Concept formation and groups

[agrippa1]

I'd appreciate a point to the literature if this is answered there.

My observation is that there are two ways of forming a concept when faced with a group of people (though I guess you could generalize this to entities).

Concept formation involves differentiating an entity or group of entities, and integrating them into a new concept which subsumes those entities. (If I understand correctly)

When people see a group of individuals they follow one of two paths in their concept-formation:

The first differentiates the individuals in that group, integrates them into a new concept that captures the recognized essentials of the individuals, and grasps a concept that subsumes multiple entities.

The second differentiates the group of individuals from other individuals and integrates them into a group, an abstract concept that subsumes a single entity, the group.

The results of these two paths are so similar, that some may have a hard time recognizing the practical difference, but I believe there is a fundamental problem with the second concept formation - that it is an abstract concept, not connected to any single concrete, but instead to the group, that is, to itself.

The problem is manifested clearly when we look at all men, and either conceptualize "man," a single entity subsuming every individual, or "mankind" (or "society", but I thought I'd give Armstrong a plug), also a single entity, but subsuming only itself, with no conceptual connection to any individual which it comprises. This false concept-formation seems to me a likely culprit in many of the false concepts that permeate the collectivist mindset.

I remember Rand calling attention to the mistake of, for instance, studying a hospital without considering individual patients and doctors, but that was in a political context. I don't remember her addressing this in epistemological terms.

[DavidOdden]

What do you mean by "faced with a group of people"? I'm walking down the street and see a group of people. It's a concrete, and not a concept. Are you asking how the concept "group" is formed? Are you asking how you identify a higher-level abstraction that covers certain individuals (for example, how do you identify "policemen" as distinct from "garbage men" or "grocery store clerks")?

The issue with "man" and "mankind" is a purely linguistic one, not a conceptual one, namely the development of formally singular terms which refer to the collective, that is, "all men" is condensed down to "man" (which we can't do for "all giraffes").

[Jake]

These are not two disparate methods. What's missed in your description of the first method, is that the true differentiation in the formation of the concept referring to that group of people is when you note what separates those individuals from other individuals not in the group. Let's say they are all blonde-haired, and they are the only blonde-haired people. You are able to integrate them into the concept 'blonde-haired', because there are people who are not blonde-haired. If every person were blonde-haired, the concept 'blonde-haired' would be equal to the concept 'haired', since 'blonde' would be an invalid differentia.

[Grames]

My observation is that there are two ways of forming a concept when faced with a group of people (though I guess you could generalize this to entities).

Different contexts of knowledge may prompt one to form a concept in any number of different ways. However, the two methods you described are a right way and a wrong way. If I understand your intent correctly, you are trying to describe the process of forming a rationalization in the second method.

A widespread error, in this context, holds that the wider the concept, the less its cognitive content—on the ground that its distinguishing characteristic is more generalized than the distinguishing characteristics of its constituent concepts. The error lies in assuming that a concept consists of nothing but its distinguishing characteristic. But the fact is that in the process of abstracting from abstractions, one cannot know what is a distinguishing characteristic unless one has observed other characteristics of the units involved and of the existents from which they are differentiated.

Just as the concept "man" does not consist merely of "rational faculty" (if it did, the two would be equivalent and interchangeable, which they are not), but includes all the characteristics of "man," with "rational faculty" serving as the distinguishing characteristic—so, in the case of wider concepts, the concept "animal" does not consist merely of "consciousness and locomotion," but subsumes all the characteristics of all the animal species, with "consciousness and locomotion" serving as the distinguishing characteristic. (We shall discuss this further when we discuss definitions.)

An error of that kind is possible only on the basis of assuming that man learns concepts by memorizing their definitions, i.e., on the basis of studying the epistemology of a parrot. But that is not what we are here studying. To grasp a concept is to grasp and, in part, to retrace the process by which it was formed. To retrace that process is to grasp at least some of the units which it subsumes (and thus to link one's understanding of the concept to the facts of reality).

This is from Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology ch. 3 Abstraction from Abstractions.

[agrippa1]

What do you mean by "faced with a group of people"? I'm walking down the street and see a group of people. It's a concrete, and not a concept. Are you asking how the concept "group" is formed? Are you asking how you identify a higher-level abstraction that covers certain individuals (for example, how do you identify "policemen" as distinct from "garbage men" or "grocery store clerks")?

The issue with "man" and "mankind" is a purely linguistic one, not a conceptual one, namely the development of formally singular terms which refer to the collective, that is, "all men" is condensed down to "man" (which we can't do for "all giraffes").

What I mean is that the people can be subsumed into a concept "member of that group" where several people are subsumed by the concept of a singular person with the defining characteristic of all the people in that group, or, they can be "subsumed" into the group, with only one member, the group.

"Society" is an example of a single member concept. "Man" is an example of a multi-member concept. Both concepts can be formed from the same group of people. But they are fundamentally different, because a specific member of the concept "man" has characteristics, but the single member of the concept "society" does not have any characteristics, other than the single one of being identified as "men."

Other group examples: "the medical profession," "the government," "The working (or middle, or upper, or lower) class," as opposed to "doctors," "public servants," "workers."

(Note: I'm not suggesting that these concepts are valid. Only that they lead to an inability to bring the abstract back down to the concrete.)

Edited February 28, 2009 by agrippa1

[DavidOdden]

"Society" is an example of a single member concept. "Man" is an example of a multi-member concept.

The difference between the two is that "man" can refer both to a single individual or all individuals, but "society" only refers to multiple individuals. On the "mankind" reading of "man", "man" is a proper name (and traditionally was capitalized for that reason), not a concept. It's only the non-collective sense ("person") that is a concept, and you will recognise that "person" doesn't have members. In addition, "adult man" refers to "males, excluding females and children". To emphasize the true nature of the problem, you must also remember that "man" is a verb, meaning both "to fortify" and "to operate". You have to be careful to not equivocate between concept and word, since concepts are mental integrations assigned to a word, and concepts are not words which have some cognitive function. This should be really obvious for words like "bank", which is highly ambiguous ("sloping shore", "financial institution", "rely on", "pile up", "tip sideways").

In other words, in trying to understand a general question about concepts, don't focus too much on "man", because of the problem of ambiguity.

But they are fundamentally different, because a specific member of the concept "man" has characteristics, but the single member of the concept "society" does not have any characteristics, other than the single one of being identified as "men."

As I understand your notion of "member", this isn't true (explain your notion of "member" if you don't think I understand what you mean). A member of "society" is a single person, and a single person has characteristics. A member of "man" in the sense "mankind" is a single person, and a single person has characteristics. All concepts unify existents, and no existents lack characteristics (axiom 2).

Other group examples: "the medical profession," "the government," "The working (or middle, or upper, or lower) class," as opposed to "doctors," "public servants," "workers."

"Medical profession" and "working class" are phrases, not concepts. "Government" is a concept. "Public servant" is a phrase and not a concept, while "doctor", "worker" are concepts.

It looks to me like your issue is with collective nouns which refer to humans. Obviously, the individual is the perceptually given, so higher-level collective nouns are formed by integrating individuals according to some other perceptible criterion. You don't perceive "doctor" and then learn to differentiate different doctors.