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I'm wondering if we can port some of the methods of one particular language learning approach into philosophic integration and keen to get other's thoughts. 

Part of the motivation here is that I'm finding as I learn philosophy there's still so much that's very vague even if it 'makes sense.' I know that it's not 100% integrated or understood since I can't just necessarily rattle off real-world examples for each concept and I stumble a lot trying to articulate what the concept is or I start to articulate my understanding and then realize that actually maybe I don't understand it so well. And if philosophy can not be used for work or relationships or anything else in my life, what's the point? I think if one could get to a point where each concept had very strong mental and emotional links to others so that you know how one small change would affect the whole network of concepts that would be a super power that I want.

There are two approaches to language learning:
(1) Start by learning words by categories, e.g., all fruit, in sequential orders and focus on writing & grammar. 
(2) Master the sounds first, then start learning the vocabulary through a frequency list (most frequently used words first) and speak. 

(2) Seems to be highly effective and used by a lot of polyglots.

After beginning to read OPAR and just making my way through the part of reduction as a form of a validation, I was thinking of taking that part of beginning vocabulary study with a word frequency list and using that same approach for philosophy. That would mean I setup a big list of the most frequently used concepts and begin to reduce each one of them with specific examples from my own life and integrate them with all the other high frequency concepts. The only difficulty for me here is that highly used concepts are not 'on the surface' necessarily, i.e., they are implied and supporting our speech, thoughts and actions throughout the day but not necessarily explicit.

For starters, I'm just going to take a lot of what's in OPAR and begin there:

existence
consciousness
identity
causality
volition/free-will
context
validation
proof
action
nature
thought - idea - knowledge
axiom
 

Just to list a few. Happy to list the full thing once I make more headway.
 

 

Edited by Jonathan Weissberg
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Personally, mastering the sounds of a language has been way more important than learning words by categories. Sometimes I practice Spanish by reading out loud complete paragraphs of books, even if I barely know at all what was said. It helps when I have a native speaker to correct me. It's also good because by reading books in Spanish, I'm exposing myself to words and getting a natural sense of which words are more common than others. On top of that, since I'm picking my interests through the books I choose, it's much easier to fold those words into memory. 

Of course, immersion around native speakers in settings where you need to communicate is the best way to learn a language. But if you want to supplement your learning, or if you can't immerse yourself, some variation of 2 would be best. Really, I'm advocating what I would call "learning in context". 

Learning words by categories doesn't provide context. It's detached from usage, detached from how language is used. Because of this, it makes it much more difficult to cue your memory of different words, not to mention that they are not being used with grammar. With a context, there are many many many more opportunities to cue your memory for words, your memory for grammar rules, plus practice communicating your thoughts. Learning about sounds first is a form of context, which you can keep reusing as you learn more about the language. Immersion is the ultimate form of learning in context, but that's not always possible. As you're saying, strong mental and emotional links are extremely valuable.

These same ideas apply to learning any subject. You don't want to just have a list of concepts by category as a study tool. You don't want just a list of definitions. They might help with which concepts to look out for, but you're still missing context. Essentially, you would be a parrot reciting what it has heard without having any conceptual understanding. You're on the right track I think by mentioning a frequency list, but that's not really necessary, because whatever primary sources you use, you get a natural sense of word frequency through simply reading them. Rather, seeing a word a lot means that the writer thinks that it is important. You could approach it that way, trying to figure out what the context is for those concepts after you've read that work at least one time. 

Part of learning in context is discussing what you have read, without worrying that you will make a mistake. Talk about how concepts are used. Try applying concepts to different contexts and seeing how they measure up. Be a devil's advocate and argue against the concept with someone equally or more knowledgeable. Listen to the writer themselves in public settings using their own ideas. At some point, you'll just "get" what the concepts mean. To be sure, it takes effort, but it's gradual.

In this post alone, I used the word "context" a lot. Think about how I use the word. Did it ever appear strange? Did you change how you thought about the word? Since I talked about "context" as related to language learning, did it make more sense? Clearly I think the word is important, but can you figure out why I think it is important? These are all great questions to essentially immerse yourself in the "language" of philosophy. 

@DavidOdden is a professor of linguistics, he probably would have more to say on the language connection you are thinking about.

Edited by Eiuol
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I dunno if this will be useful in your quest to better integrate Objectivism in your life, but I do have a perspective on language learning. I will start by saying that technique 1 doesn’t work for me, in fact it is logically impossible for any human, if taken seriously and literally. Technique 2 is somewhat defective because of the use of ‘then’, but that’s fixable.

I am betting that you can’t learn the words ተኹላ, ጠለበዱ, ወዐግ, ድቢ, ምራኽ, ዳንጋ, ገመል, ድሙ, ጫቚት, ከልቢ, ኣድጊ, ሓርማዝ, ወኻርያ, ኣጋዚን, ጢል, ኡማሬ, ፈረስ, ገንሸር, ነብሪ, ኣንበሳ, ጋውና, ህበይ, በቕሊ, ብዕራይ, ቅንፍዝ, ማንቲለ, ደዕል, ኣንጭዋ, በጊዕ which are just the names of mammals, and it will only help a little if you get the English translations (African wild dog, antilope, ape, bear, calf, calf, camel, cat, chick, dog, donkey, elephant, fox, giraffe, goat, hippo, horse, lamb, leopard, lion, male baboon, monkey, mule, ox, porcupine, rabbit, ram, rat, sheep). I am betting (but it’s impractical and complicated to try to demonstrate this here) that you can learn the sounds composing the words, wich is the basis for learning the words. There are millions of words in the language, and dozens of sounds. The Objectivist epistemology is constructed so as to lead you to follow technique 2, because humans have a relatively small ኳኽ (the name of a bird). Technique 1 ignores the perceptual level and goes straight for the conceptual and propositional levels.

I believe that there is a general tendency to not correctly grasp the two kinds of fundamentality, namely existential versus epistemological fundamentals. Quarks are existentially fundamental, dogs are epistemologically fundamental. On this point, I commend to you Binswanger’s How we know, because he has a good psychological perspective on epistemology (“good” doesn’t mean “infallible”). We do not take “animal” or “mammal” as a perceptual given and then reduce “animal” through an elaborate set of differentiations to “… and huskies, like this and that”. We don’t actually know what the acquisition process is (this is a scientific question, not a philosophical one), in fact I don’t think we even know how to find out. It might be that mice and motorized toys are initially indistinguishable to infants.

Validating a concept by reducing it to (true) axiomatic knowledge is a very adult thing to do (not what children actually do), and presupposes that you actually grasp the concept. You cannot validate the concept ተኹላ if you don’t grasp it: what do they have in common, how they different from ከልቢ? Can you correctly integrate and differentiate , , , , ? My suggestion is to start by explaining one of these concepts – defining it, by saying what it refers to, and see which words you have to use to set forth that definition. You definition should make clear that “it’s these things, excluding those things. These things are similar in ___”. Start with “existence”, then move to “action”.

My own “acquisition” experience regarding your word list is that even though I knew all of these words, I didn’t correctly grasp their role in (Objectivist) philosophy. My suggestion about “explaining” existence and action is intended to provoke a bit of widening of your list. While it is true that you are hosed if you ignore the meaning of “context” in Objectivism and just treat it as a floating abstraction, frequency of occurrence is not what make the term important. What I found most important is understanding the epistemological concept “presuppose” (probably because it is a fundamental concept in linguistic semantics). Galt’s Speech and specifically the “Existence exists” part ought to be in front of you as you take on this task.

