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a table of language, "mental existents", and mental processes

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I need a word or phrase to describe what this table does.

 

linguistic element, "mental existent", mental process
word, unit or concept, concept-formation
phrase, subset, narrow the set of considered existents
verb phrase, predication, apply ontological category
sentence, proposition, judgment
paragraph, unity, horizontal integration

Edited by Vik
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How about "nothing much"?

 

I can see how there was an attempt with the first element of each line to climb up a hierarchy found in language but the rest of it doesn't work that way.

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A word is a perceptual-concrete symbol for a concept.

 

Grammarians say that a sentence embodies a complete thought.

 

What does a phrase do?  Does a phrase name a subset of existents falling within the bounds of a concept?  Does a phrase reintroduces some aspects that were omitted during concept-formation?

 

I've been reading some books on logic from the late 19th century and very early 20th.  They speak of a process called "judgment", whose result is a proposition. It seems to me that a proposition is to a concept what a sentence is to a word.

 

If these are controversial lines of approach to the nature of propositions, I need to know. 

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I think Rand's epistemology is at base  so radically different from other various schools of thought (though they use the same words, terms but in essence 'mean' other things) that to try and assimilate would be almost fruitless. Better to fully understand O'ist epistemology and go from there.

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I am in possession of a 19 page paper entitled "CONCEPTS AND PROPOSITIONS" by Dr. David Kelley that goes over this exact subject area.  Here is a representative excerpt from the paper:
 
 

A concept is not identical with a word, nor is a proposition identical with a
sentence. The same concept may be expressed in different words--"mensa" in Latin,
"trapeza" in Greek, and "table" in English all refer to tables. The same proposition may
be formulated in many different sentences, not only as between different languages but
within a given language, using variations in grammatical structure. "John opened the
door" and "The door was opened by John" are equivalent: they express the same
proposition and assert the same fact. Yet words and concepts, propositions and
sentences, are not really distinct, either. A concept is not fully formed, as we noted, until
it is associated with a concrete physical symbol. Conversely, the physical concretes--e.g.,
the letters t,a,b,l,e as marks on paper--are merely marks on paper and not a word if they
are divorced from the concept. The relationship between a concept and a word can best
be described using the Objectivist theory of concepts: a concept must have some verbal
form but may have any (within limits set by the requirements of speech and writing).
When we speak of a concept, we are abstracting from the particular verbal form in
which it is concretized in order to focus on the identification of certain units through an
integrative process of measurement-omission.
 
The same pattern holds for propositions and sentences. A proposition is not a
linguistic phenomenon per se. When we speak of a proposition, we abstract from the
particular verbal form of a sentence to focus on the cognitive content of the thought it
expresses. Divorced from that cognitive content, a sentence would simply be sounds or
marks on paper, without content, meaning, or reference. On the other hand, however,
we cannot divorce the proposition from its verbal expression. We think in language; the
same thought may be formulated in any of a range of possible sentences, but must be
formulated in some particular sentence.
 
There is thus a parallel between concepts and propositions: both are products of
acts of cognitive integration, and both are expressed in verbal form:

Integrative act  :   Concept-formation Judgment
Product          :   Concept           Proposition
Verbal expression:   Word              Sentence
This schema differs from the Platonic view that concepts and propositions exist
independently of the mind, independently of any cognitive act of integration, in some
eternal, nonphysical realm of existence. It also differs from the representationalist view
that they are inner mental objects of awareness utterly distinct from language.
Philosophers of language have raised a host of objections against both of these views,
objections which I will not review here except to say that both views involve an
unwarranted reification of mental contents.

Here is the file
 

Concepts_and_Propositions_dkelleyAS2001.pdf

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