Louie said:
I think you’re totally missing the point. Your words are imprecise and you throw a quote at me as though it reveals my error. Sorry, but it doesn’t help anyone.
From prior experience I know unless I quote a chapter title saying the exact opposite of what your saying you will not be effected by direct quotes at all. Quote me using imprecise language and back up this arbitrary assertion.
For others:
Prof. F: I have a fundamental question about the hierarchy of concepts. On page 22 you say, “The meaning of ‘furniture’ cannot be grasped unless one has first grasped the meaning of its constituent concepts; these are its link to reality.” Now, what about the meaning of “table”: can we say that the meaning of “table” cannot be grasped unless one has first grasped the meaning of “dining table,” “conference table,” “writing table,” and so forth? Are these its constituent concepts? Or is the concept “table” a kind of privileged concept that comes at a kind of absolute bottom in the hierarchy of concepts and has a direct relationship to reality?
Or would you say that where a concept comes is determined by the context of one’s own learning? For instance, might a person form the concept of “furniture” without having formed the concept of “table” before? Might he form the concept of “living being” before he has formed the concept of “animal”?
AR: In a sense, yes. There is a big problem here, however, whether this applies all the way through the conceptual chain —which I would claim cannot be the case. But, on the level we are discussing, there is a certain element of the optional. Because when you first form your concepts, you might conceivably first form in a very loose way the <ioe2_205> concepts “living entity” versus “inanimate object,” and later subdivide into “man,” “animals,” “plants,” etc. (and “tables,” “rocks,” “houses,” on the other hand). In a loose way, that can be done, but only up to a certain level. Because, suppose you started with the concept “living being.” You would then find that that is too generalized a category, and you would have to say, in effect, “By living beings l mean men, animals, and plants.”
Therefore, understanding what your original semi-concept “living being” meant would depend on what you mean by the constituents, such as “man,” “animal,” and “plant.”
What then is the ultimate determinant here? What I call the “first level” of concepts are existential concretes—that to which you can point as if it were an ostensive definition and say: “I mean this.” Now, you can point to a table. You cannot point to furniture. You have to say, “By furniture I mean …” and you would have to include all kinds of objects.
Prof. F: Why wouldn’t one have an equal difficulty when one came, let’s say, to the concept of “bird”? Why wouldn’t one have to say, “By bird, I mean eagles, penguins, and hummingbirds”?
AR: Because, in fact, one doesn’t. And that is the difference between subcategories of concepts and first-level concepts. Because, you see, you could not arrive at the differences between eagles, hummingbirds, etc., unless you had first separated birds from other animals.
Even if chronologically you may learn those concepts in different orders, ultimately when you organize your concepts to determine which are basic-level concepts and which are derivatives (in both directions, wider integration or narrower subdivision), the test will be: which objects you perceive directly in reality and can point to, and which you have to differentiate by means of other concepts.
Prof. F: Then you are suggesting that metaphysically there are certain lowest species or infima species: certain concepts that are directly tied to concretes. Whereas, on top of them, <ioe2_206> we continually build higher-order concepts, which refer, in turn, to the lower.
AR: Yes, if you mean, by “metaphysical,” existential objects—entities which exist qua entities.
ITOE