The only thing I would add to Eiuol's suggestions about language learning are (a) it is important to have cooperative conversation partners (dial it back, dude!), and (b) it actually takes a lot more than 2 similar examples and 1 dissimilar example to acquire a linguistic concept (e.g. "a sound").

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[In response to Jonathan's original post]

I don't think one can learn philosophy in the same way that one learns a foreign language. When you learn a foreign language, you are mostly learning new words (and grammatical constructions) for concepts that you already know, such as learning that the Japanese word テレビ is "television" and so forth. You don't learn anything new about televisions by learning the word テレビ.

That's a fundamentally different process from the one you would use to learn entirely new concepts, and it's also different from the process you would use to add "depth of understanding" to concepts you already know. These are the processes in play when you learn a philosophy.

For these, it seems like the important thing is being able to give examples of a concept, and being able to identify the concept from examples of it. It might also be important to be able to identify that some things are not examples of a concept, and why they are not.

Knowing how to define the concept will help a great deal with this. (Recall, the "definition" of a concept serves to distinguish the concept from other concepts, and is usually written as "genus" and "differentia.")

I think reduction can also be helpful, but I'm not sure it's fundamental.

For learning a new concept, consider how you would explain "television" to someone who had never seen one before.

For adding "depth of understanding," consider how your understanding of "television" would change if you learned how to build one.

p.s. On further thought, I want to recommend Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology as a good book to read through.

Edited by necrovore
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My main take-away from your post:
 
Learning by categories or 'lists' without context is learning detached from actual language (or subject) use and that context means "it's much easier to fold those words [ideas] into memory."
 
My problem so far is that it's not like philosophic works are littered with real-world specific examples. There may be one or two, but the remainder is just abstract explanation. And then there's the added problem of the same words being used to refer to different concepts in different contexts (even within the same field).
 
So then the solution you're saying is engaging in vigorous discussion around the text by asking both challenging and clarifying questions to help better make distinctions between different concepts, e.g., "is this specific example considered an instance of the concept X?" 
 
I can do some of that here which is good.
 
 

 
Firstly, great stuff. I enjoyed your examples.
 
"There are millions of words in the language, and dozens of sounds."
So learn and master sounds first before proceeding because they are the fundamentals which everything presupposes, on which you build mastery of the language because of the added context (the sound, the way your tongue moves for each word, the rhythm maybe of each word you learn—as opposed to approximating the sounds but not really distinguishing properly between similar-sounding sounds which I know there's some word for but I forget now).
 

This is what I was trying to get at when saying frequency but then later talking about how it's implicit, rather than explicit, i.e., undergirds our thinking rather than being represented by the specific words or thoughts we're having.

 

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I believe that there is a general tendency to not correctly grasp the two kinds of fundamentality, namely existential versus epistemological fundamentals. Quarks are existentially fundamental, dogs are epistemologically fundamental. On this point, I commend to you Binswanger’s How we know, because he has a good psychological perspective on epistemology (“good” doesn’t mean “infallible”). We do not take “animal” or “mammal” as a perceptual given and then reduce “animal” through an elaborate set of differentiations to “… and huskies, like this and that”. We don’t actually know what the acquisition process is (this is a scientific question, not a philosophical one), in fact I don’t think we even know how to find out. It might be that mice and motorized toys are initially indistinguishable to infants.


 

I did not get the distinction of existential & epistemological fundamental. "Fundamental" itself is epistemological. (But that's ok, I'll look at it when I get to the book you recommended). And I didn't quite get the connection between that and the acquisition process. 
 
I understand what you're saying in the latter part and @necrovore touched on it. This is that the induction of the concept comes before the validation, i.e., that you validate by integrating with your context of knowledge & reducing to the perceptual, but you must first have the concept with some (scientifically unknown) amount and variation of examples and instances BEFORE validating it. It's the induction you're saying is the unknown acquisition process if I followed?
 
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My own “acquisition” experience regarding your word list is that even though I knew all of these words, I didn’t correctly grasp their role in (Objectivist) philosophy. My suggestion about “explaining” existence and action is intended to provoke a bit of widening of your list. While it is true that you are hosed if you ignore the meaning of “context” in Objectivism and just treat it as a floating abstraction, frequency of occurrence is not what make the term important. What I found most important is understanding the epistemological concept “presuppose” (probably because it is a fundamental concept in linguistic semantics). Galt’s Speech and specifically the “Existence exists” part ought to be in front of you as you take on this task.


 

 

The list was an example. It's much wider. 

Ok so similar to @Eiuol you're recommending trying to keep these things in context. 

I think we are both getting at the same thing with what you call "presuppose". I said: "The only difficulty for me here is that highly used concepts are not 'on the surface' necessarily, i.e., they are implied and supporting our speech, thoughts and actions throughout the day but not necessarily explicit."

I'm describing them as "frequent" in the sense that they are frequently used as building blocks of thought but not explicit. I need somehow to work out the deepest fundamentals, which is harder than simply running word frequency calculations across texts.

 

 

 
 
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@necrovore

Good point on "learning new words for concepts that you already know" as being a "fundamentally different process from the one you would use to learn entirely new concepts."

Actually question to both @necrovore and @DavidOdden: aren't the concepts that we "presuppose" (the building blocks/the implied fundamentals of any thought, e.g., existence) already "known" to us. If they are implicit then do we really need to go through an inductive process/"acquisition process"? There's something fundamentally different when learning about existence, identity, free will, cause & effect (as examples) than when learning about "television" when you've never seen one. In a way you already have the concepts for philosophy, just implicitly, no?

 

On 10/5/2020 at 2:04 AM, necrovore said:

That's a fundamentally different process from the one you would use to learn entirely new concepts, and it's also different from the process you would use to add "depth of understanding" to concepts you already know. These are the processes in play when you learn a philosophy.

For these, it seems like the important thing is being able to give examples of a concept, and being able to identify the concept from examples of it. It might also be important to be able to identify that some things are not examples of a concept, and why they are not.

Knowing how to define the concept will help a great deal with this. (Recall, the "definition" of a concept serves to distinguish the concept from other concepts, and is usually written as "genus" and "differentia.")

By "depth of understanding" do you mean added non-fundamental characteristics about the concept mentally retained?

I'll check out ITOE soon enough, thanks for the recommendation.

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I think reduction can also be helpful, but I'm not sure it's fundamental.

For learning a new concept, consider how you would explain "television" to someone who had never seen one before.

For adding "depth of understanding," consider how your understanding of "television" would change if you learned how to build one.

p.s. On further thought, I want to recommend Ayn Rand's Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology as a good book to read through.

 

Reduction is not fundamental to what? What I got from the OPAR chapter on 'validation' was that the fundamental of validation was both 'reduction' and 'integration' into one's wider context of knowledge, i.e., identifying other knowledge one holds that conflicts with it. Thus at least if the context is 'validation', identifying the nature of a thought's relationship to reality, it is essential. We must check for 'internal consistency' but also check for consistency against existence itself.

