Would you include the so-called 'primary intuitions' of time and space? — Wayfarer

I would, yes. While they may be pure primitive intuitions with respect to their use, they are pure primitive conceptions as regards their origin.

:brow: — Bob Ross

It is the most famous and quoted phrase in English language.

This is not an example of a valid analysis of 'to be': 'to be or not to be?' ungrammatical, old english for "should something exist, or not?". — Bob Ross

What would be your valid analysis of "To be or not to be"? Why is it ungrammatical? What do you suggest for grammatically correct sentence for it?

:up:

Would you include the so-called 'primary intuitions' of time and space? (It might be their very 'primitiveness' that makes them so hard to explain!)

I do consider the concept of space and time, in a phenomenal sense, to be primitive.

In terms of numbers, I am not sure that they are all primitive---perhaps they are. We can represent the number 2, for example, as the conjunction of the concepts of number, repetition, and the number 1. It is definitely word-resistant to explain, but conceptually I don't think it is circular. "2 = 1 1"

I don't think so. For example, try to define what 'true', as a concept and signifier, NOT 'truth', refers to without begging the question. I don't see how it can be done, and I don't see how it reduces to being.

My preferred example is 'the principle of noncontradiction' (PNC).

I don't think the concept of PNC is primitive: it is the idea that a proposition cannot be both true and false. However, and what I think you are getting at is that, PNC cannot be proven without circular reference. I am uncertain if that makes it a primitive concept or not, since it technically can be defined in terms of other concepts.

I guess I didn't understand your definition of 'being': can you give it again?

How do you define 'true' (and NOT 'truth')?

I think your are very close to my meaning, it is just a bit linguistic instead of conceptual--is all. :up:

To exist is to be the subject of a predicate.

This doesn’t refer to being at all.

If ‘to exist’ is ‘to be the subject of a predicate, then Unicorns exist because “Unicorns are red”. This obviously doesn’t work.

You aren’t capturing what it means ‘to be’ or ‘to exist’ itself in your definition. Likewise, it is circular, as indicated with the underlines.

I hold that some concepts are primitive and absolutely simple, and as such cannot be defined without circular reference (to itself). I am curious as to how many people hold a similar view, and how many completely reject such an idea. — Bob Ross

I reject it.

I will give the best example I have: being (viz., ‘to be’, ‘existence’, ‘to exist’, etc.). When trying to define or describe being, it is impossible not to use it—and I don’t mean just in the sense of a linguistic limitation: it is impossible to give a conceptual account without presupposing its meaning in the first place.

Under what conditions do you believe a concept presupposed in an act of speech? Can you distinguish presupposing a concept from using a concept? Or needing to learn a concept before deploying it? These aren't rhetorical questions.

So, do you agree that some concepts are absolutely simple, and thusly unanalyzable and incapable of non-circular definitions, but yet still valid; or do these so-called, alleged, primitive concepts need to be either (1) capable of non-circular definition or (2) thrown out?

I'd call a concept X presupposed by another concept Y iff any judgement or act which articulated or used Y could not be understood without understanding X. An example, try to imagine riding a bike ( Y ) without understanding what a bike is ( X ).

I'd call a concept fundamental if it is presupposed by types of judgement or acts. Like truth for my claim that it's windy outside.

That concept of presupposition yields a puzzle. How would someone learn any derivative concept of any fundamental concept? Imagine for a moment that "bike" was fundamental, then no one could learn to speak about riding a bike until they understood what a bike is. That sits at odds with how omnipresent fundamental concepts may be construed to be - being, the meaning of "is", experience, quality, quantity, truth and so on. How could you come to understand what a bike is without understanding what "is" means? The same analysis would hold for any practice which involved an object - any activity. But we live in a world where plenty of people know how to ride bikes, so they must understand riding bikes, so must understand what a bike is.

So it seems we live in a world where either people understand none of what we do, or fundamental concepts are rarely if ever employed for understanding anything.

