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defining "initiation of force"

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Tom Rexton

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A lot has transpired here rather quickly....

Tom, let me add, if it is not already clear, that force is an action, and we can differentiate the initiation of force from its retaliatory use. If you want to form a separate concept for each of these actions, along with accompanying definitions, then in doing so you are not adding something that is not already explained by other concepts, such as "intitiation," "retaliatory," and "force." So, if you are having difficulty attempting to define a concept with a word to stand for "initiation of force" because "initiation" is used circularly, then the problem lies in your grasp of a proper definition of the separate concept "initiation." (This is independent of whether or not it is useful to form separate concepts for the two different acts, i.e., initiation of force or its retaliatory use.)

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As I understand it, a definition serves as identification. It differentiates a concept from its genus, or broader concept, and identifies which differentia, or lesser concept(s) that it subsumes.

In this case, it appears that either force or initiation may be the genus. For example, we may use force as the genus and use accidental and intentional as differentia. On the other hand, we may use initiate as the genus and use rationality or force as differentia. I prefer to use the word “aggress” to mean, “initiate force.” This is opposed to “initiate rationality.” If one aggresses, then this implies transgression: crossing a boundary or dividing line.

It is also helpful to remember that the meaning of words is contextual. That is, some words serve as auditory symbols for more than one concept. The way to tell which concept is indicated depends on how the other words around the word stand in relation to the word in question. I.e.” in context” or “with text.”

Consider this:

The willful first use of physical action in a human relationship.

Notice that this definition places the genus and differentia into a broader concept, that of interpersonal relationships. It also has the modifier of “willful.”

Ayn Rand defined “humans” as “rational animals.” In trying to define “initiation of force,” I would study this definition. I would also keep in mind Rand’s Razor; that concepts are not to be multiplied beyond necessity.

I am trying to offer useful advice here. However, my thinking cap has been fitting a little loosely of late, so I would take these words with a grain of salt.

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The dictionary is our friend!

Yes, but what kind of friend? Most general dictionaries don't define concepts. What most do is collect usages of words and thereby the ideas associated with those words -- right or wrong, good or bad, logical or illogical.

Well-wrought dictionaries go one step further by indicating generality of usages. Often the first use is the most general one (which does not necessarily mean most fundamental in meaning), with later ones being more specialized (in a particular science, for example) or metaphorical.

For sure, dictionaries don't usually provide philosophical definitions -- that is, genus and differentia classifications of concepts in a form suitable for everyone's use. Dictionaries can be useful to philosophers -- as I learned from one of Dr. Peikoff's lectures -- by providing a starting point in the process of building a definition. The dictionary's list of usages can suggest a range of units that a concept subsumes. The philosopher can begin his thinking with that and add to it and then precisely identify the genus and differentia.

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DavidOdden, it's not a concept. It's a list of characteristics which any primitive software could parse, understand, and apply (perhaps in some perverse airport screening setup). Concepts identify the essential attributes, without specifying their measures, of a potentially infinite set of concretes. All of your criteria are measures, not the existence of attributes; moreover, none is an essential trait of anything.

I still don't see why the phrase "24-year old, blue-eyed blonde" does not constitute the name of a concept". It refers to a potentially infinite set of concretes. Concepts omit non-essential measures (e.g. "dog" omits measurement -- attributes --of size, color, amount of hair), and similarly the blonde phrasal concept omits measurement of size, amount of hair and so on. Let's take the simple concept of "blonde" -- presumably we agree that "blonde" is a concept. But "blonde" is also a measure of color, which must be omitted in defining to the concept "person". In genus and species fashion, "blue-eyed blonde" is a concept (expressed by a phrase and not a single word) which identifies certain units of the genus "blonde". Each of these attributes is essential in defining the particular units that we're focusing on -- it you omit specification of age, you're identifying different units, just as "samoyed" identifies different units from "dog".

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I still don't see why the phrase "24-year old, blue-eyed blonde" does not constitute the name of a concept".

Our concepts must be easily stored and recalled from our minds, and this is accomplished by substituting a single word for the concept. The word is a symbol which stands for the concept, whereas your "24-year old, blue-eyed blonde" is a description consisting of other concepts, not a concept itself. If there were a justifiable reason for mentally isolating the notion of a "24-year old, blue-eyed blonde" from the rest of reality (I cannot imagine why) then you would define such a concept and symbolize it with a single word that could then stand for the concept you would have defined.

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I've been trying (unsuccessfully) to define "initiation of force" without forming a circular defintion...

Would this definition do?

Men have no obligation towards each other except that of a negative kind: not to violate the right to life (which includes property rights) of others.

A person gives up his rights to the extent to which he has violated them.

Anybody who violates the rights of other is performing an initiation of force.