Thoughts?

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3 hours ago, Jonathan Weissberg said:

Learning by categories or 'lists' without context is learning detached from actual language (or subject) use and that context means "it's much easier to fold those words [ideas] into memory."

Close, but I think the way you wrote this is worded a bit funny. Context is everything connected to what you refer to when you use a concept or idea. Sometimes, as with language learning, it might include how you say the word, when you use the word, grammar rules, and so on, on top of what the word refers to. Context is also something like the boiling point of water is 100°C, but that assumes the context is sea level. Context will constrain our referents or what we are talking about in reality. As a result, when we are trying to form new concepts, it will be easier to remember and focus on the stuff in reality we are talking about. 

4 hours ago, Jonathan Weissberg said:

So then the solution you're saying is engaging in vigorous discussion around the text by asking both challenging and clarifying questions to help better make distinctions between different concepts, e.g., "is this specific example considered an instance of the concept X?" 

Definitely. As long as the discussion also includes real-life examples. 

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I think it is important to remember two contextual factors regarding concepts. First, every concept is a mental integration… which means, it’s in your head. Second, proper concepts in your head arise by applying logic to valid conclusions, given some premises, so to the extent that the facts out there are the same, we all learn the same concept “dog”. Concepts are objective, not subjective. The science of psychology is concerned with the nature of a concept in the brain, whereas philosophy is concerned with the abstract nature of concepts which anyone can grasp using reason. Epistemologically primary concepts are those that can understood through direct experience, words with ostensive definitions (“That is a dog; this is yellow”). Philosophy is usually about very high-level concepts such as “cause”, “rights”, “logic” and so on, things that you can’t just point at. Because the connection between a word and what it refers to in philosophy is much more distant, explicit definition and deeper scrutiny of logic is necessary in order to establish that there exists a valid path. Ayn Rand engaged in that enterprise and thus had a valid logical connection between axiomatic propositions and conclusions about the concept “rights”. A number of others have also studied this and now grasp that same relationship. Pretty much everybody has some concept of “rights”, but the definition and what it integrates varies wildly in the English-speaking world (insert alternative words like droit and Recht to expand the range of definitions). Objectivism presents an integrates theory of existence under which we can say what a “right” is and show why that is a valid conclusion, but the same cannot be said for the theory that “a right is that which I want to have”. Even though that analysis has already been done (can be objectively presupposed), you should do it too. You too should discover the fundamentals and how logic and experience yield conclusions about “rights”. (Within limits: I don’t advocate that everybody should validate the concept “neutron”, “electron”, unless you’re a physicist, or have lots of spare time).

Again, there is an essential difference between the abstract nature of logic and knowledge, which is the domain of philosophy, and the practical methods of gaining  knowledge, which is the domain of the science of psychology. It is not very common for a person to actually create a concept from the ground up, instead we are generally faced with the task of understanding a concept that was already created by someone else (hopefully, by induction). Infants start by first learning the label, words like “dog”, “ball” and so on, and then use contextual experience to arrive at conclusions about what “dog” refers to. The psychology of infant learning is a very difficult scientific subject, but we do know what they end up with – it’s just unclear how they got there. Infants do not induce the (adult) concept “rights”, “inference”, “elaboration”. The logic of concept formation, as set forth in ITOE, is that similarities and differences are perceived, leading to the conclusion “these things have something in common that distinguishes them from those things”, and eventually that concept is assigned a name. The overall point that I’m making here is that knowledge and concepts need to be studied from two perspectives, the logical and the psychological, that is, how do we actually learn this stuff.

Regarding the words versus sounds question, you respond “So learn and master sounds first before proceeding because they are the fundamentals which everything presupposes, on which you build mastery of the language”. Yes and no, in a way that relates to the preceding. You cannot first learn the sounds and then learn the words, but that is a fair description of the existential nature of sounds and words (the logical relation between words and sounds). From the psychological perspective – how do I learn this – you have to start with some words. Not all of the words, some of the words. That is a basis for reaching initial conclusions about the sounds of the language. You then learn some more words and validate – or correct (elaborate) – your conclusions about the sounds, and the words. This is a cyclic process, where you continuously increase your knowledge by increasing your axiomatic experiences (hearing the language) and make non-contradictory identifications. So, not only is it impossible to learn all of the words and then draw higher order conclusions about the sounds, it is impossible to first learn the existential primitives (sounds) free of the context where they appear (words), and then learn the words. As an aside, I’m currently working on a paper that explicates the nature of the cyclic, integrated system of reasoning for discovering the sounds of a language.

To summarize my points, there is a hierarchy of concepts and propositions that constitutes your knowledge. You do not learn the elements of that hierarchy by starting at the bottom and seeing how e.g. quarks lead to the concept of proton or neutron, which lead to atoms, which lead to molecules, then cells, dogs, mammals and living being. The entry point into this logical hierarchy, in Objectivism, is not the quark or the concept “living being”, it is the directly perceptible – the dog, and then dogs qua concept. Sounds are the atoms of words (and they are actually made up of smaller stuff, just as atoms are not indivisible existential primaries). Words are the epistemological primaries – the things that we directly experience.

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Aren't the concepts that we "presuppose" (the building blocks/the implied fundamentals of any thought, e.g., existence) already "known" to us. If they are implicit then do we really need to go through an inductive process/"acquisition process"? There's something fundamentally different when learning about existence, identity, free will, cause & effect (as examples) than when learning about "television" when you've never seen one. In a way you already have the concepts for philosophy, just implicitly, no?

It's part of human nature that we all learn the language around us while we are children, and then only later learn grammar, and what "nouns" and "verbs" are, and stuff like that. When we do learn grammar, we become able to make better, more sophisticated, and more precise use of the language.

Conceptualization is similar in the sense that we are already doing it before we understand what we are doing, but if we do understand it, we can do a much better job of it.

(Conceptualization is also related to language acquisition because you can't really learn language without also understanding the concepts that go with the words, and that requires some conceptualization.)

(In fact, "philosophizing" itself is something many people do without being aware that they are doing it -- and the study of philosophy as an explicit subject can definitely help people do a better job of it! ...)

So it is entirely likely that you have already picked up some philosophical concepts just from everyday life. This certainly does not mean study is a waste of time, though -- it is possible for people to have incorrect philosophical concepts (just as children can sometimes have incorrect ideas about the grammar of their own language), and even if your concepts are essentially correct, they can still possibly be clarified.

In many cases this amounts to adding the "depth of understanding" I mentioned, although you may also learn some new concepts. Depth of understanding isn't confined to stuff that is non-essential, either -- it can also include essential information. For example, if you learn a new concept, you may have to revise your mental definitions of concepts you already knew, in order to keep them distinct from the new concept.

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@DavidOdden,

Thank you again for your reply. I enjoyed reading it again, and took a way a few things—although will now mostly reply to those that confused me!

Your main points, I understand and agree with: 
(1) frequency of spoken words is not what's relevant;
(2) distinguishing between concepts that can be formed using perception, e.g., "existence", & those requiring specialized observation, e.g, "quark." This is what you were capturing with this "epistemologically" vs. "metaphysically" primary distinction. I am focusing on the epistemologically primary.