Which would mean either that fundamental concepts are not used in the understanding or judgement of almost anything, or that understanding and judgement can be done without understanding presupposed concepts in the sense I outlined. Note "can" there won't apply to every act, just some acts.

Conversely, we live in a world in which people understand how to ride bikes and pick up trash, but not what existence means. So it would seem to me that fundamental concepts require everyday concepts to be in place before fundamental concepts themselves are understood.

However, I don't mean to construe thinking about fundamental concepts as useless. When people change how they think and act about something fundamental, it can have widespread effects. For example, whether people consider agents worthy of moral consideration defined by the presence of a soul, or indeed whether they need be human at all.

Fundamental concepts thus play a regulative role inferentially and analytically upon that which they impact. Even if their understanding is not presupposed in the articulation or judgement of what they inferentially and analytically constrain.

Thus, I view fundamental concepts as central strands in our collective web of thoughts and judgements. You can't make the web without having them there, but the web needs to be made at the same time as them. They are fundamental in terms of the scope of change their modification can bring, but not presupposed for understanding everything their change would impact.

There is a valid distinction between conceptual vs. linguistic circularity: the former is circularity in the underlying idea, and the latter is circularity in the given language.

E.g., the analysis of "Non-spatiality" is not conceptually circular, but is linguistically circular. What exists non-spatially, exists beyond, sans, without, etc. space; which is linguistically circular. However, conceptually, it is perfectly valid to ask what is "beyond" space.


Some of your examples aren't even circular. E.g., a "word" is a string of symbols which signifier a particular underlying meaning in the given language.

I don't think concepts are culturally relative. The words we use to describe them are, and the ones we expound may be a reflection of cultural interests, but they aren't relative to cultures themselves.

To be could be defined as that which is necessary for any subject to undertake an action.

So 'that thing exists' = 'that thing is necessary for any subject to undertake an action'? This doesn't address what it means 'to exist' at all.

All you have noted is that being underlies everything else; which is true, but not a valid definition of what it means to exist.

"To be or not to be" means "should something exist, or should it not?"

I do consider the concept of space and time, in a phenomenal sense, to be primitive. — Bob Ross

Primitive, yes, but….in a phenomenal sense? What is meant by a phenomenal sense?

Space and time are merely irreducible forms of sensuous intuition, so I’m wondering in what manner could they have a phenomenal sense, when they are not themselves phenomena but merely represent that by which phenomena are given their extension and temporal form in compliance with a sensation.

How do you define 'true' (and NOT 'truth')? — Bob Ross

The example below, from another post, helps to illustrate how seamlessly "true" couples with other concepts. Not so with "be".

"When someone says "I know that the distance to my local grocery store is 10 miles", they do not mean that they are absolutely certain nor that it is absolutely true that <...>; rather, they mean that they are (1) have a belief that , (2) are justified in, (3) and have high enough credence levels to claim that it is true that <...>."

Look, I realize that was possibly cheeky. The problem is, we have entered a region of the cave, immediately adjacent to the opening, where it is all too obvious we are just playing with shadows.

So, do you agree that some concepts are absolutely simple, and thusly unanalyzable and incapable of non-circular definitions, but yet still valid; or do these so-called, alleged, primitive concepts need to be either (1) capable of non-circular definition or (2) thrown out? — Bob Ross

On circularity, consider the way this philosopher addresses the problem of defining what art is:

But how are we to be certain that we are indeed basing such an examination on art
works if we do not know beforehand what art is? And the nature of art can no more be
arrived at by a derivation from higher concepts than by a collection of characteristics
of actual art works. For such a derivation, too, already has in view the characteristics
that must suffice to establish that what we take in advance to be an art work is one in
fact. But selecting works from among given objects, and deriving concepts from principles, are equally impossible here, and where these procedures are practiced they are a
self-deception. Thus we are compelled to follow the circle. This is neither a makeshift nor a defect.
To enter upon this path is the strength of thought, to continue on it is the feast of
thought, assuming that thinking is a craft. Not only is the main step from work to art a
circle like the step from art to work,but every separate step that we attempt circles in
this circle.

