So where's the solution to the 'Problem of Universals'?

[DavidOdden]

How do you know that the class property is identical for all members of the class?

It is implicit in the nature of "class". Your protestations notwitstanding, a "class" is defined in terms of a concept. The class of "men" is those things referred to by the concept "man". Classes entirely reduce to concepts. "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated according to a specific characteristic(s) and united by a specific definition". Classes do not exist except insofar as they have an identity -- whatever that concept subsumes. Two random objects with nothing in common are not a class.

[dbc]

While in the chat room a few minutes ago, Ogg_Vorbis was kind enough to let me know that he does think their is an answer to his question about universals and that all of this, to use his words, is a "paradox".

I enjoyed the back and forth but given his foregone conclusion on the topic, I think I have had enough.

Dan

[Ogg_Vorbis]

Ayn Rand did identify "the problem of universals" on page one of the forward to the first edition ITOE. It is the "problem" of discovering how abstractions (concepts) or "universals" can be objectively formed. She uses the rest of the book to explain how.

You haven't shown that she "dropped the ball" so please don't be insulting.

I'm thinking you haven't read all of my reponses because I have shown where she dropped the ball with her example of finding the manness in men. The problem is not where to find it, but whether it is identical from man to man, and how do you know this. I have also stated that this is a question for epistemology, while 'finding' the manness in men is not.

If you don't think it is important to relate concepts to reality, that is: be objective, then this discussion belongs in the debate forum.

David has already answered the color problem and as an example I would ask: have you ever been to Lowes? I've been doing some painting recently so I have spent some time looking at their color section. How do you think it is that the employees would be able to organize those colors in such a fashion (like a color wheel)?

On the basis of their similarity, as David said.

The line problem is solved in the same way.

And both "problems" are "problems of universals", which as Ayn Rand showed is not a problem at all -- concepts can be formed objectively.

The problem of universals does not ask how concepts are formed, but whether properties maintain their identity among various individuals of a class of entities. Nor does a theory of concept-formation solve the problem. A class may or may not have anything to do with essential characteristicis, such as the class of all purple books. Is the purpleness of one book one and the same with the purpleness of all books of the same class of purple books? And how do you know it? And so I get David answering "yes" but I haven't seen any response to the second question.

Ayn Rand's "answer" was originated by Pierre Abelard, as explained by wikipedia: "A position subsequently identified as conceptualism was formulated by Pierre Abelard. This advertises itself as a middle way between nominalism and realism. There is something in common between like individuals, but it is a concept in the mind, not an objective reality." However, "Critics argue that conceptualist approaches like Abelard's only answer the psychological question of universals," not the metaphysical one. "If the same concept is correctly and non-arbitrarily applied to two individuals, there must be some resemblance or shared property between the two individuals that justifies their falling under the same concept, and that is just the metaphysical problem that universals were brought in to address, the starting-point of the whole problem." It is an answer that offers no solution. But, "if resemblances between individuals are asserted, conceptualism becomes moderate realism; if they are denied, it collapses into nominalism." That's why I keep asking how do you know, to find out who is the nominalist and who is the realist, where Objectivism isn't even an option because it collapses into one or the other upon answering yes or no.

How do we, as rational animals, know what we know?: conceptually. This is how we hold our knowledge and this is how we are able to apply it to the universe: in the form of concepts. This is one of the two central questions answered by epistemology. And this is why Ayn Rand wrote "Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology". The answer to: "what do we know?", would probably take encyclopedias to cover.

So in the universe of lines I bet you and I could come up with tons of real world examples that are all similar: my computer seems to have many straight lines, my book cases -- lines, hardwood floors -- lines, clapboard on the house next door -- lines, jet contrail, laser level, curtain fabric pattern. They are all similar, in the context of looking at them right now. If the context for you asking: "is that line straight?" is that you want to fly to the moon, then I suggest you use a better standard than my wood floors.

All knowledge is contextual.

Here's your problem, she doesn't say that at all. This is what a perceptual consciousness does.

Man, is a conceptual consciousness, he stores his knowledge in the form of concepts. This is how I am able to identify a particular man from Tibet as a man even though I have never seen him before.

The mind also produces images which play an important role in recognition. Very rarely does anybody have to rely on a word definition in their daily lives, especially regarding concretes, mostly it is recognition based on empirical imaging which is based on thousands of encounters with the same objects.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

It is implicit in the nature of "class". Your protestations notwitstanding, a "class" is defined in terms of a concept. The class of "men" is those things referred to by the concept "man". Classes entirely reduce to concepts. "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated according to a specific characteristic(s) and united by a specific definition". Classes do not exist except insofar as they have an identity -- whatever that concept subsumes. Two random objects with nothing in common are not a class.

Two or more members of a class have to have something in common in order to share the same class, although it doesn't have to have anything to do with essentially defining characteristics. As with the class of all purple books, I have integrated them into a single class but have not formed any kind of arbitrary concept defining purple books. As Wikipedia says in its article on the problem of universals, "If the car and the rose are both red, then they both exhibit the same universal quality of redness." "Redness" is the classical quale used to illustrate the example. Of course they are all concepts: "class" is a concept, "car" is a concept; but I have said that "property" is a special kind of concept known as a class concept. Ayn Rand mentioned different types of concepts, concepts of method, concepts of consciousness, but not class concepts. The concept of "property" governs to those issues surrounding the problem of universals, since a universal is any attribute you may choose, essential or non-essential, which is universal to a particular class, such as the class of purple books. I suppose it is a concept of method, since it governs to the process by which classes are chosen in terms of universals. At any rate, you'll admit that I have not been remiss at all in defining my terms, I only have a hard time being believed on some idea which, after all, is found right there on Wikipedia for all to see. There are other webpages describing the problem but I can't find a better one than that.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

The "class property" you refer to is a particular way of regarding an attribute shared by the entities in question. The attribute exists "out there"; regarding it as a "universal" reflects the human method of knowing. Rand spells this out in the first chapter of ITOE.