Some more minor things that were interesting but not as clear to me:
 

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Again, there is an essential difference between the abstract nature of logic and knowledge, which is the domain of philosophy, and the practical methods of gaining  knowledge, which is the domain of the science of psychology. 

Philosophy also covers the 'practical methods of gaining knowledge', e.g., in me studying this material and attempting to conceptualize and validate abstract "epistemologically primary" concepts through specific methods of reduction and contextual integration, no? Is it not the domain of philosophy to set out the fundamental practical methods for gaining knowledge?

Are you referring to the more specific case of determining how many real world examples or observations are necessary before reaching a mental integration? or specialized knowledge including "quarks?"

 

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The overall point that I’m making here is that knowledge and concepts need to be studied from two perspectives, the logical and the psychological, that is, how do we actually learn this stuff.

Understood everything else, but not really what this distinction refers to. The 'logical' and the 'psychological'. If I'm following everything else, I suspect there's some concept I'm missing or using a word differently.

Out of curiosity David, is there any meaningful difference in the way you're using "epistemologically primary" and "axiomatic" experiences? And are "axiomatic propositions" ("existence exists") simply a narrower instance of "epistemologically primary concepts" (which includes dog, bird, wolf)? 

 

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It is not very common for a person to actually create a concept from the ground up, instead we are generally faced with the task of understanding a concept that was already created by someone else (hopefully, by induction).

This is good news for me. It makes me think of Mortimer Adler in 'How to Read a Book' where he describes a lot of (bad & passive) 'learning' men do like being like having 'a packaged opinion (inserted) into his mind like a cassette into a cassette player and then plays it back when necessary'; and he describes proper (good & active) learning: 'It's a mistake to think of reading as receiving something from someone who is giving or sending. Instead, think of like being a catcher in a game of baseball: catching is as much an activity as pitching or hitting it. Both a catcher and pitcher are active, though the activities are different. ' After starting to get through OPAR, I've realized a lot of my concepts come from the former and I'm trying to go for the latter—the active baseball catcher. 

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Infants start by first learning the label, words like “dog”, “ball” and so on, and then use contextual experience to arrive at conclusions about what “dog” refers to. The psychology of infant learning is a very difficult scientific subject, but we do know what they end up with – it’s just unclear how they got there. Infants do not induce the (adult) concept “rights”, “inference”, “elaboration”.

Sounds like I'm going to go about in the right way then. It confirms @Eiuol's and your suggestion of learning within a context. With philosophy, that means maybe I can just start from the label (as long as it's an epistemologically primary one as you say), and then proceed to ask many questions trying to clearly define the boundary of the concept and ask many questions about specific real-world examples in which this concept applies which I then apply logic to. This would (partially) mimic the child's process in that I'm starting with the label and then reaching the concept with some unknown quantity of real-world examples in order to finally 'get it.'

 

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Validating a concept by reducing it to (true) axiomatic knowledge is a very adult thing to do (not what children actually do), and presupposes that you actually grasp the concept. 

This latter part is something I'm interested in getting my head around.

So I must first induce a mental integration and then validate it. But in the process of attempting to induce it, of 'grasping' it, aren't I in some way (partially) validating it? maybe not fully, but in running through many examples I'm performing some kind of 'contextual integration'—checking to see if it squares with or contradicts my knowledge of other 'epistemologically primary' concepts. 

So if a concept is invalid, I must still 'grasp' it before I can then validate it? In that context what would it mean to grasp it? e.g., 'extremism'? 
 

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As an aside, I’m currently working on a paper that explicates the nature of the cyclic, integrated system of reasoning for discovering the sounds of a language.

Sounds interesting. Would your paper be something a layman could apply to systematically mastering the sounds of any language? 

A while back I got into trying to figure out how to learn language by starting with learning sounds (IPA vowel and consonant comparisons, minimal pairs training, articulation). I got the idea from polyglots online. I think they do start with some words, but a very small, minimal amount and the emphasis is on first mastering sounds. It is very fascinating since I realized that often many sounds in a language I cannot even meaningfully distinguish and the old way I was once taught to learn language is to keep piling through words (the consequence is a year or two later, I still cannot distinguish important sounds).

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You do not learn the elements of that hierarchy by starting at the bottom and seeing how e.g. quarks lead to the concept of proton or neutron, which lead to atoms, which lead to molecules, then cells, dogs, mammals and living being. The entry point into this logical hierarchy, in Objectivism, is not the quark or the concept “living being”, it is the directly perceptible – the dog, and then dogs qua concept. Sounds are the atoms of words (and they are actually made up of smaller stuff, just as atoms are not indivisible existential primaries). Words are the epistemological primaries – the things that we directly experience.

Love this analogy.

 

 

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The point that I have been focusing on is the subtle difference between concept formation (so-named in Objectivism) and concept-acquisition (what I’m saying is not part of ITOE or OPAR, and I’m not sure about secondary writings on the topic – there is no such thing as “concept-acquisition” in Objectivism). There are two big questions: “What is the proper means of forming concepts?”, and “What are the actual methods that men use to learn existing concepts?”. In our discussion, I pointed to the difference between the abstract nature of logic and knowledge, versus the practical methods of gaining knowledge; you asked, is it not the domain of philosophy to set out the fundamental practical methods for gaining knowledge? I would say “no” to that question, given a particular view of what “philosophy” is as distinguished from “science”. Philosophy provides the foundation for science: it defines the basic terms and questions that allow specialized scientific research to be conducted rationally. It says what it means to be a concept, to be a proposition, to be knowledge, what “identity” is and so on. Philosophy identifies the nature of “concepts” and “logic”. In ITOE p. 289, Rand presents the essence of the distinction between science and philosophy:

Quote

Philosophy by its nature has to be based only on that which is available to the knowledge of any man with a normal mental equipment. Philosophy is not dependent on the discoveries of science; the reverse is true. So whenever you are in doubt about what is or is not a philosophical subject, ask yourself whether you need a specialized knowledge, beyond the knowledge available to you as a normal adult, unaided by any special knowledge or special instruments. And if the answer is possible to you on that basis alone, you are dealing with a philosophical question. If to answer it you would need training in physics, or psychology, or special equipment, etc., then you are dealing with a derivative or scientific field of knowledge, not philosophy.

Philosophy will tell you what “integration” and “logic” are, but it does not directly say how a child learns to integrate, it simply accepts the undeniable fact that children do so. Philosophy provides the conceptual foundation for science to conduct specialized research, calling on knowledge of statistics, specialized techniques for observing children, a framework for recording data, and so on – these are non-philosophical matters that depend on a philosophy. It is not a philosophical question whether a picture is worth a thousand words or the opposite, that is a practical, individual matter of what method of learning is most effective for a particular person. Philosophy is relevant to the enterprise because it focuses your attention on “asking the right questions”. It helps you understand the concept “proof”, by demanding that you ultimately be able to reduce “proof” to undeniable perceptions. If I ask my neighbor to reduce the concept “proof” to the axiomatic, I will get a blank stare, because for the neighbor, the idea of “reduction to axioms” is just a bunch of words.

