But is that really one unitary thing, or is it like the concept of intelligence, where there are a lot of different measurable capacities that all get rolled into one, and we think about it as one single concept because we are accustomed to using the word for that concept?
We start out in the dark and we make associations between things and this develops our understanding. Eventually we can put a picture together from all the linkages, or reach a true elementary foundation. But we don’t start from knowledge.
Sometimes we have words for things, like ether and phlogiston, that are based on our assumptions and work for a little while as heuristics, but further and rigorous investigation reveals that they were inaccurate inventions of our own minds.
Anyone who’s acquired a second language, or been immersed in a different nation’s culture, or studied anthropology, learns that there are some things that don’t carry over very well. It’s the concepts that are neither universal nor quantifiable nor specific that I look into as candidates for dissolving.
But is that really one unitary thing, or is it like the concept of intelligence, where there are a lot of different measurable capacities that all get rolled into one, and we think about it as one single concept because we are accustomed to using the word for that concept?
Isn’t that just how words work? Most concepts can be broken down into component concepts
Some concepts, not all. I’d say not even most.
We start out in the dark and we make associations between things and this develops our understanding. Eventually we can put a picture together from all the linkages, or reach a true elementary foundation. But we don’t start from knowledge.
Sometimes we have words for things, like ether and phlogiston, that are based on our assumptions and work for a little while as heuristics, but further and rigorous investigation reveals that they were inaccurate inventions of our own minds.
Anyone who’s acquired a second language, or been immersed in a different nation’s culture, or studied anthropology, learns that there are some things that don’t carry over very well. It’s the concepts that are neither universal nor quantifiable nor specific that I look into as candidates for dissolving.