For Objectivists, there is no "class property" separate or apart from the attribute(s) under consideration. I recognize your statement that you regard this, Rand's treatment of attributes, as deficient--at least as it relates to the problem of universals. Be that as it may, that is the answer to your question:

The answer you find unsatisfying has already been provided numerous times: The "manness" is identical in each man because the only thing under consideration is the relevant attribute(s)--with their particular measurements omitted.Dan

Oh well, as I said in chat, all answers to this paradox are dissatisfying. The problem is like a multifaceted gem, it gives off a different answer each time I look at it. The only question is determining who is the nominalist and who is the moderate realist here. I can use Rand's example of manness, and get one answer because it evokes essential qualities which define 'man,' or I can use the example of purpleness, which does not evoke essential qualities defining anything, and get a different answer. But now we're just dancing in circles, because I have to ask the same question again: is the property of rationality in one man the same rationality found in another man, despite the fact that everybody is mentally unique? Reality won't help you here, Dan, because it will only confound you with numerous examples, numerous distinctions. And to bring up another example, there is not a single straight line out there to match the one I have in my head, which is the paradigm of all straight lines based on nothing more than a definition I found online. I certainly agree with the method of defining what a straight line is, unfortunately when I go looking for examples of straight lines I cannot find a single one. What then was this definition based off of? If you think there is a disconnect between mind and reality already showing up here, it's not my fault, I'm only the messenger. Blame it on Wikipedia.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

The answer to your question is: No, there is no identical manness in man or purpleness in purple, because there is no manness or purpleness; there are only particular things in reality, and no two things in reality are identically identical. That was the problem of universals -- they don't exist. There is no straightlineness, there is no squareness. What exists are men, purple things, straight lines, and squares. This problem first arose with Plato, who claimed, in essence, that manness exists in some other dimension not directly accessible to man, but maybe to his mind's eye, so to speak. But that realm does not exist. There is no realm in which the purpleness of purple resides. So, one purple thing compared to another purple thing contrasted to a green thing is similar. Or if you want to put it another way, they are identical within a range, just like the wavelengths of light you referred to earlier; any light within the range you gave for red is observed as being red, any light within the range you gave for orange is observed as orange.

By the nature of existence, all things that exist are what they are; and they are particular, and no two are exactly, down to the infinitesimal, identical. So, one way Miss Rand dealt with the problem of the universal is to show that it doesn't exist in reality apart from man's conceptualizations; and to show that one can conceptualize because via conceptualization, one can consider something to be identical to something else within a range. For example, "A" is identical to "P" within the range of the set called the alphabet; and qua letter, they are exchangeable, one for the other, if all we are talking about is: Is it a letter?

Within the range of shades of red, each specific color is unique metaphysically, but it can be considered to be "identical" within that range that is specified with the standard that serves as a unit. Likewise, even though each man is unique, conceptually they can be considered identical within a range.

Somewhere in ITOE, perhaps in the latter areas where she has questions from professors, she goes into the issue of measurement within a range leading to "identical", since in reality, no two things are ever specifically down to the iota of measurement identical.

If you want to think about it mathematically, then for an equation like x+y=z, for that operation, all numbers for x are identical (i.e. a number) and all numbers for y are identical (i.e. a number), meaning that they work in the equation -- i.e. they all give a solution to the mathematical equation. That is what measurement omission gives you the power to do -- you can consider Bob to be identical to Mary, insofar as the concept "man" is concerned. That is, Bob and Mary are in the set because they can be considered identical within the range covered by the concept "man."

'Prof. A: As I understand it, each person's form of rationality has specific measurements, and my rationality or "manness" would not be literally identical to someone else's. But what we do in concept-formation, through a process of measurement-omission, is integrate the concretes according to their common attributes.'

In other words, common attributes, class properties, which are not literally identical, but are based off of resemblances. It is a psychological method of comparison.

'AR: The order in which we can or cannot form concepts and which we can do first is really more psychological than cognitive.' (ITOE, 213-14)

"On the higher, conceptual level, the process is psychological..." (ITOE, 29)

"On the perceptual level of awareness, a child merely experiences and performs various psychological processes; his full conceptual development requires that he learn to conceptualize them (after he has reached a certain stage in his extrospective conceptual development)." (30)

'Certain categories of concepts of consciousness require special consideration. These are concepts pertaining to the products of psychological processes, such as "knowledge," "science," "idea," etc.' (35)

'Axiomatic concepts are the constants of man's consciousness, the cognitive integrators that identify and thus protect its continuity. They identify explicitly the omission of psychological time measurements, which is implicit in all other concepts.' (56-57)

'Nature gives him no automatic guarantee of his mental efficacy; he is capable of error, of evasion, of psychological distortion. He needs a method of cognition...' (78)

So in the case of ITOE there is an answer to the psychological problem of univerals (see Wikipedia), an answer already covered by Peter Abelard and which is called Conceptualism. This, however, collapses into nominalism, as you can see from some of the answers I have gotten in this thread, including yours: "No, there is no identical manness in man or purpleness in purple." That is nominalism, which you then worked up into conceptualism, that is, the psychological approach to a metaphysical problem in analyzing how a man thinks when approaching the problem of concept-formation (or at least how Ayn Rand thought about it and therefore how the rest of us should think about it).

"A position subsequently identified as conceptualism was formulated by Pierre Abelard. This advertises itself as a middle way between nominalism and realism. There is something in common between like individuals, but it is a concept in the mind, not an objective reality. Critics argue that conceptualist approaches like Abelard's only answer the psychological question of universals. If the same concept is correctly and non-arbitrarily applied to two individuals, there must be some resemblance or shared property between the two individuals that justifies their falling under the same concept, and that is just the metaphysical problem that universals were brought in to address, the starting-point of the whole problem. If resemblances between individuals are asserted, conceptualism becomes moderate realism; if they are denied, it collapses into nominalism." Wikipedia, Problem of Universals

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

So in the case of ITOE there is an answer to the psychological problem of universals (see Wikipedia), an answer already covered by Peter Abelard and which is called Conceptualism. This, however, collapses into nominalism, as you can see from some of the answers I have gotten in this thread, including yours: "No, there is no identical manness in man or purpleness in purple." That is nominalism, which you then worked up into conceptualism, that is, the psychological approach to a metaphysical problem in analyzing how a man thinks when approaching the problem of concept-formation.

I've suspected this is your problem, and that is that you think the problem of universals is a metaphysical problem rather than an epistemological problem. Or, to put it more precisely, it is the relationship between man's grasp of existence (which is particular) in the form of a "universal" (i.e. an abstraction). And the answer is: MEASUREMENT OMISSION.

The aspects of two or more things being mentally integrated does not require exact identical aspects between the two or more things, because their measurements are omitted. Abelard may have come up with conceptualism, but he did not identity HOW it is done, which is through measurement omission.