I have a suggestion: please reduce the concept “proof” to the axiomatic. As a prelude, please briefly state what it means to reduce a concept to the axiomatic. As a guiding procedural rule, don’t look anything up. A secondary rule: please report back within 48 hours (that is, you should limit how extensively contemplate the answer – my own scheduling problems explain why it took me so long to spend the hour needed to write this). I believe that this will make the contextual nature of knowledge very clear, since I predict that there will be some concept that you depend on, which you don’t yet understand. This is not a failure, this is a discovery: there’s something that you need to understand better. An example is that in the course of studying Objectivism, I expanded my knowledge of “logic”, which was originally just the standard Philosophy 150 formal method of deduction. I read the part that says “Logic is the art of non-contradictory identification”, which encapsulates the nature of logic, but does not magically give you full knowledge of logic when you have learned those essential words. I thus gained a better knowledge of the nature of “logic”, and can now better identify “logic”. If at the end of this you reflect on what you learned about “reduction”, “learning”, and “proof”, you should have a basic theory of the learning process that you asked about.

I'm not too sanguine about my attempts to take a highly technical subject and make it comprehensible for the layman, when my goal is to do a highly technical logical analysis and reduction-to-experience for people whjo know the field. But perhaps...

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28 minutes ago, DavidOdden said:

“What is the proper means of forming concepts?”

One way or the other isn't it via induction? (experiencing some form of repeating "essence")

The other question that comes to mind, is there is the "valid" or "validated" concept, vs. just a concept. Or is there no difference?

28 minutes ago, DavidOdden said:

“What are the actual methods that men use to learn existing concepts?”

Even memorization is going to involve repetition, artificial repetition, not exactly inference but forced association vs. "figured out/concluded".

As far as I can remember, the fundamental question about formation of concepts (from a normative perspective) was how many times do you have to see it for it to be valid. Is that correct?

Edited by Easy Truth
Mistakenly wrote inference instead of induction.
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FYI, I've read up to Chapter 5 of OPAR and have started ITOE. 
 
On 10/18/2020 at 6:27 PM, DavidOdden said:

I have a suggestion: please reduce the concept “proof” to the axiomatic. As a prelude, please briefly state what it means to reduce a concept to the axiomatic. As a guiding procedural rule, don’t look anything up.

 
 
To reduce a concept to the axiomatic (the building blocks of thought) means to reduce it to what I observe through the senses (touch, taste, sight, sound, smell, etc.).  I'll give a few simplistic examples:
(1) If I want to reduce the concept chair to the axiomatic then I just point at a chair.
(2) If I want to reduce the concept 'work' to the axiomatic then I'd need to point to specific instances of someone producing something that is valuable, e.g., someone working at a construction site and being paid cash at the end of the week, or someone painting and then enjoying their creation for themselves (or selling it). 
 
On 10/18/2020 at 6:27 PM, DavidOdden said:

...please reduce the concept “proof” to the axiomatic.

 
(1) If I want to prove that a chair exists then then I just point at a chair. (same as reduction to axiomatic).
(2) If I want to prove that I can succeed at my work before actually succeeding (generating an income) then I would look to see if others have or are succeeding, I would look to see what their skills or talents are, and I would of course try for myself and see if I can make small incremental wins (new-found understanding which I'm using) at the work. I would take all that as a form of "proof."
 
In both these cases I'm trying to observe something in reality that confirms that what I think is true (corresponds to reality). In some cases, many separate observations are required (anything beyond the chair examples). So we can reduce 'proof' to making a series of observations that then make some conclusion logically follow from those observations.
 
 
On 10/18/2020 at 6:27 PM, DavidOdden said:

I believe that this will make the contextual nature of knowledge very clear, since I predict that there will be some concept that you depend on, which you don’t yet understand.

 
If at the end of this you reflect on what you learned about “reduction”, “learning”, and “proof”, you should have a basic theory of the learning process that you asked about.
I do see that to 'reduce' and 'prove' I must already know what it is I'm reducing, i.e., grasp it perceptually or conceptually, and that I must know what qualifies as proof. 
 
So then learning before reduction and proof?
 
 
Edited by Jonathan Weissberg
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Here are some questions I had (no need to answer these as I will get to them myself soon, but they illustrate well the lack of clarity around validation & proof and where I'm at right now, etc.):

(1) How does one know what qualifies as proof or evidence?
(2) Is the act of identifying what qualifies as proof (or evidence) itself something that needs to be proven or validated?
(3) When would you stake your life on some piece of knowledge given "contextual certainty", e.g., in chapter 5 of OPAR ("reason"), Peikoff gave an example of a compatible blood type (A-type to A-type) that was later discovered to only be compatible given the compatibility of a previously unknown factor (RH factor). The first discovery (pre RH factor) of compatibility was described as "Within the context of the circumstances so far, A bloods are compatible."

Note: edited both posts above for clarity.

Edited by Jonathan Weissberg
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Here are some various quotes from your posts:

On 10/18/2020 at 6:27 PM, DavidOdden said:

The logic of concept formation, as set forth in ITOE, is that similarities and differences are perceived, leading to the conclusion “these things have something in common that distinguishes them from those things”, and eventually that concept is assigned a name. The overall point that I’m making here is that knowledge and concepts need to be studied from two perspectives, the logical and the psychological, that is, how do we actually learn this stuff.

...

The point that I have been focusing on is the subtle difference between concept formation (so-named in Objectivism) and concept-acquisition (what I’m saying is not part of ITOE or OPAR, and I’m not sure about secondary writings on the topic – there is no such thing as “concept-acquisition” in Objectivism). There are two big questions: “What is the proper means of forming concepts?”, and “What are the actual methods that men use to learn existing concepts?”.

...
Philosophy will tell you what “integration” and “logic” are, but it does not directly say how a child learns to integrate, it simply accepts the undeniable fact that children do so.

OK, so I understand now. There's the observation of similarities and differences (which is taken as the given in philosophy). There's concept formation (how does someone form a new concept) which most of us do not do, but which philosophy provides a theoretical framework for doing. And then there's concept acquisition which is a practical question of science: how do we best teach someone to observe the similarities and differences enough to acquire this previously formed concept (which they can then use theories of concept formation to validate for themselves)?

 

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This quote from OPAR p. 133 may be useful.

Quote

Reduction is the means of connecting an advanced knowledge to reality by traveling backward through the hierarchical structure involved, i.e., in the reverse order of that required to reach the knowledge. “Reduction” is the process of identifying in logical sequence the intermediate steps that relate a cognitive item to perceptual data. Since there are options in the detail of a learning process, one need not always retrace the steps one initially happened to take. What one must retrace is the essential logical structure.

I wonder if there is some confusion over the trivial “proof” that a tomato exists (look or point ), and a proof of the conclusion that a particular existent is a tomato? Existence is axiomatic, classification and logical conclusions are not. You cannot point your finger to rights, but the concept can be validly reduced to other concepts which ultimately resolve at saying “this thing exists”. Finger-pointing could be useful in a discussion to give a person a hint, something that he can focus on that allows him to fill in the gaps (complete the reduction).