All concepts are like this, circular, that is, empirical, apriori, it doesn't matter, because when the matter as to a concept's ontology is raised, there is this dynamic that looks to the concept, and looks back at what the concept is "about" and tries characterize the relation. But this never yields something definitive. It continues on, for all concepts are ontologically indeterminate. They are works always in progress, so to speak. Try finding something definitive is like looking for Moses' stone tablets.

I hold a similar view. I imagine concepts derived from the fact of one’s embodied state are quite primitive and foundational. Concepts such as “inside” or “outside”, “forward” and “backward”, “through” or “over” or “under”, all seem inextricably linked to one’s form as a being insofar as it moves through space and time.

I think this should be viewed more as a critique of language than conceptual looks. This reminds me of trying to describe color to a blind person, the words we use limit us in some areas and I think this is one of those examples of the imperfect nature of language.

First of all, all definitions are essentially circular, as evidence by somebody not being able to immediately glean a language simply by by being handed a dictionary. But with some ideas, the circularity of the definition becomes very short, such as in your example. — noAxioms

I think this is a good point. Every object can be defined with its relations to all other objects. We can arbitrarily take some objects as "primitive" and define other objects with relations to these "primitive" ones. However, some objects are more frequent than others, like some words are more frequent than others in a language extract. It is useful to focus on these more frequent ones, and perhaps take them as primitive (as a basis for defining others), because it makes understanding reality easier; these are the regularities or commonalities in reality, known as fundamental (most general) concepts, or fundamental (smallest) particles, or laws of nature. It is easier to define movements of planets of the solar system with their relations to the Sun than to the Earth.

I don't think concepts are culturally relative. — Bob Ross

I didn't say othewise.

So 'that thing exists' = 'that thing is necessary for any subject to undertake an action'? — Bob Ross

No, it is necessary for a thing to exist for it to undertake an action. The hypernym of all verbs therefore.

which is true, but not a valid definition of what it means to exist — Bob Ross

I would have to ask what you mean by "valid definition". As I noted, this definition of the concept seems to come after the fact that we already grasp it, instead of the usual «defining a concept before we can grasp it». It may give some grounding to what it means to be, other than a word without good definition.

I think there are a lot of concepts that are not decomposable, that is, you cannot break them down into component parts without losing something. Perception might be one of these things. It's easy enough to describe perception. E.g., "you see a beautiful sunset over Death Valley."

If you try to decompose the experience into what causes it though, you end up losing elements. No amount of talk of neurons or light waves, B-minimal properties, etc., no matter how informative, seems to avoid losing something.

Every object can be defined with its relations to all other objects.

Right, there are some pretty good arguments out of the Thomist camp that all properties of things have to involve how they relate to other things or parts of themselves. For example, John of St. Thomas points out that even substance is constituted of how it relates to other substances. I think a parallel might be drawn here to information theory as well. Describing anything meaningfully requires some sort of difference. I think some good metaphysical inferences can be drawn from what is minimally necessary to describe anything.

Which makes it kind of funny that arelational knowledge of "things-in-themselves" became a sort of gold standard of knowledge in some areas of philosophy.

But then what does it mean for something to simple? That it relates to all things in just one way? I am not sure what fits that bill. That it cannot be decomposed into constituent parts without losing something? A lot of things seem to be primitive in that way.

I think there are a lot of concepts that are not decomposable, that is, you cannot break them down into component parts without losing something. Perception might be one of these things. It's easy enough to describe perception. E.g., "you see a beautiful sunset over Death Valley."

If you try to decompose the experience into what causes it though, you end up losing elements. No amount of talk of neurons or light waves, B-minimal properties, etc., no matter how informative, seems to avoid losing something. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Maybe that's because such descriptions are incomplete and even if they were complete they might be infinitely long or they might involve objects or relations that are difficult to imagine. At least neurons and light waves are 3-dimensional spatial objects so we can form some simplified picture of them, but consciousness also seems extended in time, so we might need to imagine qualia as spatiotemporal, hence 4-dimensional objects, which I don't know if anybody can. And if Gulio Tononi is right, then qualia are objects with many more dimensions in some abstract space of possible causal relations.

