If you mean by this grouping that we regard some existents as similar in some important ways, doesn’t this count as knowledge? If not, what is it?

Brendan

1. Similarity persists whether a characteristic is essential or nonessential in the knowledge context.
2. If two things are similar, there is always a single metaphysical reason for it. The only question is: How important is this cause in the cognitive context? (If you are blue in the face, while the fence is painted blue, the metaphysical cause is based on the wavelengths of light.)

I doubt that you can find where Rand ever refers to concepts as being either true or false.

I agree, but she did say a concept embodies implicit propositions, and I am merely pointing out that the truth of those constitutes a concept's validity. I would never say a concept is true either--that is not my point. But for a concept, validity is based on truth or falsity.

So I'll say, you're right ...  but.

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 1/16, 1:35pm)

I should outline my understanding of the point you are making. Let’s take by way of example Rand’s concept of “table”. Paraphrased, her definition is roughly: a man-made object, of a particular shape (flat top, supports), intended for a particular purpose.

This concept is initially formed by comparing certain objects and perceiving a general similarity -- in this case shape – by “abstracting away” particular features of the particular objects, and thus forming the basis of the concept.

The resulting concept is “epistemological” in the sense that no such general shape exists in the external world, since all objects and their characteristics are particular. But such a general shape has “mental” existence, as an entity “in the mind”.

Leaving aside the major objection – whether such a general entity can in fact be properly conceived – this process appears to be a matter of acquiring “mental content”. If this mental content does not count as knowledge, what is it?

Brendan

Although I was in error about similarity, not all relationships are epistemological, so I think Rick was wrong to emphasize the word relationship in the AR definition. For example, familial relationships and the cause-and-effect relationship: my brother is still my brother, and an entity’s actions still proceed from its nature, no matter what the cognitive context.

Concerning position, there are both relative or observer-based and absolute position. One might refer to the latter as location, but it is still a relationship: I was thinking of “inside” and “outside,” or the position of a pawn on the chessboard.

To clarify, things can be similar at one level of discernment and not at another; characteristics can be essential at one level of knowledge and not at another. But certain relationships will obtain in any context, and they are metaphysical.

But I don’t want to dwell on my disagreements with Rick. Both he and Nate are generally doing an excellent job of explaining IOE, in my view, and we all make mistakes.

Rick, you asked what I meant by “DB’s contention that truth begins at the level of propositions.” Well, I had started a private-message debate with Next Level (who got banned and we did not finish), and he defended Daniel thus:

Of course Daniel and I agree that it is ideal and important that we agree on the meaning of words and be consistent in our use of them. But Daniel was making the higher point that the words in themselves are not truth bearers, neither are definitions. The key is judgments or propositions or systems of them.

Of course, the whole point of AR’s characterization of concept formation is to reveal how concepts embody truth, and thus to head off thinkers’ violation of the nature of the process as they go higher up in the conceptual chain.

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 1/18, 4:55pm)

Nate, you are right about what I meant by the truth in a concept, except that (as I think you understand) I mean only those truths one takes into account while forming, defining, and maintaining a concept: the reality of the existents forming the genus, the reality of the characteristics underlying the differentiation, the reality of the causal/explanatory relationships that guide one in forming the definition, and any later knowledge that makes the definition remain a good one or forces one to alter it.

These truths make a concept valid, but other, non-essential truths discovered at the time of formation or later are of course part of the truth-content of the concept, and must be recognized whenever the concept is used.

By the way, excellent exposition! I doubt Daniel will be swayed, though. I have found that people are only convinced if you speak to their deepest premises (and if those premises are honestly held of course). I do not have the time to give Daniel the attention he deserves, despite the fact that I have investigated and thought about his posts a great deal.

(Edited by Rodney Rawlings on 1/18, 3:17pm)

Daniel, let me put it this way:

If new knowledge causes us to reclassify existents, what essentially happens is that new concepts are created—since the old ones have become inadequate, false to our understanding. Some of the old words may continue to be used for some of them, for various practical reasons. But our thinking is done in the concepts, not in the words.

What may be confusing people is that we Objectivists have sometimes loosely called this reclassification “altering” the concept­—because the terminology of the old concept is kept and repurposed (as with “star”). However, to speak strictly, new concepts are formed and the old ones retired.

Now, such a reclassification of reality is not what we mean by open-endedness. Open-endedness is rather the general-reference and new-knowledge-accepting capability of a concept while referring to the same classification over time.

This unchanging “pointing,” aided by the definition, is what we mean by definiteness.

1) The problem of establishing "true" essential definitions from "false" ones
2) The problem of avoiding the regress of definitions
3) The nature of language is inherited, adapted, borrowed, ambiguous, content-rich etc. This means it is always a little *vague*, though obviously some terms (eg what are usually called "defining terms") are far vaguer than others. This complicates the former two problems, both of which I consider logically intractable anyway.