Concepts for tangible natural objects are a good starting point: what does it mean to “reduce” the concept dog to the axiomatic? Reducing an actual dog, that is, establishing that it exists, is really quick. For the concept dog, it cannot simply be a matter of pointing your finger at my avatar, because there is logic, or similarities versus differences. Simple pointing spectacularly fails for high-level concepts like “rights”, which have to be understood in terms of other concepts. The danger in a simple “point to it” view of epistemology is that every conclusion potentially becomes self-evident and there is no room for discussion. What if I engage in three supposed reductions of the concept dog, the first two times by pointing to dog 1 and dog 2 and the third time by pointing to cat 1? If the concept dog is valid (among other things, objective), how can one person correct errors of another person, or his own errors? What if my interlocutor just points to a cat – only one act of pointing? Should I abandon the person because they are irrational? Probably not. Should I inquire into his command of the language? Probably. The logic of learning the concept dog is that you perceive similarities that all dogs have, despite their differences, and you learn that they are all distinct from various other things (like cows, bears, tables: we should ignore dingoes and in general eschew hair-splitting technical debates). This is a fairly short chain of reasoning, though it is challenging to say in words what the similarities and differences are.

If I am to reduce a higher concept to the axiomatic (to undeniable perception), I need a continuous chain of logic that traces from the concept to any concept that it depends on, and the concepts that those concepts depend on, ultimately ending in an axiom (perception). The concept “hierarchy” is very important in epistemology, since knowledge is hierarchical: we don’t learn a massive set of words plus a list of concrete referents. Therefore I suggest focusing on hierarchy. The concepts polygon, triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, hexagon, rectangle, square, line and point are related in some manner – they are in a hierarchy. (NB I am speaking of ordinary usage by educated people who know what a polygon is. Mathematicians may have alternative conceptual systems). How do you arrange these concepts into a hierarchy, or why would you do so? Is “polygon” a valid concept? How is a “polygon” different from a “square”, or a “circle”? What do you have to presuppose, in order to explain to me what a polygon is. The geometric concept “point” should not enter directly into the explanation of polygon, but it does become relevant at a certain position in the hierarchy of concepts. You can draw a tree structure to iconically represent that hierarchy.

 

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On 10/21/2020 at 7:28 PM, DavidOdden said:

How do you arrange these concepts into a hierarchy, or why would you do so? Is “polygon” a valid concept? How is a “polygon” different from a “square”, or a “circle”? What do you have to presuppose, in order to explain to me what a polygon is. The geometric concept “point” should not enter directly into the explanation of polygon, but it does become relevant at a certain position in the hierarchy of concepts. You can draw a tree structure to iconically represent that hierarchy.

Ha ha ha, well I like to think of myself as educated, but in truth spent a while looking up polygons and shapes and getting my head around the order, but I've done it and attached a tree diagram as an image.

On 10/21/2020 at 7:28 PM, DavidOdden said:

How do you arrange these concepts into a hierarchy, or why would you do so?

I arranged these concepts into a hierarchy in order of abstraction, i.e., from their distance from the perceptual level observation. (It's a file structure and I've done it in reverse order, so the highest branches are the lowest level of abstraction.) So in order for me to reach polygons in the first place and have that definition make sense, I'd need to see some specific shapes that I can directly perceive like a square or triangle. So they are at the bottom of the hierarchy. 

Where I had some trouble in arranging this hierarchy is thinking about 'regular' vs. 'irregular' polygon. They are specific instances of the genus 'polygon', but are they actually less abstract? And same for dot and line in relation to the polygon and shape since this whole hierarchy is one of the mathematical sciences but still relates to the concept shape that someone with no mathematical knowledge would have. I assumed that they are more abstract since what we speak of is actual shapes first then get into defining something like a line or dot in mathematics.

And then another thing I had trouble with is 'Shape' positioned in the hierarchy. What I was confused about was I know 'shape' well enough but had only a vague clue about 'polygons' before beginning this exercise. After thinking about it, I think shape is more abstract than polygon but it can be reached without the concept polygon, too, i.e., it can be reached by just observing actual shapes in reality and not shapes on paper taught by a primary school teacher.

On 10/21/2020 at 7:28 PM, DavidOdden said:

...or why would you do so?

If we're speaking of consciously arranging it into a hierarchy, perhaps it makes clear what you need to learn and observe before memorizing the definitions, i.e., you might need to make some good, emotionally resonant observations of a hexagon, pentagon, square, etc., before trying to define and memorize polygon. 

On 10/21/2020 at 7:28 PM, DavidOdden said:

Is “polygon” a valid concept? How is a “polygon” different from a “square”, or a “circle”? What do you have to presuppose, in order to explain to me what a polygon is. The geometric concept “point” should not enter directly into the explanation of polygon, but it does become relevant at a certain position in the hierarchy of concepts.

Is “polygon” a valid concept?

Polygon reduces to actual direct perception so it is capturing some aspect of reality. The question is whether or not it's useful (I think so if it's used to precisely identify objects for calculations and helps mentally categorize different kinds of calculations).

How is a “polygon” different from a “square”, or a “circle”?

Polygon is more abstract than a square. It defines three or more straight lines, but not the number of the lines. And it's not a circle because it's defined as 3 or more straight lines.

What do you have to presuppose, in order to explain to me what a polygon is.

I have to presuppose that you grasp what a shape is.

 


OK, so tying this back to the original question:

When dealing with abstractions we validate them through contextual integration, i.e., by applying logic to the abstractions in the attempt to identify contradictory elements among them; we then reduce them, i.e., by identifying what concepts they presuppose and keep following this process (contextual integration & reduction) down the hierarchy of concepts until we reach some percept. 

Proof is this process with abstract propositions: contextual integration, i.e., applying logic to the premises and conclusion, and then reduction (also a form of logic) to the presupposed concepts of the premises. 

But I'm still at a loss here of what this means for which concepts would have the highest payoff for improving philosophical thinking (and thinking in general). The one thing I'm thinking about is that it'd make sense to start as close to the perceptual level as possible and have good, clarified formulations for even axioms. And presumably I have enough life experience to have all the required observations I need to also make very clearly defining epistemological terms also have a high payoff. (Also I think all concepts heavily presupposed implicitly in many lines of thought).

Will think more on this & update.

 

 

 

 

OddensHomeworks.jpg

Edited by Jonathan Weissberg
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On 10/18/2020 at 6:54 PM, Easy Truth said:

One way or the other isn't it via induction? (experiencing some form of repeating "essence")

The other question that comes to mind, is there is the "valid" or "validated" concept, vs. just a concept. Or is there no difference?

I don't know about induction.

I think with David's distinction of concept acquisition and concept formation, the key is in the way he uses "grasp." I think it means simply the observation of similarities and differences enough to make some distinctions, but then that making these distinctions does not guarantee that you've formed or acquired a concept, simply grasped some aspect of reality. So you could 'grasp' an 'invalid concept.'

I'm not sure if we're splitting hairs with valid or invalid concept vs. just concept, but I assume that concept refers to something valid. And an attempt at a concept could be called an invalid concept. It's a grasp of some kind of similarities/differences and some kind of integration, but not completely logical.

On 10/18/2020 at 6:54 PM, Easy Truth said:

As far as I can remember, the fundamental question about formation of concepts (from a normative perspective) was how many times do you have to see it for it to be valid. Is that correct?

What's 'from a normative perspective'?

Why would frequency be fundamental to forming concepts?

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23 hours ago, Jonathan Weissberg said:

I arranged these concepts into a hierarchy in order of abstraction, i.e., from their distance from the perceptual level observation. (It's a file structure and I've done it in reverse order, so the highest branches are the lowest level of abstraction.) 