If you omit the measurements, then this line _____and this line __________ are the same thing, because the only difference is one of measurement.

Nominalism means that the concept is only a name for something and that those somethings don't necessarily have anything specifically in common. Miss Rand does not say that. The commonality between the two lines I drew is that they are one dimensional, one of them having a certain length, while the other has a different length; but if their measurements are omitted, then they are the same.

So, in Objectivism, the similarity between the two or more things being conceptualized is real -- or if you prefer, the two or more things really are similar; but if you omit the measurements, they become identical when considered in the abstract conceptual manner of the human mind.

[Marc K.]

I have not determined if primacy of existence or of consciousness is the answer,

Foul. I call foul. I'm afraid we're going to need an answer on this.

Unless you first accept that there is one reality and that it exists apart from your consciousness of it, no rational discussion is possible. After all, how am I going to convince you that concepts can objectively describe reality if you don't accept that objective reality exists?

(or at least how Ayn Rand thought about it and therefore how the rest of us should think about it).

Please, hold the snide remarks. They don't help your argument and they are insulting. That's at least three times in this thread.

[agrippa1]

How do you know that the class property is identical for all members of the class?

How do you know this guy: is "yellow" if you can't tell if he's truly yellow, or a combination of red and green. Is the color "yellow," defined as light with a wavelength of between 570 and 580 nm, identical to a mixture of red (625-740nm) and green (520-570nm)? Or is it just perceived as identical?

The answer to that question, it would seem, determines whether you believe that existence or consciousness has primacy, but only in terms of universals.

It seems a cop-out to claim that "yellow," in reality, encompasses both true yellow and the red/green mixture, since that would imply that "yellowness" is not identical in all yellow things, unless we are willing to loosen our definition of "identical" to mean "perceptually undifferentiable," (as opposed to metaphysically undifferentiable) which brings us back to a perceptual basis of universals. Does this lead us from a primacy of existence to a primacy of consciousness? I don't believe so. It seems from previous discussions that we agree (now) that entities of reality are perceived by our consciousness, and only secondarily do we examine our perceptual knowledge to glean properties from the entities, and so to differentiate and integrate entities into conceptual abstractions.

The question of whether the universal, or property, is an abstraction, is an interesting one. My example from earlier in this thread, of the red and burgundy books which I recognize both as "red" leads me to believe that a conceptual abstraction has taken place in order for me to determine the redness of the books. Just as we differentiate entities in order to integrate classes of entities, so, it seems, we must differentiate hues and shades in order to integrate groups of colors into the concept "red," for instance. Similarly, we differentiate the borders of entities in terms of "straightness" in order to conceptualize a "straight line." Once we have conceptualized what a straight line is, through a series of evolutions that remove contradictions (for instance a wire pulled taut seems at first "straight" until we understand the concepts "gravity" and "catenary") we then apply a conceptual standard of "straightness" against entities in reality so to group them into classes or measurements of "straightness." Have we violated the primacy of reality to knowledge, in creating the concept of "perfectly straight," first perceived roughly in reality, by refining it conceptually in our consciousness by geometrical definition? I don't believe so.

In the question of how we construct the class "existents," I believe we decouple attributes from entities through the conscious process of attribute recognition, then combine attributes into impossible constructions of non-real conceptual entities, which we hold only in our minds. The origins of these non-existents is existence, but a rational process has created them from the perceived building blocks of reality. Our ability to omit measurements implies the ability to attribute arbitrary measures to the attributes of imagined entities (thus the conceptual "perfectly straight line"). By differentiating the imaginary entities from entities which are consistent with our perception of reality, we are able to form the concept "existent." A problem arises from constructing an imaginary entity which, by its imagined nature, is not perceivable. In that case, we construct an entity which we may believe actually exists in reality. Thus God, etc.

So the question of universals must need to be more basic than "redness" or "straightness" and must instead relate to broader attributes such as "color," "shape," "position," "motion," "size," "sound," etc. Anything more defined that these would seem to be a conceptual abstraction of these primitive, perceptual universals.

[DavidOdden]

As with the class of all purple books, I have integrated them into a single class but have not formed any kind of arbitrary concept defining purple books.

So you are arguing that "class" is a broader term that includes concepts as well as compositionally collocations of concepts each of which delimits a certain concept by picking out specific members. And the difference between the two is that a concept is conventionalized (see the discussion of "economy), where as a compositional expression is not a concept, it's a relationship between concepts.

If a class means "an intensionally defined collection", concepts are a subset of that, being those defined by a single predicate. If you know the relationship of "class" to "universal", that ought to tell you how concepts relate to universals.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

If two entities have the property of existence, then existence is a property, and therefore a concept. To say that "existence" is not a concept, is to say that no two entities have the property of existence, and therefore, that nothing exists, or at most one thing. Since your own consciousness is the thing that you can say with greatest certainty exists, then, at most your consciousness, but no more, "exists."

Where does Rand state that existence is a property? Your argument is circular. "If two entities have the property of existence, then existence is a property."

[Ogg_Vorbis]

So you are arguing that "class" is a broader term that includes concepts as well as compositionally collocations of concepts each of which delimits a certain concept by picking out specific members. And the difference between the two is that a concept is conventionalized (see the discussion of "economy), where as a compositional expression is not a concept, it's a relationship between concepts.

If a class means "an intensionally defined collection", concepts are a subset of that, being those defined by a single predicate. If you know the relationship of "class" to "universal", that ought to tell you how concepts relate to universals.

I don't, however, know that if I have defined a class of purple books, that I have therefore defined a concept "purple books." I have simply taken a universal property of these books and defined an arbitrary class, the class of all purple books, without violating human necessity by over-conceptualizing.

I can grant that ITOE governs to the similarity of individual purple instances of these books. Perception doesn't know anything about the measurements of wavelengths, but something like measurement-omission takes place, whatever it may be.

If you think that the purpleness, however, is identical from book to book, then it is a subjective quality you are identifying.

[DavidOdden]

I don't, however, know that if I have defined a class of purple books, that I have therefore defined a concept "purple books."

You should know that give credibility to a perversion of the Objectivist theory of concepts. The formation of the concept precedes, and nobody who understood the Objectivist epistemology would suggest that you first "define" an arbitrary pairing of properties and then form a concept based on that definition. In fact, there is in English no concept "purple book", and I find it unlikely that such a concept would ever be formed.