(Self-defense is not a violation of another person's rights and is thus not an initiation of force).

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"A concept substitutes one symbol (one word) for the enormity of the perceptual aggregate of the concretes it subsumes." (p. 64)

Okay, that pretty much sorts out that specific question for me -- thanks. The eyes look but they do not see... :( . This actually has some extreme consequences for my understanding of Objectivist epistemology, which I need to mull over.

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Okay, that pretty much sorts out that specific question for me -- thanks. The eyes look but they do not see... :( . This actually has some extreme consequences for my understanding of Objectivist epistemology, which I need to mull over.

Well, I am not sure why the consequences would be "extreme," but while you are mulling you might want to consider this analogy: One value of a percept lies in its mental integration of an entire group of sensations, enabling us to grasp existents such as enitities rather than a hodgepodge of disassociated characteristics. Similarly, a single word is the symbol by which we can store and recall our concepts, which themselves are integrations of certain aspects of reality into a mental entity. Granted this is a loose analogy, but it does underscore the importance of integration into some form of a single mental concrete, and a single word is the symbol which we retain to stand for the concept.

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As has been pointed out here, "initiation of force", is a phrase, not a single word, and in trying to "define" it, we shouldn't be surprised to find "circularity", since we are conflating "defining" with "describing".

If we were to condense the phrase to a single new concept, "force-initiation", then we could concentrate on what distinguishes it from, say, "force-use", and simply emphasize the initiation aspect by appending the phrase "as contrasted with the retaliatory use of force", to our definition.

This may seem a little awkward, but perhaps that's the natural result of trying to define a phrase.

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Well, I am not sure why the consequences would be "extreme,"

As I say, this is a matter that I need to think about to try to reconcile various threads in my mind, but there are some consequences that I hadn't thought of before. Given that the mental identification has to be expressed as a word in order to be a concept, then if you have a unit which is not a word, it isn't a concept. It is quite common in languages that what I would have earlier considered to be a concept is not expressed with a word. For example in Ancient Greek the higher-order idea "write" is not a concept (expressed by the root morpheme graph-) since graph- isn't a word. Rather, there are numerous specific concepts such as grapho: representing "I write", grapheis "you write", egraphon "I wrote", graphe "write!" and so on which represent concepts. These different concepts need to be integrated into something, but the thing that they are integrated into cannot be a concept. What that thing is, and whether it's particularly significant that there is appears to be something exactly like a concept except for the "is a word" requirement, is something for me to cogitate on.

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A related question: "Zeitgeist" translates from German as "the spirit of the times." As it is one word in German, it is a concept, right? (Not that that's the only requirement.) So why can't we likewise say the English translation is a concept, even though we don't represent it with just one word?

If it is not a concept, how should it be characterized? "Descriptive phrase," perhaps?

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As I say, this is a matter that I need to think about to try to reconcile various threads in my mind, but there are some consequences that I hadn't thought of before. Given that the mental identification has to be expressed as a word in order to be a concept, then if you have a unit which is not a word, it isn't a concept. It is quite common in languages that what I would have earlier considered to be a concept is not expressed with a word. For example in Ancient Greek the higher-order idea "write" is not a concept (expressed by the root morpheme graph-) since graph- isn't a word. Rather, there are numerous specific concepts such as grapho: representing "I write", grapheis "you write", egraphon "I wrote", graphe "write!" and so on which represent concepts. These different concepts need to be integrated into something, but the thing that they are integrated into cannot be a concept. What that thing is, and whether it's particularly significant that there is appears to be something exactly like a concept except for the "is a word" requirement, is something for me to cogitate on.

I am way out of my league attempting to discuss your field of linguistics with you, but I thought that "graphein" was the Greek concept "to write." Regardless, any root morpheme should have meaning, and would that not represent a word even if it were not expressed as such? Afterall, the important thing about concepts in language is not the communication aspect, but rather its use as an essential cognitive tool.

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Given that the mental identification has to be expressed as a word in order to be a concept, then if you have a unit which is not a word, it isn't a concept.

I think the essential here is that the identification be expressed as some kind of perceptual concrete whether it be a whole word or a morpheme or a visual symbol. The important thing is that it be easily graspable as a single mental unit (re the crow).

The case that you describe in the Greek language is entirely compatible with this view as expressed in ITOE.

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A related question: "Zeitgeist" translates from German as "the spirit of the times."  As it is one word in German, it is a concept, right? (Not that that's the only requirement.)

Right.

So why can't we likewise say the English translation is a concept, even though we don't represent it with just one word?
I discussed this in previous posts, and although not perfect, I like the analogy I used. In essence, we learn to perceive an entity instead of an entire group of disassociated characteristics; those characteristics are integrated into a perceptual concrete. If we had to deal with individual sensations we could not have evolved into the level of consciousness that we do possess. Likewise, we integrate certain aspects of reality into a mental entity that we can hold in our mind, a single symbol which stands for the concept we develop; the single word is a symbol serving the same function of being the perceptual concrete as is an entity a single integration of a group of characteristics.

