Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sun Jun 13, 2021 7:02 pm
RCSaunders wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 6:34 pm
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
Thanks. You refer to 'concepts which identify things other than physical entities'. But what and where is a concept?
What a concept is would require a little more than a, "twenty words or less," explanation, since they are the foundation of all epistemology. Concepts are not, "things," not, "entities with a location." A concept is simply the identification of an existent. Anything's identity is whatever its attributes (qualities, characteristics, and properties are). A concept is the means of holding in consciousness the awareness of a thing by means of its stored identity in memory when that thing cannot be directly perceived. It's by means of concepts one can think about apples seen yesterday and apple pie tomorrow.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
And in what way does a concept 'identify' a thing - by naming it?
Certainly not. A thing is whatever it's qualities are, a concept is the identity of a thing by means of those qualities which are the thing. A, "name," (or word) is not a concept, it is symbol which stands for or represents the concept, which is the actual identification of the existent.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
And what are supposed 'things other than physical entities'? In what way do such things exist?
They aren't, "things." They exist in the same way your aches and pains exist, as conscious experiences.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
... at the heart of the debate between Platonists and nominalists - assumes there are such things as universals which, therefore do or may exist. And that's the nomenclaturist delusion I'm talking about. What exactly are nominalists denying?
Who cares. There certainly are concepts for all those things that have the same attributes, which can be considered classes or categories of existents (universals), but there is nothing ontological about that. It's simply an epistemological method. One may correctly describe two different categories of birds (white swans and black swans) as two different concepts or one category of swans (both black and white, with the different colors as sub-catgories) but it is entirely arbitrary. There are no universals in either the platonic realist or nominalist senses.
If I write down a comprehensive description of an apple, that description is a concept--not the writing but what you understand when you read it. There is no meaning in the writing. The meaning only existed in my consciousness when I wrote and only exists in your consciousness when you read and understood it. The understanding of that description is the concept.
That description, however, is not what the concept means. What the concept means is the actual entity or entities the description describes as those described entities actually exist.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
I'm fully aware of how uncomfortable my standing question really is. But I think we've been fooling ourselves for at least two and a half millennia - and probably a great deal longer than that. Or, at least, (most) philosphers have. Regular people don't care.
What discomfort? I agree that almost everything philosophers have said about epistemology, with the exception of Abelard who has wrongly been classified a nominalist (he definitely wasn't) is mostly superstitious nonsense, and since Hume has become hopeless.
Thanks again. So here's a list of your ways of describing a concept, or concepts.
1 Concepts are not, "things," not, "entities with a location."
2 A concept is simply the identification of an existent.
3 A concept is the means of holding in consciousness the awareness of a thing by means of its stored identity in memory when that thing cannot be directly perceived.
4 ...a concept is the identity of a thing by means of those qualities which are the thing
5 ...the concept, which is the actual identification of the existent.
6 If I write down a comprehensive description of an apple, that description is a concept--not the writing but what you understand when you read it.
7 That description, however, is not what the concept means. What the concept means is the actual entity or entities the description describes as those described entities actually exist.
8 ...they are the foundation of all epistemology.
Perhaps you'll agree there's some confusion here. A concept is not a thing with a location, but it's located in 'consciousness'.
The word, "in," obviously, is meant in the same way it is meant in expressions like, "in geometry, a line is ..., " or, "in this case," which do not indicate a physical location, but a prepositional relationship. I never actually used the phrase, "located in consciousness." What I said was, "A concept is the means of holding in consciousness the awareness of a thing ...," which possible ambiguity is cleared up by rephrasing it, "A concept is the means of consciously being aware of a thing ..." which has the exact same intended meaning.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
A concept both is something - the identity and (?) the identification of an existent by means of its properties - and means something - the actual thing described by a description.
Yes, that's right.
If you were working for me and I asked you to get a pair of shears from the tool box, but you didn't know what shears were, I would described them (their properties) to you. That description would be the shears', "identity," which you would use to, "identify," which tool from the tool box to get. When I told you to get the, "shears," of course, I did not me get the description of the shears (the definition), I meant the actual shears. The word, "shears," I used represented the concept that identified (by means of the description) the actual tool I wanted you to get. Please don't make too much of it. It is very simple.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
We use the word 'concept' in various vague but seemingly technical ways.
I only ever use the word concept exactly as just described.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
But anyway, you seem to agree with me that 'the identification of an existent' is an entirely physical process in a brain. I get no sense of lingering substance-dualism in anything you say. What we call a concept is, at least, not an abstract thing.
Well I'm sorry to disappoint you. A concept is not an, "abstraction," but it certainly isn't physical. It is not a physical entity, substance, attribute, or event. The word that represents a concept can exist physically (as a written, spoken or signed symbol), and whatever aspect of a concept that requires memory requires the physical aspects of the brain, and when the concept is of a physical entity the meaning of the concept is a physical entity, but the concept itself, as the identification of an existent, is a non-physical conscious phenomenon, which is why, no concept or knowledge exists independently of human consciousness.
Peter Holmes wrote: ↑Sat Jun 12, 2021 5:10 am
So my question about things such as knowledge and truth remains. Are they 'existents' with properties?
Well of course they exist and have properties, because every existent, both physical, and epistemological has properties, because everything that exists is whatever its properties (qualities, attributes, and characteristics) are.
If you mean by, "properties," only physical properties, of course knowledge would not exist, and either would the quality, "truth," which only pertains to propositions. So you would either have to say, they do not exist (which is absurd), or understand that everything that depends for its existence on the human conscious mind does not have physical existence, which I suspect you would not like to do. That's OK, but I think it leaves you with an irresolvable dilemma.
I suspect that you might think regarding consciousness as not physical introduces some kind of, "dualism," or, "supernaturalism." But that worry is based on the superstitious notion that some God or something dictated that natural existence can only have physical properties, when it is quite obvious to anyone that there are organism with attributes that are not physical, like life, consciousness, and the human volitional, rational, intellectual mind. I reject anything that cannot be known from evidence anyone can be directly be conscious of or be discovered by reasoning from such evidence but equally reject the evasion of evidence that is available to anyone, especially their own life, consciousness, and mind.
I'm not trying to convince you or change your mind, Peter, only explaining that there is a perfectly rational valid way of understanding reality that does not result in endless mysteries and complication.