I can grant that ITOE governs to the similarity (it's lacking in many cultures) and in marginal cases even varies according to individual of individual purple instances of these books.

Specifically, the perceptual similarity coupled with measurement-omission yield conceptual identity.

Perception doesn't know anything about the measurements of wavelengths, but something like measurement-omission takes place, whatever it may be.

It is the omission of perceptual facts that are not essential to the what concept the unit belongs to.

If you think that the purpleness, however, is identical from book to book, then it is a subjective quality you are identifying.

No, it is a perceptual quality. Objective doesn't mean "physically identical". Perception is an automatic response to reality, and a man's perception that a given book is purple is based on the axiomatic, that which comes to his mind by his sense organs. The ability to perceive implies the ability to compare according to a standard, so that a man can know that one particular book is also purple, whereas another is red. The extension of "purple" differs vastly across culturess in one culture. Variability is not the same as subjectivity.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

Foul. I call foul. I'm afraid we're going to need an answer on this.

Unless you first accept that there is one reality and that it exists apart from your consciousness of it, no rational discussion is possible. After all, how am I going to convince you that concepts can objectively describe reality if you don't accept that objective reality exists?

There is a difference between 'primacy' and 'existing.' Rand herself distinguished between subject and object of perception, and declared the object to have metaphysical primacy. But which one has epistemological primacy? If someone asks me to decide, I'll simply say, "I don't know." I'm not even sure that the color purple exists in the object, since we know that, scientifically, color perception is not only a product of the rods and cones of the eye, but the color itself is nothing more than vibrating light-waves. So color itself doesn't exist until someone perceives it, only light-waves exist in themselves. The scientific definition of color makes no mention of qualities, only quantifiables. Is color perception therefore outside the bounds of reason? Only to those for whom science is the only rational pursuit, where every bit of knowledge is limited to that which is quantifiable using the appropriate instruments.

It is necessary to define qualia as something known through reason by the senses, a philosophical expression which assumes that philosophy is doing something rational that the other sciences cannot follow. The concept 'qualia' says, in a way: science can't go here, but reason nevertheless has a role to play. And reason may decide that qualia themselves are neither objective nor subjective, but a little bit of both. Color is objectifiable in terms of that part which is quantifiable; but it is subjective in that part which retains the non-verbal quality in perception which renders its definition only ostensive -- pointing is basically non-verbal. Neither objectivity nor subjectivity are primary in this, but if that conclusion follows from logic and reasoning then I see no problem with it. We don't have to complicate matters by pinning purposeless and functionless metaphysical labels on things. It just seems that there are important, non-arbitrary, non-whim-worshipping matters that are not completely objective either, and that subjectivity is not synonymous with the arbitrary.

Please, hold the snide remarks. They don't help your argument and they are insulting. That's at least three times in this thread.

Snideness is subjective, if you perceive snideness then it is a product of your own capacity for projection.

[DavidOdden]

I'm not even sure that the color purple exists in the object, since we know that, scientifically, color perception is not only a product of the rods and cones of the eye, but the color itself is nothing more than vibrating light-waves.

If you don't equivocate over what "color" is, you won't have that problem. If I tell you that, legally speaking, a tomato is not a fruit, does that change the nature of the tomato?

It is necessary to define qualia as something known through reason by the senses, a philosophical expression which assumes that philosophy is doing something rational that the other sciences cannot follow.

But that presupposes, without any evidence, that it is necessary to define qualia.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

How do you know this guy: is "yellow" if you can't tell if he's truly yellow, or a combination of red and green. Is the color "yellow," defined as light with a wavelength of between 570 and 580 nm, identical to a mixture of red (625-740nm) and green (520-570nm)? Or is it just perceived as identical?

At this point you are ignoring the important distinction between 'yellow' and 'yellowness', although you mention it later. First, we know that 'yellow' is not a pure perception, that is, a sensation, but an attribute abstracted out from the whole of a single moment or act of perception. 'Yellowness,' on the other hand, is to imply that the color is a quality of the object we perceive in that act. And in the same perception, we automatically perceive that the color yellow is not only similar to other perceived instances of yellow, but that the yellowness remains identical through all instances. However it is that we can perceive similarities, it is also a function of the mind to perceive identities through time, and these identities have nothing to do with our ability to define things but to automatically retain categories of perception across time and space based on some subconscious paradigm of what it is to be a particular quality. It is subjective to declare that such and such is straight, when in fact it is only perceived to be straight, and this standard of straightness exists within bounds of perception that are not scientifically quantifiable. And yet it is not irrational or arbitrary to state this, since while the products of science are bounded by that which is quantifiable, it remains an objective fact that the subjective and immeasurable rules much of our daily lives. The boundary line between that which is perceived as yellow and that which is not cannot be quantified, and yet we know precisely where it is. Even to state that something is "kinda yellow" is based on our knowledge of what yellowness is, identically and throughout all changes of a substance and held up in the mind as some kind of image for comparison purposes. Nor is this classifiable as skepticism, since I am stating firmly that perceptual judgment is knowledge-based, even if that knowledge consists of non-quantifiable, subjective assumptions about universals in which they are held to be identical throughout time and space even in the face of a universe of constantly-changing concretes (see Heraclites and his river problem).

The answer to that question, it would seem, determines whether you believe that existence or consciousness has primacy, but only in terms of universals.

Do you mean metaphysically or epistemologically primary? I believe that this question is governable by reason, but that scientific erudition fails us here despite knowledge of how colors are mixed to produce other colors. Such examples only serve to illustrate the fact that you know what 'yellowness' is, and this knowledge maintains identity through time and space, and through all changes of substances. Thus your idea of yellowness never changes, and even though such an idea can only be subjective it can never be random, nor abitrary, nor whim-worshipping. Yet it is subjective because it is based on personal judgments regarding thousands of experiences with the color yellow, none of which are quantifiably objective, on top of which is the metaphysical concretizing of your intellectual principle-standard or paradigm of 'yellowness,' setting it 'in stone' intellectually speaking. Perhaps this is why Rand stated that mental concepts and activities are "mental concretes." (ITOE, p 156)

It seems a cop-out to claim that "yellow," in reality, encompasses both true yellow and the red/green mixture, since that would imply that "yellowness" is not identical in all yellow things, unless we are willing to loosen our definition of "identical" to mean "perceptually undifferentiable," (as opposed to metaphysically undifferentiable) which brings us back to a perceptual basis of universals. Does this lead us from a primacy of existence to a primacy of consciousness? I don't believe so. It seems from previous discussions that we agree (now) that entities of reality are perceived by our consciousness, and only secondarily do we examine our perceptual knowledge to glean properties from the entities, and so to differentiate and integrate entities into conceptual abstractions.

