| | Am I MIA?
A quick comment on the exchange between Ed and Robert and Merlin just previous to this: do you see how a question about measurements turned into a statement about what was measureable? To say that what has been ommitted is measureable is not the same as to show how it is a measurement.
Back to my own place:
I have said I disagree with the theory of measurement-ommission, both that "measurements" correctly describes everything that ever gets ommitted in forming a concept, and that it works as it is supposed to (and it is my own theory of how it is "supposed" to work) in the Objectivist epistemology.
Another problem I have is with Rand's statements that a concept "means" everything about all the individuals it properly names, including what is entirely unknown about such individuals. Again, I believe the purpose of this formulation is to escape the Analytic/Synthetic dichotomy. It would succeed in doing that, to the best of my knowledge, but it is insupportable on its face.
Accidental qualities of a thing can change from time to time (Alert--not using "trait" "quality," etc. in special senses,) and they certainly vary from individual to individual. The hair color of a particular person is an ommitted trait, but, according to Rand's statement, is part of the meaning of the concept, "person." Sex is an ommitted characteristic of a person, but is part of the meaning of the concept. Note that while this does assure that a sentence saying some person is male, or blond will contain in the subject the meaning of the predicate, it also means that the subject will contradict the predicate.
It also says that our "meaning" exceeds our knowledge, which doesn't make sense.
Additionally, the claim that the meaning of the predicate of a true sentence was contained in the meaning of the subject, as "ommitted measurements" invalidates the purpose of thought itself. If we are not adding any information in predicating something of a subject, there is no point in the exercise.
It seems to me that Rand didn't want to allow concepts to be genuinely abstract, this due to the opening it would give to the Analytic/Synthetic dichotomy. One way to give the same protection is to recognize that grammar plays a role in sentential meaning beyond the semantic contribution of the terms used.
We turn a noun into a reference by adding an article such as "a" or "the" or by pluralising it: "Dogs eat meat." It is a standard precept of linguistics that terms cannot, on their own, refer.
It is never, then, a concept, on its own, that is responsible for the meaning of the subject of a sentence. As the subject of a sentence, a concept comes to do something new, to refer. It may refer to a single individual of the kind, or to some, or to all of them, but as a reference, it indicates the thing(s) in toto, just as pointing with a finger would.
When the meaning of the subject of a sentence is a reference, it is determinate. It is a key aspect of human cognition that we refer through abstractions.
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