From: Scott R (jse885@spinn.net)
Date: Tue Mar 25 2003 - 02:22:17 GMT
Matt (and Erin),
> Matt:
> I read Scott as saying that concepts and essences are intrinsically
linked,
> which is why he blocks my move to make a distinction between the two so
> that I can have everyday, run-of-the-mill concepts without hypostatized
> essences.
Yes. I am trying to argue that the concept of, say, lion, is as real as each
particular lion, that one has to have the concept to perceive a lion, and --
but here I get esoteric -- the particular lion exists only because there is
a concept of lion. (The lion manifests that concept, which is the one, true
concept of the lion, i.e., its essence, while my concept is contingent.) To
avoid dualism, though, I claim the relation between concepts and particulars
is more complicated than that, and (once again) requires the logic of
contradictory identity. Concepts are dependent on particulars, as Rorty
claims, but particulars are also dependent on concepts, which, as a
nominalist, he denies.
Because concepts exist at all, whether or not one agrees with my extreme
view above, the nominalist has the burden of explaining how they come about.
It is done, so it is assumed, through abstraction from a lot of particular
perceptions. But how is that possible, without transcending space and time,
as I've tried to point out in my argument about perception? There is a
profound mystery here which the nominalist just sweeps under the rug.
You say, "to understand essence it seems you are trying to
> understand the meaning of meaning." Pragmatists take the search to
> understand the meaning of meaning as a philosophical dead-end unless you
> construe the meaning of meaning as Wittgenstein did: when we ask after
> meaning we ask about use. If we ask about the meaning of word X all we
are
> asking is how we use word X. This is relational. Philosophical essences
> imply static meanings, true meanings of words or concepts that must be
> ferreted out.
Again, yes, it is all relational, but it is also a mystery that we are at
all aware of the nodes in the relations, or that two or more nodes relate.
This is why I call nominalists dogmatic in the bad sense of the term, as
they "solve" the problem by pretending it doesn't exist.
- Scott
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