is the meaning you should go by if you want us to have a meaningful conversation about chairs without you being a pain in the arse by making up your own meaning". Is it a serious problem to think like that rather than to pretend that nothing's the matter, and to humour the other person? No. I think that it's only a problem for people like Terrapin, and I've never met anyone who shares his peculiar gripe here. So I think that it's fairly safe to say that this is a Terrapin problem, not a real problem.

"2 + 2 = 4" simply means that the symbol "2 + 2" is equivalent to the symbol "4". It's a statement about language. So yes, it has to do with conventions. — Magnus Anderson

Can we make statements about something other than language in your view?

And would you say that you never use "correct" prescriptively?

"This is the meaning you should go by if you want us to have a meaningful conversation about chairs without you being a pain in the arse by making up your own meaning" — S

Which of course is already putting social pressure on them. If they don't use the meaning you're calling "correct," they're being a pain in the ass.

Or are you going to claim that "pain in the ass" is only descriptive, too?