A taxonomy like this is the right way to think about conceptual hierarchies. It's not groundbreaking as much as it is just Aristotelian. Rand is relevant here to the extent that to understand her epistemology, you should see how it's influenced by Aristotle and the way that he sought to categorize many things before reasoning about them. As far as I understand, applying that taxonomic way of thinking to conceptual development, and forming concepts in the first place, is the unique part of Rand. 
 

23 hours ago, Jonathan Weissberg said:

After thinking about it, I think shape is more abstract than polygon but it can be reached without the concept polygon, too, i.e., it can be reached by just observing actual shapes in reality and not shapes on paper taught by a primary school teacher.

I don't think they are necessarily more or less abstract. You probably could say that all these things are about at the same level of abstraction. What matters more is generally how far away from the perceptual level you are. Either way, regular polygon versus irregular polygon is a narrower distinction than polygon. I don't think it needs to be more complicated than that. If you want to think about the perceptual level, the important consideration is if you can perceive the thing in entirety. You don't see dots, you don't see lines. You can notice if something is a polygon of some sort, but you will probably identify a trapezoid before you say you've identified a polygon. A polygon seems more perceptual than a line, though.

Shapes include polygons and non-polygons, so the concept is higher on a hierarchy. But like I said before about polygons, you see shapes all the time, so whatever the distances from the perceptual level, it's not as far away as something like all the unique and complex concepts of mathematical topology. Personally, I consider polygon and shape to be on the same level of abstraction, so I focus more on the hierarchy. If I study geometry extensively, I might need to reconsider, but the hierarchy doesn't need to change. It still captures the same information.

Your hierarchy isn't so bad, but I think it's a mistake to put dot and line higher on the hierarchy than shape. If you took out line and dot, it would be fine. Instead, I would put line as something below rectangle, square, pentagon, etc, and dot as below line. 

7                     6            5                           4            3           2         1
Dimension Shape    Polygon    Quadrilateral    Square    Line    Dot

I left out a lot of your hierarchy of course, but I'm just trying to illustrate level of abstraction. Broadly speaking, we can consider each "level" of abstraction to be a different column, arranged 7 to 1. A bigger number does not necessarily mean more abstract, just a different level. 7 is a level that I added, but I think it could work. 3 would also include things like rectangles and triangles. I would call this the perceptual level, because you see these things directly. It doesn't require any special knowledge usually to say that the object in front of you is square or rectangular, but you would need more specific knowledge to say that the thing you're looking at is a quadrilateral. The main idea here is that you can measure the level of abstraction as distance from 3, the perceptual level. So shape is 3 levels more abstract than square (6 - 3 = 3); dot is to levels more abstract than square (3 - 1 = 2). It doesn't matter which direction you go. 

Just a note about hierarchies and writing them down. You probably noticed how much it would be a pain to write down "line" for every single specific shape you put down. That's more of a logistical concern for librarians and computer scientists than it is any philosophical issue. :P

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I want to focus for a moment on what I see as being The Big Picture, viz. the identity of “knowledge”. In her life, Rand focused on a theory of concepts, which are the most important things in an epistemology, and I am trying (and other Objectivists do likewise) to integrate her theory of concepts with a general theory of knowledge (an epistemology). Objectivism is full of propositions about existence – Objectivism is not just a set of concepts, or concepts plus an ordering of them. Most of Man’s knowledge is propositional. Unfortunately, Rand did not develop an explicit account of propositions, so this is all in the realm of applications of Objectivism. I am urging more attention to propositions, meaning that a hierarchy of concepts and differentia is necessary, but not sufficient.

One way in which propositions are baked into the Objectivist theory of concepts is in definitions. Definitions for natural objects often cannot be explicated in terms of other terms, so we have an ostensive component to epistemology, where we point to dog when looking for a definition of dog. It’s futile to “define” dog as canis familiaris because that terms is itself defined as “dog”. Ostensive definitions of high-level abstractions are generally not effective, because by being high level, pointing to an individual instance “defines” all lower concepts in all hierarchies referring to the individual. For example, what concept is identified by pointing to a particular samoyed? Somewhere in our knowledge of dogs, or polygons, we need propositions, which are sentences. Logic allows us to relate propositions, that is, we can relate propositions about Socrates being a man and all men being mortals to the proposition that Socrates is a mortal.

Your chart of geometric concepts visually captures most of what is important about hierarchy, and nicely illustrates the problem of the graphics of orthogonal concepts. Let’s take the daughters of Regular Polygon. I would drop “Hexagon” and refer Hexagon vs. Pentagon to a linguistic problem. Triangle and Quadrilateral have the special linguistic coding that is essential to concepts (separate symbols), whereas Pentagon, Hexagon, Heptagon, Octagon… are linguistic constructions, collocations of symbols. The measurement that is omitted at the level of integrating all N-gons into a single concept is the number of sides. At this point, we have to face the problem that you have duplicated the essence of the species polygon under both Irregular Polygon and Regular Polygon (I assume you would have included Triangle under Irregular Polygon, and that Quadrilateral etc at the bottom should be under Irregular Polygon, not a sister of Irregular Polygon). That is, you have two orthogonal properties: the number of sides, and whether the sides are equal in length. As for a graphic means of representing such a relation, I don’t have any useful suggestions – everything that I’m competent to draw is two-dimensional. In the hierarchy of concepts, Polygon is the most general, and rightfully belongs near the top: various additional propositions distinguish types of polygons. The “equal sides and angles” property defines a special subtype of polygon: but that is orthogonal to the “number of sides” property. Conceptual economy (“crow”) mandates that you not invent “Irregular Triangle” independent of “Regular Triangle”, instead you invent “Triangle” (“Quadilateral”, etc.) and then you independently modify each as to “regularity”. Since abstractness isn’t an absolute property, there’s no sense in which Regular Triangle is more or less abstract compared to Irregular Triangle. Line and dots are unquestionably perceptually more basic. From the perspective of conceptual acquisition (child geometry), I honestly don’t know about triangles and rectangles.

I would start with a proposition defining polygon, something like “a plane figure with a number of connected straight lines that form a closed chain”. This concept can be further differentiated according to numbers of sides, and there is a rule relating differentia and label (“If 3 sides, Triangle”, “If 4 sides, Quadrilateral”, then the open-ended construction “Otherwise if N sides, N-gon where 5=penta-, 6=hexa-…”). A second independent proposition is that there are “regular” subtypes of polygon.

My questions about polygon vs. square vs. circle were aimed at “hierarchy”, in a specific way, the fact of property-inheritance and its role in conceptual economy. A square is a kind of polygon, and not vice-versa: but a circle is not a kind of polygon, nor the converse – circle and polygon are not in the same kind of hierarchical relationship. Both are, however, kind of shapes (simple closed curves, using non-intuitive tech lingo), so there is a hierarchical relation between shape and circle, or shape and polygon. The reason why hierarchy is important is that the essential properties of a higher concept in a hierarchical relationship are implied for lower concepts and are true of the units subsumed by a lower concept. That means that you do not repeat the essential properties of polygon in defining triangle, quadrilateral, N-gon, and you do not repeat the essential properties of “shape” or “closed curve” in defining polygon, or circle.