Yellow is the result of mixing red and green; however, is yellowness the result of mixing redness and greenness?

Abstract qualities cannot be mixed, because I grant them metaphysical stature beyond that of the colors themselves since that is only a perception, and perception is based on the capacities of the senses (the presence of rods and cones, etc.) Even if you become color-blind or completely blind, the principle of yellowness remains. But it is therefore more than abstraction, in that it requires the addition of something originating completely in the mind, and that is, the universal quality it possesses, and that is the unalterability or unvariability of its identity throughout all changes in time and space and all variations in shade. An infinity of experiences cannot grant it metaphysical stature, the status of a quiddity, this is something that can only come from your reason and something you know automatically, without being aware of it.

The question of whether the universal, or property, is an abstraction, is an interesting one. My example from earlier in this thread, of the red and burgundy books which I recognize both as "red" leads me to believe that a conceptual abstraction has taken place in order for me to determine the redness of the books. Just as we differentiate entities in order to integrate classes of entities, so, it seems, we must differentiate hues and shades in order to integrate groups of colors into the concept "red," for instance. Similarly, we differentiate the borders of entities in terms of "straightness" in order to conceptualize a "straight line." Once we have conceptualized what a straight line is, through a series of evolutions that remove contradictions (for instance a wire pulled taut seems at first "straight" until we understand the concepts "gravity" and "catenary") we then apply a conceptual standard of "straightness" against entities in reality so to group them into classes or measurements of "straightness." Have we violated the primacy of reality to knowledge, in creating the concept of "perfectly straight," first perceived roughly in reality, by refining it conceptually in our consciousness by geometrical definition? I don't believe so.

No, but neither have you removed the contradiction except in your own mind, because only for purposes of the standard you yourself set have you 'removed' the contradiction, the fact that for certain reasons straight lines are never straight in reality. I don't think you've violated anything, you've only impressed upon reality your own metaphysical notion, pulled from geometry, of what a straight line is. It is metaphysical in that once the standard is set by you it is set once and for all, but this metaphysical status could not have come from non-mental reality where all straight lines are warped after all. Metaphysics is something the mind does to its own concepts to grant them the status of quiddities, not just their whatness or their identity but identity throughout all changes of substance, such that a yellow book and a yellow pencil remain identical through their yellowness as members of the same universal class of yellow objects.

In the question of how we construct the class "existents," I believe we decouple attributes from entities through the conscious process of attribute recognition, then combine attributes into impossible constructions of non-real conceptual entities, which we hold only in our minds. The origins of these non-existents is existence, but a rational process has created them from the perceived building blocks of reality. Our ability to omit measurements implies the ability to attribute arbitrary measures to the attributes of imagined entities (thus the conceptual "perfectly straight line"). By differentiating the imaginary entities from entities which are consistent with our perception of reality, we are able to form the concept "existent." A problem arises from constructing an imaginary entity which, by its imagined nature, is not perceivable. In that case, we construct an entity which we may believe actually exists in reality. Thus God, etc.

So the question of universals must need to be more basic than "redness" or "straightness" and must instead relate to broader attributes such as "color," "shape," "position," "motion," "size," "sound," etc. Anything more defined that these would seem to be a conceptual abstraction of these primitive, perceptual universals.

The question is: how does the mind get from 'red' to 'redness' when a pure example of red, that is, a pure sensation, cannot be pointed to in reality? "Sensations, as such, are not retained in man's memory, nor is man able to experience a pure isolated sensation." (ITOE, p. 5) There is nothing you can point to as exemplifying redness, when after all I can simply point to something else and ask, "but why isn't that an example of redness? Or that?" Or, "how can they all exemplify redness when none of them are precisely the same shade of red?" And then possibly, "how can none of them exemplify redness when after all you pointed to one example of it in the first place?" Perhaps its a mere prejudice, or subjective preference? I don't think so. Metaphysics is much more than that.

Edited February 22, 2008 by Ogg_Vorbis

[Ogg_Vorbis]

If you don't equivocate over what "color" is, you won't have that problem.

I don't see any equivocation, since the science only offers descriptions. Science cannot define for me the meaning of my perceptions, it can only describe light in terms of its wavelengths. Science can trace back the twitching of a muscle to the firing of a single neuron, but it cannot define what caused the neuron to fire. Free-will is the province of metaphysics. The problem of qualia and universals is the province of philosophy. Science can neither quantify my perception of color nor any act of my will, and philosophy doesn't have to. I cannot equivocate over nothing, where science cannot even offer a single judgment, but reason and philosophy can.

If I tell you that, legally speaking, a tomato is not a fruit, does that change the nature of the tomato? But that presupposes, without any evidence, that it is necessary to define qualia.

My evidence is the fact that science cannot define your perception of even a single color. But I am saying that philosophy, and reason, can. In that sense, reason needs to be saved from science in its fundamental principle that in order for something to be real it must be quantifiable (and have predictable results, etc). Free-will is not quantifiable, it is not predictable, and yet it is real. Science has nothing to say here, and I cannot equivocate using some theory or definition of color, qua perception or quale, that science doesn't even have. And yet this is not skepticism because science does not lay out the limits for reason, reason lays out the limits for science, and reason is not limited to science or else you should junk the whole idea of philosophy.

[DavidOdden]

we know that 'yellow' is not a pure perception, that is, a sensation, but an attribute abstracted out from the whole of a single moment or act of perception.

(Emphasis added) Do you have an argument that we should accept that claim.

[DavidOdden]

I don't see any equivocation, since the science only offers descriptions.

You've claimed that color is nothing more than vibrating light-waves. That's true if you mean "color" in the sense "particular vibrating light waves", and false if you mean "a perception". That's what an equivocation is -- taking a term and using it in different senses.

Science cannot define for me the meaning of my perceptions, it can only describe light in terms of its wavelengths.

I remind you that the obsession with definition is counter-productive. I cannot assign any sensible interpretation to "define the meaning of perceptions" -- you'll have to explain what you think that could mean.