Right, there are some pretty good arguments out of the Thomist camp that all properties of things have to involve how they relate to other things or parts of themselves. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Trivially, all relations between any two objects can be said to be similarity relations which specify which properties the two objects have in common and which properties they don't. Thus any object (as a bundle of all its properties) is, in principle, completely defined by its (similarity) relations to all other objects.

But then what does it mean for something to simple? — Count Timothy von Icarus

Mereologically it means that it has no parts, or set-theoretically it is an empty set. But in another sense, I would say that every object, no matter whether it has parts or not, is something simple, unstructured, a monadic quality, a whole. A whole may have relations to other objects that are its parts, but it is not identical to any of its parts, it is something else than any of its parts, something in addition to its parts, which has part-whole relations to its parts.

Under what conditions do you believe a concept presupposed in an act of speech?

I didn’t understand this question: can you re-phrase it?

Can you distinguish presupposing a concept from using a concept?

To use a concept, is to deploy it; and to presuppose a concept is to use a concept in a manner whereof one does not explicate its meaning (but, rather, uses it implicitly in their analysis).

I am not following how this relates to the OP.

Or needing to learn a concept before deploying it?

I agree that one needs to learn a concept, or idea, at least notionally, before deploying it.

How could you come to understand what a bike is without understanding what "is" means?

Oh, I think I understand where your are heading; so let me clarify: by claiming ‘being’, or any absolutely simple concept, is unanalyzable and primitive, I DO NOT mean to convey that we cannot come to know what they are. I mean that we can’t come to know them through conceptual analysis: they remain forever notions, which are acquired via pure intuitions (about reality).

We all know exactly what ‘to be’ is, yet we can’t explicate it without circularity.

You are presupposing that space and time are only (presumably synthetic) a priori. I accept that the space and time which are our forms of experience are a priori, but not that space and time do not exist beyond that in reality.

By 'phenomenal' sense, I mean space and time as it pertains to our experience (of reality) and not reality itself; to be contrasted with 'cosmic' space and time.

I don't see a definition of 'true' anywhere in your response, and am a little confused. What's your definition?

You don't think concepts are determinate? How is the concept of a circle not determinate?

:up:

Concepts are more universal than words, because words refer to the concepts. I think that, despite whatever limitations we may have in our language, there are concepts which are absolutely simple.

To discuss which words are absolutely simple, is to just critique a particular language; and, although that can certainly be done, it is not really what the OP is about.

I am not merely claiming that 'being' cannot be defined linguistically non-circularly: I mean the very concept is absolutely simple. No matter what conceptual analysis we give, it won't produce anything meaningful about 'being'.

No, it is necessary for a thing to exist for it to undertake an action

But you haven't defined what it means to exist: you have just noted that only existent things can undertake action. This doesn't define being at all.

You posts often do not come up in mentions and are not flagged. Something to do with the way you are editing them, at a guess.

To exist is to be the subject of a predicate.

This doesn’t refer to being at all.

If ‘to exist’ is ‘to be the subject of a predicate, then Unicorns exist because “Unicorns are red”. This obviously doesn’t work.

You aren’t capturing what it means ‘to be’ or ‘to exist’ itself in your definition. Likewise, it is circular, as indicated with the underlines. — Bob Ross

Yeah, it does talk to being. It does it by clarifying the confused notion of "exists" or "is". It's a result of the development of formal logic after Russell and Frege. Three clear sense of "is" were identified, the "is" of equality, "=", "superman =Clark Kent"; the "is" of predication, f(a), "that tree is green"; the "is" of existential quantification ∃(x)f(x), "there is something that is green".

You aren’t capturing what it means ‘to be’ or ‘to exist’ itself in your definition. — Bob Ross

Actually, what is happening is that you are not recognising that there are at least three differing senses of "to be". It doesn't follow from "the unicorn has four legs" that there are unicorns.

Likewise, it is circular, as indicated with the underlines. — Bob Ross

Look again.