Turning to the practical-application question, I can explain, roughly, how I approached the problem of philosophy-acquisition, with a big serving of “I would have done it this way if I had only known”. I was driven by a particular mostly political interest, what are rights and where do they come from? It was clear to me that they don’t come from God or the US Constitution, and I had heard of this idea that they somehow were related to “Man’s nature” and non-contradiction. Galt’s Speech improved my grasp of what that meant, but there were missing pieces, namely a better understanding of “logic”. I needed to understand the concept of “proof”. Clearly, I choose my actions: on what basis? I needed something “out there” that I could refer to, and a means of relating that thing to my choice. The “thing out there” is, being vague, “life”. Then, I can get to a logical connection between my particular choice and that standard of “life” by using reason. Why should I believe in a particular relationship between my choice, and a system of principles? Because (leaving out a few steps) that relation is proven to be true. I conclude that with respect to “choice” (which is fundamental to one’s existence), “proof” is the most important concept that guides you in making a choice. You raised this question earlier, regarding the relationship between action and evidence.

So then, what does it mean to “prove” something? The concept of “proof” is based on certain other concepts, as elaborated on in OPAR ch. 5. One such concept is “evidence”. You also have to “evaluate” (hence you have to distinguish possible, probable and certain; let’s also remember “arbitrary”). In explaining what distinguishes the probable from the certain (that which is proven), Peikoff makes crucial reference to “alternatives” and (more implicitly) “disproof”. In studying the central question of life, I came to understand that my knowledge in certain areas had to be elaborated: I had not previously thought of “proof” as being a point on a continuum of evidence, and I had not fleshed out what “evidence” is, or how to evaluate it. This is the approach that I took. This gives us a hierarchy of concepts and propositions, where I start with the most general relevant concept, try to understand its nature, and in so doing discover other concepts, each of which need to be better understood (to be validated). I’m not forming concepts, they already exist in our society: I am trying to tie them down, so that they are not floating abstractions.

I agree that one can acquire the concept “shape” and the concept “triangle” and temporarily skip the integration “polygon”. Very few, if any, people have a complete conceptual hierarchy from “animal” to “dog”: I’ve fiddled with that for decades now and I still have to look stuff up.

As for what’s most effective for improved philosophical thinking, I commend Rand’s phrase “Check your assumptions!”. In practical terms, what does this mean? How do you do it? I don’t subscribe to a big-data theory of concepts, but the underlying idea of “Check your assumptions” is involved in the thinking that frequency plays an important part in forming concepts.

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On 10/25/2020 at 3:06 PM, Jonathan Weissberg said:

I don't know about induction.

I think with David's distinction of concept acquisition and concept formation, the key is in the way he uses "grasp." I think it means simply the observation of similarities and differences enough to make some distinctions, but then that making these distinctions does not guarantee that you've formed or acquired a concept, simply grasped some aspect of reality. So you could 'grasp' an 'invalid concept.'

I'm not sure if we're splitting hairs with valid or invalid concept vs. just concept, but I assume that concept refers to something valid. And an attempt at a concept could be called an invalid concept. It's a grasp of some kind of similarities/differences and some kind of integration, but not completely logical.

But how do you know you have "grasped"? Is it based on someone else testing you?

At some point you say, I got it. Only seeing a difference or similarity once may or may not be enough. At some point you will say I got it, meaning what I see is valid. So when is that? What rule do you go by?

 

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  • 1 month later...
On 10/29/2020 at 11:50 PM, Easy Truth said:

But how do you know you have "grasped"? Is it based on someone else testing you?

At some point you say, I got it. Only seeing a difference or similarity once may or may not be enough. At some point you will say I got it, meaning what I see is valid. So when is that? What rule do you go by?

 

I don't know. Much of this thread is still lost on me so I'll have to revisit it later after learning more.

On 10/28/2020 at 3:21 PM, DavidOdden said:

 

So then, what does it mean to “prove” something? The concept of “proof” is based on certain other concepts, as elaborated on in OPAR ch. 5. One such concept is “evidence”. You also have to “evaluate” (hence you have to distinguish possible, probable and certain; let’s also remember “arbitrary”). In explaining what distinguishes the probable from the certain (that which is proven), Peikoff makes crucial reference to “alternatives” and (more implicitly) “disproof”. In studying the central question of life, I came to understand that my knowledge in certain areas had to be elaborated: I had not previously thought of “proof” as being a point on a continuum of evidence, and I had not fleshed out what “evidence” is, or how to evaluate it. This is the approach that I took. This gives us a hierarchy of concepts and propositions, where I start with the most general relevant concept, try to understand its nature, and in so doing discover other concepts, each of which need to be better understood (to be validated). I’m not forming concepts, they already exist in our society: I am trying to tie them down, so that they are not floating abstractions.

I agree that one can acquire the concept “shape” and the concept “triangle” and temporarily skip the integration “polygon”. Very few, if any, people have a complete conceptual hierarchy from “animal” to “dog”: I’ve fiddled with that for decades now and I still have to look stuff up.

As for what’s most effective for improved philosophical thinking, I commend Rand’s phrase “Check your assumptions!”. In practical terms, what does this mean? How do you do it? I don’t subscribe to a big-data theory of concepts, but the underlying idea of “Check your assumptions” is involved in the thinking that frequency plays an important part in forming concepts.

OK, this is what I understand is the jist of what you're saying (the rest I will come back to at a later date):

When I'm thinking, check my assumptions, if I find an underlying idea - implicit or explicit - which I'm depending on but isn't clear then I should go through this process of clarifying that concept. When I do that then I'll suddenly be led to other concepts which need to be better understood.

I suppose the only issue I have is that implicit concepts are not immediately noticeable and on the surface but lie underneath and cause confusion. Can give examples, but again will revisit this thread when I'm clearer and have read more.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Jonathan Weissberg
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Thought I'd tack this on as it's something relevant I recently highlighted from the chapter on Objectivity.

Quote

 

As with integration, so with reduction (both conceptual and propositional): if the process is new to you, I suggest that you start now, but do it gradually, within the limits of your time and knowledge. It is probably best to start with concepts, which are the elements of propositions—particularly with fundamental concepts, whenever you sense that these are not clear to you. Then, as you see the need of it, you can bring into logical order other higher-level items. 

Let me caution you to apply the method in essential terms only. Trying to work backward through every intermediate cognition involved would be excruciating and pointless. Instead, seek at first to reach an overview of the major connecting links, on the pattern of our treatment of “friend.” Thereafter, should it prove necessary, you can fill in further nuances.

 

So here it seems he is saying to concern yourself first with the concepts individually and with those that are "fundamental" (which I'm still working at trying to identify).

Also another thing: I wonder if I can look to Kant for some clues as to what's fundamental to thinking?
From OPAR:
 

Quote
In regard to most concepts, Kant claims to accept the Aristotelian approach. Officially, he regards only twelve concepts, the so-called categories, as subjective. But in his system these are the decisive concepts, which determine the status of all others; they are the concepts which, in conjunction with certain other innate mental structures, give rise to the whole empirical world.
 

I looked the terms up and they're not at all familiar to me, e.g., "inherence and subsistence" as a category of relation - but it may be that the words are used differently and do refer to specific fundamental concepts that set the terms for a thought process or philosophy in general.

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