If it is not a concept, how should it be characterized?  "Descriptive phrase," perhaps?

I guess that would depend on the context in which it is used. It could be, for instance, an explanatory phrase.

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I think the essential here is that the identification be expressed as some kind of perceptual concrete whether it be a whole word or a morpheme or a visual symbol. The important thing is that it be easily graspable as a single mental unit (re the crow).

The case that you describe in the Greek language is entirely compatible with this view as expressed in ITOE.

Originally (until this morning) I was of that opinion, but a problem arises in the fact that, as Stephen reminded me, Rand says that a concept substitutes a word for a class of concretes (and in Ancient Greek, morphemes are not always words). Hence I don't exactly feel at liberty to say that Rand really means "some unit of linguistic structure" as being what a concept substitutes for a class of concretes. I'm strongly disinclined to say that Rand used "word" in some special sense (so that graph- can't be called a "word" of Ancient Greek in some extended sense), although maybe that was what she had in mind.

The single mental unit part is not the problem; it is the nature of the expression of the concept. If we liberalise her statement to include any linguistic expression, then we're back to the question of whether phrases and sentences can be concepts.

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The single mental unit part is not the problem; it is the nature of the expression of the concept. If we liberalise her statement to include any linguistic expression, then we're back to the question of whether phrases and sentences can be concepts.

I don't think there's a quandry here. Read "The Role of Words" in the Appendix to ITOE. Here, Miss Rand expands on the process of using words in particular (and sensory concretes in general) in order to integrate the instances subsumed under a concept into a single mental unit. This section--I believe--supports my contention, especially in sentences such as the following:

Therefore, if your question is: at what point does this preliminary mental activity become a full-fledged concept? I say it becomes that when the child learns that a perceptual symbol—remember that a sound or the visual shape of a word is a percept—when he learns that that percept stands for all those concretes that he's trying to integrate.

For most intents and purposes, it serves the point to just speak of words representing concepts. I maintain that this is just for simplicity's sake because this same principle applies to other linguistic products as you have shown, David.

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If we liberalise her statement to include any linguistic expression, then we're back to the question of whether phrases and sentences can be concepts.

Anyone: I have no knowledge of linguistics, and I am having trouble formulating my questions.

I have been wondering: How much does it matter for living life how a thinker sorts ideas and how his language labels ideas? Does it matter only that the formation of the ideas be based on facts of reality and that the classification and labeling be logical?

In other words, how much option is there in forming concepts, in the Objectivist sense of that term, as a fraction of one's collection of all ideas?

Ultimately, isn't cognitive necessity in a particular cultural setting and environment the deciding factor whether "spirit of the nation" and "five foot two, 24-year old, blue-eyed blonde" each receive a single word as a label?

P. S. -- I have a vague memory that somewhere -- in the Fiction Writing lectures? -- Ayn Rand mentioned the advantage, to a thinker, of knowing two or more languages was partly seeing that what is a concept in one language may not be in another.

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For most intents and purposes, it serves the point to just speak of words representing concepts. I maintain that this is just for simplicity's sake because this same principle applies to other linguistic products as you have shown, David.

If I understand your point, I do not think that is the case. What Ayn Rand emphasizes in ITOE is the role and crucial importance of unit-economy in cognition, and any more complicated form such as "linguistic products" would short-circuit the cognitive process very early in its development. The value of the word lies in it being a perceptual symbol that is easily retained and recalled.

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P. S. -- I have a vague memory that somewhere -- in the Fiction Writing lectures? -- Ayn Rand mentioned the advantage, to a thinker, of knowing two or more languages was partly seeing that what is a concept in one language may not be in another.

In ITOE Miss Rand mentions how words in one language can have no single-word equivalent in another, so that a concept in one language may be a descriptive phrase in another.

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Originally (until this morning) I was of that opinion, but a problem arises in the fact that, as Stephen reminded me, Rand says that a concept substitutes a word for a class of concretes (and in Ancient Greek, morphemes are not always words). Hence I don't exactly feel at liberty to say that Rand really means "some unit of linguistic structure" as being what a concept substitutes for a class of concretes.

To be clear, as I just mentioned in another post to Bowzer, Miss Rand does not say that it is impossible to complete the process of concept formation with something other than a word, but rather that unit-economy demands the single perceptual concrete for success at cognition. You can even substitute a visualization of the referents being integrated, but that will not get you very far in the process of cognition. For all practical purposes proper cognitive functioning demands the perceptual concrete of a word.

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