The problem of qualia and universals is the province of philosophy.

No doubt, but it needn't even be in the domain of philosophy, since qualia and universals are unnecessary concepts.

My evidence is the fact that science cannot define your perception of even a single color.

Since my perception is a fact, it isn't necessary to "define" that fact, so I don't see how such a definition will end up as evidence that "quale" is a useful concept. If one wants to exactly measure the extension of a given concept, that has to be done scientifically, but otherwise, I don't see that science has any bearing on the point that "quale" is a superfluous concept, and that it does nothing to elucidate the nature of concepts or cognition.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

You should know that give credibility to a perversion of the Objectivist theory of concepts. The formation of the concept precedes, and nobody who understood the Objectivist epistemology would suggest that you first "define" an arbitrary pairing of properties and then form a concept based on that definition. In fact, there is in English no concept "purple book", and I find it unlikely that such a concept would ever be formed.

Right. Fortunately, I have only formed a class, where 'class' is a valid concept and not the perversion of Rand's theory of concept-formation. I have never tried to form a concept out of a class of entities such as "purple books."

http://wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=class "a collection of things sharing a common attribute."

But this class exists, as Rand said about the idea of a pile, "for convenience of identification." (ITOE2, p. 268) And it is thus, like the pile of dirt in Prof. B's example, neither an entity nor a concept of an entity. But nobody ever challenges the idea of a class of entities which can, nevertheless, be identified with a class, and is closely related to the concept of a 'set' as including the notion of all-ness, or universality. And certainly neither Rand nor Peikoff ever challenged it. Peikoff only challenged the conflation of 'class' and 'concept' on page 100 of OPAR, and that conflation was made, according to Peikoff, by a Bellevue Hospital schizophrenia patient. But nobody has dared to touch the very idea of a 'class' which is just fine the way it stands.

Specifically, the perceptual similarity coupled with measurement-omission yield conceptual identity.It is the omission of perceptual facts that are not essential to the what concept the unit belongs to.No, it is a perceptual quality. Objective doesn't mean "physically identical". Perception is an automatic response to reality, and a man's perception that a given book is purple is based on the axiomatic, that which comes to his mind by his sense organs. The ability to perceive implies the ability to compare according to a standard, so that a man can know that one particular book is also purple, whereas another is red. The extension of "purple" differs vastly across culturess in one culture. Variability is not the same as subjectivity.

For some reason my quotes never survive the process of replying. But I see you mentioned a standard of comparison. That standard is 'purpleness,' not 'purple.' Purpleness is what purple is, purple itself is just the color. You say that the variability of the standard may differ vastly, and yet the standard is not subjective. Indeed, Rand argues that one's idea of what 'man' is differs vastly from childhood to adulthood.

But I don't see what makes the standard objective.

[DavidOdden]

I have never tried to form a concept out of a class of entities such as "purple books."

Good, good to know that you are learning. Are you now in a position to know that if you have defined a class of purple books, you have not therefore defined a concept "purple books."?

That standard is 'purpleness,' not 'purple.'

So since the standard of comparison is all of the units subsumed by the concept, that tells me what this "purpleness" means, I suppose. There is no entity "purpleness" inside of books, indeed "purpleness" does not exist outside of the mind. What exactly is the difference between the concept "purple" and this thing "purpleness" that you keep talking about? Do dogs contain "dogness", or do dogs project "dogness" into the minds of people? I'm trying to get a firm grip on this ness-construction.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

I don't see any equivocation, since the science only offers descriptions.

You've claimed that color is nothing more than vibrating light-waves. That's true if you mean "color" in the sense "particular vibrating light waves", and false if you mean "a perception". That's what an equivocation is -- taking a term and using it in different senses.

I've claimed that for science light is nothing but vibrating light-waves, because those are the measurable attributes of light that define its color insofar as they are vibrating at frequencies detectable by the human eye. I am distinguishing that which is measurable, and thus scientific, from that which is not -- your perception of color, which science is only concerned with in that it can study all the various physical sensory organs involved. But we only know that which is physical and measurable through that which is not, and that is your perception of color, that is, its quale, a topic which science cannot broach or even comprehend, leaving its question for philosophy.

Science cannot define for me the meaning of my perceptions, it can only describe light in terms of its wavelengths.

I remind you that the obsession with definition is counter-productive. I cannot assign any sensible interpretation to "define the meaning of perceptions" -- you'll have to explain what you think that could mean.

The meaning of my perception of color lies simply in its bare perception, abstracting away the colored object and the presence of physical sense organs along with a sensing brain, that is, abstracting away everything except the bare perception of color itself. Granted, Rand says we cannot have such a pure sensation (p. 5), but that is not what I'm asking for, not the existence of a purely isolated sensation, but simply the abstract notion of, say, redness itself, the relationship between the perception of 'red' and the quality 'redness', and other such philosophical topics which are out of bounds for science.

The problem of qualia and universals is the province of philosophy.

No doubt, but it needn't even be in the domain of philosophy, since qualia and universals are unnecessary concepts.

As you wish.

My evidence is the fact that science cannot define your perception of even a single color.

Since my perception is a fact, it isn't necessary to "define" that fact, so I don't see how such a definition will end up as evidence that "quale" is a useful concept. If one wants to exactly measure the extension of a given concept, that has to be done scientifically, but otherwise, I don't see that science has any bearing on the point that "quale" is a superfluous concept, and that it does nothing to elucidate the nature of concepts or cognition.

Debates over the nature of the 'quale' have kept philosophy alive over the centuries, and since it is the concept at the very heart of the problem of universals, Rand has implicitly granted this notion the status of all-importance to civilization itself. And I am saying along with Rand that if it is the status of man's concepts that has to be defended, then this defense must take place at its very root, on the level of percepts which is the final battleground of the centuries-long debate over the metaphysical status of qualia or universals about which science has not one word to say. And rightly so. Philosophy determines what science has to say or not to say on a particular subject, the rest is left up to philosophy itself.

[Ogg_Vorbis]

I have never tried to form a concept out of a class of entities such as "purple books."

Good, good to know that you are learning. Are you now in a position to know that if you have defined a class of purple books, you have not therefore defined a concept "purple books."?

