David Kelley

[Boydstun]

Old photo, new paper Concepts and Propositions

[Boydstun]

David Kelley writes:

“The paper shows why the analysis of concepts is essential to the explanation of both unity and truth in propositions. Another distinctive feature is a view of cognitive ontology that distinguishes between two dimensions of objectivity: the intrinsic—what exists independent of any cognition—and the objective—the aspects of things’ identities as grasped through cognitive processes.”

. . .

“Section III will cover the structure of propositions, including a new account of their unity. Sections IV and V will address issues about truth, including the nature of correspondence and the ontology of facts. Along the way, I will comment on historical and contemporary work where relevant, but my focus will be on developing a theory of propositions on an Objectivist basis.”

. . .

“The permanence of concepts and propositions is the first relevant difference between the conceptual level and perception. The second difference is that concepts and propositions can be held in common by different people and communicated among people. Perceptual awareness occurs in an individual mind. You and I may perceive the same car, but our perceptual experiences are distinct and unique. The same is true for our acts of concept-formation or judgement. But you and I may possess the same concept as a cognitive structure defined by its content: the category or attribute that we are aware of. And we may possess the same propositional knowledge as a cognitive structure defined by the fact we are aware of.”

. . .

“IV. Propositions and Reality: Cognitive Ontology

The preceding sections were concerned with the internal structure of propositions, both their deep unity in linking a subject as referent with a predicate stating its identity, and the surface varieties in meaning based on grammatical structure and the designation of the component concepts. It is time now to address the other major issue: the relation of propositions to reality—specifically, the nature of truth.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

This paper of David’s bears the characteristic shimmering economy and clarity of his hard-worked thought. It includes, secondarily, relationships of elements in his Objectivist theory with some contemporary and classical philosophy as well as relationships (positive) of elements with a couple of Objectivist principal philosophers since Ayn Rand’s Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology (1966–67). It fits tightly with Dr. Kelley’s earlier papers on abstraction and with the book The Evidence of the Senses (1986) he made from his Ph.D. dissertation at Princeton a long lifetime ago. It is another splendid assembly engineered by David to fill one of the specific voids that Rand had acknowledged in the theory of knowledge she had innovated.

“To hold an unchanging youth is to reach, at the end, the vision with which one started.” –AR

Edited September 15 by Boydstun

[Boydstun]

There is an interview of David including discussion of his paper “Concepts and Propositions” here.

In my look at David Kelley’s essay “Concepts and Propositions”, I have not noticed any address of mathematical concepts (such as the real line R, function, domain, cluster points of a domain, and derivative) and mathematical propositions (such as definitions of those concepts or such as theorems that can be derived from them [such as the mean value theorem for derivatives in R]). A good research project would be to try to write out for the concepts and propositions and methods in mathematics a mimicry of Kelley’s analysis of empirical concepts and propositions within an Objectivist framework. My wager would be that the theory Kelley puts forward for the relationships between concepts and propositions, like Rand’s theory of concepts, is tied essentially to only empirical concepts and empirical propositions and methods. Shortfalls revealed in such an exercise should likely indicate what additions to Rand’s epistemology and metaphysics can yield a satisfactory theory of both empirical and mathematical concepts and propositions. 

In 1991 I set out a triple-identity analysis of predication on pages 43–45 here. What Kelley puts forth in his paper seems perfectly consonant with that analysis.

In 2019 Roger Bissell issued a book on concepts and propositions in a Randian framework titled What's in Your File Folder?. I hope someday to dig into what Kelley in this paper (2024) and Roger in his book and François Recanati in Mental Files (2012) and neuroscience today have to say about the notion files in portraying conceptual cognition.

An additional factor, ignored by philosophers until now—the social ontogeny of propositional thinking—is set out in Radu Bogdan’s Predicative Minds (2009). An advanced book on propositions, showing where academic philosophy is today is Robert Stalnaker’s Propositions – Ontology and Logic (2023).

Edited September 17 by Boydstun