Ahhh, I have read ITOE many times, I have it in hard-copy and on Objectivism on CD, and what I recently noticed is that although Rand mentions the problem of universals she never brought up the closely-related concept of 'class' upon which the problem is dependent. That's why previously in this thread I filled in the missing chunk of her developmental theory thusly: entity - identity - unit - class. It is possible to treat a class as a unit, and unlike a concept it is not necessarily based on qualities essential to any concept, although it could be, and these qualities are essential to forming the class at any rate. A class can be based on any non-essential ingredients you find useful for the task, as long as that task does not involve concept-formation but only class-formation. So in order to clarify the problem of universals, which is my task here, it is only necessary to select some attribute held in common by all members of that class as my universal. It just so happens that Rand selected an essential attribute for her example, such that 'manness' is not only universal to the class 'man' it is an essential ingredient for the concept 'man.' But 'redness' or 'purpleness' serves the same function of universality for the class, say, of all red books or all purple books. So I needed to point out the fact that the problem of universals involves much more than essential qualities, it can involve any qualities as long as they are universal to the class thus defining the class of entities, not necessarily their concept. It involves the metaphysical status of all qualities, not just essential ones which would simply define them away as conceptual, epistemological, or worse, psychological. The problem of universals is, after all, a classic problem of metaphysics, it has been since the beginning, although how, if any, knowledge is gained through solving this riddle is also a question related to the induction of universal properties, essential or not, from masses of entities given in one's perceptual field. It is important to understand that the mind is given much more than essential qualities, and that these are used only for concept-formation, and that the problem of universals encompasses all qualities, not just those essential for forming concepts. Besides, the validity of the senses cannot be established by selecting only some qualities and ignoring others as 'non-essential.'

That standard is 'purpleness,' not 'purple.'

So since the standard of comparison is all of the units subsumed by the concept, that tells me what this "purpleness" means, I suppose. There is no entity "purpleness" inside of books, indeed "purpleness" does not exist outside of the mind. What exactly is the difference between the concept "purple" and this thing "purpleness" that you keep talking about? Do dogs contain "dogness", or do dogs project "dogness" into the minds of people? I'm trying to get a firm grip on this ness-construction.

All of the units subsumed by the concept would consist of every experience of the color purple you've ever had, each of which only strengthens your rational conviction that each and every instantiation of purpleness will always match your idea of it. I find the -ness construction to be the metaphysical substantiation of the implicit thought that purple things will, now and forever, serve to instantiate the idea of purpleness held by you and which is based on thousands of experiences with the color purple and its various shades. I believe it is a blend of concept and imagery, in that both concept of 'purpleness' and the subconscious image of what purple is combine together in a single intellectual act to form the human substantiation of the color purple which is 'purpleness.' "Substantiation" is a metaphysical concept, it is often used to delineate a thing's necessity, the metaphysical fact that stands as a rule without exceptions, in this case, that purpleness will always be purpleness throughout all instantiations, real or possible, of that principle in experience, and that every instantiation will always remain identical by means of the principle.

Note that in ITOE experience is also an important concept in the formation of axiomatic concepts. Notice that Rand uses the term 'experience' three times in the following text:

'Epistemologically, the formation of axiomatic concepts is an act of abstraction, a selective focusing on and mental isolation of metaphysical fundamentals; but metaphysically, it is an act of integration—the widest integration possible to man: it unites and embraces the total of his experience.

The units of the concepts "existence" and "identity" are every entity, attribute, action, event or phenomenon (including consciousness) that exists, has ever existed or will ever exist. The units of the concept "consciousness" are every state or process of awareness that one experiences, has ever experienced or will ever experience (as well as similar units, a similar faculty, which one infers in other living entities). The measurements omitted from axiomatic concepts are all the measurements of all the existents they subsume; what is retained, metaphysically, is only a fundamental fact; what is retained, epistemologically, is only one category of measurement, omitting its particulars: time—i.e., the fundamental fact is retained independent of any particular moment of awareness.

Axiomatic concepts are the constants of man's consciousness, the cognitive integrators that identify and thus protect its continuity. They identify explicitly the omission of psychological time measurements, which is implicit in all other concepts.

It must be remembered that conceptual awareness is the only type of awareness capable of integrating past, present and future. Sensations are merely an awareness of the present and cannot be retained beyond the immediate moment; percepts are retained and, through automatic memory, provide a certain rudimentary link to the past, but cannot project the future. It is only conceptual awareness that can grasp and hold the total of its experience—extrospectively, the continuity of existence; introspectively, the continuity of consciousness—and thus enable its possessor to project his course long-range. It is by means of axiomatic concepts that man grasps and holds this continuity, bringing it into his conscious awareness and knowledge.' (pp 56-7)

Integrating past, present, and future is not only an epistemological act, it must involve the metaphysical concretization of principle, and it is only its substantiation which can suffice to positively establish the Validity of the Senses, another problem which Rand did not solve in ITOE but only mentioned in passing and only negatively (its validity must be implied in any attempt to establish its disproof, the fallacy of the stolen concept). It is not on negative epistemological grounds that a positive answer to the validity of the senses can be found (all attempts have thus far been fallacious but that doesn't mean they always will be), but on positive metaphysical grounds. And in fact it is in our metaphysical natures, as rational beings, to ground even our senses in metaphysical necessity which cannot be found in the realm outside of man's intellect. The products of our senses are substantiated by means of the application of universals, which are not just epistemological or conceptual but hybrids of concept and image resulting from thousands of experiences with reality granting to our senses metaphysical status not granted by concept-formation alone.

Edited February 22, 2008 by Ogg_Vorbis

[Ogg_Vorbis]

So in the case of ITOE there is an answer to the psychological problem of universals (see Wikipedia), an answer already covered by Peter Abelard and which is called Conceptualism. This, however, collapses into nominalism, as you can see from some of the answers I have gotten in this thread, including yours: "No, there is no identical manness in man or purpleness in purple." That is nominalism, which you then worked up into conceptualism, that is, the psychological approach to a metaphysical problem in analyzing how a man thinks when approaching the problem of concept-formation.

I've suspected this is your problem, and that is that you think the problem of universals is a metaphysical problem rather than an epistemological problem. Or, to put it more precisely, it is the relationship between man's grasp of existence (which is particular) in the form of a "universal" (i.e. an abstraction). And the answer is: MEASUREMENT OMISSION.

The aspects of two or more things being mentally integrated does not require exact identical aspects between the two or more things, because their measurements are omitted. Abelard may have come up with conceptualism, but he did not identity HOW it is done, which is through measurement omission.

If you omit the measurements, then this line _____and this line __________ are the same thing, because the only difference is one of measurement.

Nominalism means that the concept is only a name for something and that those somethings don't necessarily have anything specifically in common. Miss Rand does not say that. The commonality between the two lines I drew is that they are one dimensional, one of them having a certain length, while the other has a different length; but if their measurements are omitted, then they are the same.

So, in Objectivism, the similarity between the two or more things being conceptualized is real -- or if you prefer, the two or more things really are similar; but if you omit the measurements, they become identical when considered in the abstract conceptual manner of the human mind.

It doesn't work with me, after all I have written about straight lines, for you to draw a line on your screen and then define it as one-dimensional, when the facts coming through my senses tell me it has width as well as length -- and then use it to argue that the problem of universals is only conceptual when it is my very senses, my very own eyes, exposing the fact that it is not. Because the one-dimensional line is lacking in your example, you have instantiated the actual line only in your imagination via construction, and only in a person's imagination and intellect can such a thing as a one-dimensional line exist. The line drawn on your screen has instantiated only your belief in a one-dimensionality that doesn't exist outside the mind, only inside the mind and serving as a paradigm which is at once geometrical and metaphysical. It is metaphysical because the lines only serve to illuminate the process going on in the rational mind by which a principle, that of straightness, is substantiated, and that this process is entirely intellectual, partially conceived and partially imagined as you have done before actually drawing the lines. And once you've substantiated the idea, you have granted it metaphysical necessity, meaning it is true once and for all, throughout all changes (i.e., variations in length). (See Heraclites and the river problem, in which the river never ceases to change yet always remains the same river.) It is the universal property of straightness that never ceases to be, this hybrid of concept and image, in that it always remains a paradigm identical throughout all time and all changes for whatever you conceive to be a straight line using whatever process of measurement-omission you desire in determining similarities.

The process of measurement-omission does not itself bring identity throughout all changes of substance, it only brings similarity. But its epistemological usage implies a certain metaphysical identity, which in this case is your paradigm of straightness itself. "A unit is an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members." However, before these members can be conceptualized they must first be classed together, and this calls for more than similarity: it calls for the identity of class properties universally for all members of the class. And this identity calls in the aid of metaphysics which grants to the members of the class substantiality qua members holding attributes, not only in common, but identically. Two stones are two units, not only through their similarity, but because of their universal 'stone-hood' which is metaphysical, not epistemological. Two square feet of ground constitute two units, not only through their similarity, they are similar through the identity of their universals which grants them the ability to be formed into a single class of entities.

Thus there is a missing step in Rand's exegesis. A concept is only a special form of class, consisting in essential attributes, but on a more general level you have the idea of a class which consists in mentally grouping together all possible attributes, essential and non-essential. So the idea of a concept must have been formed in terms of the more general process of class-formation. And at any rate, whether essential or non-essential, the universals are chosen on the basis of whatever use you have for them. If you desire to form concepts, then of course you abstract out only the essential ingredients. And, whether forming a class or a concept which is a special kind of class, this is done on the basis, not of similarities, but of that which makes perceiving similarities possible, and that is the universality of identities throughout the members of the class. Their identity is due to a metaphysical property known as necessity, which cannot be granted by the individuals themselves, but only by the rational mind on the basis of thousands of experiences with the entities in the class.

So concept-formation is only a special kind of class-formation which focuses on essential ingredients, whereas class-formation partakes of any ingredients you may choose defined by your purpose. Concept-formation, as a special kind of a more general process, is bound by the same metaphysical rules as class-formation involving the identity of universals throughout the members of the class which lends them their similarity, just as two shades of yellow appear similar because they are members of the same class of universal governed by the principle of 'yellowness.' And this universal is metaphysical because it is granted necessity, that is, it is a rule that never changes for yellow entities, holding valid not for any particular class, but for all such classes for all time.

Until an Objectivist can account for the perception of similarity in Objectivist epistemology, that is, without taking it for granted, the theory remains incomplete. But this has never been done. Only the metaphysical theory of universal class identity can account for perceptual similarity crucial to the process of forming units. It is only by means of metaphysics, of universals, that the straight line of your imagination can appear similar to the straight lines drawn on your computer screen, and that epistemological problems can therefore be solved. In other words, it is only possible to complete ITOE and account for such issues as similarity and measurement-omission after the problem of universals has been solved, not during its solution or as a solution.

[Acount Overdrawn]

Indeed, Rand argues that one's idea of what 'man' is differs vastly from childhood to adulthood.

But I don't see what makes the standard objective.

Implicit Measurement is what makes the standard objective. In the case of colors, a person observes a specific color and takes it as the standard of measurement for that color, allowing him/her to contrast other colors as "lighter" or "darker" or in a totally different group of colors. Using implicit measurement, a person doesn't have to stick to just that color; he can easily drop the color as the standard and pick a new one, but this is only possible for two reasons. The first is that this "implicit measurement" is not subjective: the colors do possess differences in hues which allows for comparisons without needing explicit numerical terms; the second reason is that implicit measurement is not intrinsic: setting a certain color as the standard does not give it some new intrinsic property; there is a level of the optional in what thing is considered the standard, and it can always be dropped as the standard.

Implicit measurement is what allows for a child's idea of "man" to differ from his adult identification (assuming that the adult has made contextual changes to his childhood identification of "man"). What is being implicitly measured is the range of consciousness, with the conclusion that man has the highest range of consciousness, the conceptual level, when he is implicitly measured alongside animals, plants, and micro-organisms. I've included plants and micro-organisms because while they have no range of consciousness, it is still an important identification to make: that plants, though living things like us, possess no consciousness, for example.

To explain this range, it should go something like this:

-Plants/Micro-organisms: No consciousness; passive reaction to stimuli.

-Lower animals: sensations, no knowledge of entities; active reaction to range-of-the-moment stimuli.

-Higher animals: perceptions, knowledge of entities; active reaction to perceived/unperceived stimuli.

-Humans: volition/concepts, knowledge of facts which can apply to all entities in a given group; chosen, self-caused actions, but also capable of the "lower" forms of actions. Such as active reaction to range-of-the-moment stimuli (e.g. reflexes).

When a person wants to implicitly measure things like colors or lengths, one does it by means of similarity, as you've made clear you're aware of. When someone wants to implicitly something not perceptual, one does it by means of commensurability.