I think this is a little unfair. For example, I know exactly what the category ‘fish’ contains. It contains eels and it contains flounders, without question. If someone gives me a new creature, there are things that I can do to ascertain whether it is a fish. The only question is how quickly I could do this.
We pattern-match on ‘has fins’, ‘moves via tail’, etc. because we can do that fast, and because animals with those traits are likely to share other traits like ‘is billaterally symetrical’ (and perhaps ‘disease is more likely to be communicable from similarly shaped creatures’). But that doesn’t mean the hard-and-fast ‘fish’ category is meaningless; there is a reason dolphins aren’t fish.
If someone gives me a new creature, there are things that I can do to ascertain whether it is a fish. The only question is how quickly I could do this.
I’m guessing you’d quickly say “yes” for Panderichthys and “no” for Acanthostega… but what about Tiktaalik? Or if that’s too easy to answer (which answer?), pick any clear amphibian and start looking at its ancestors. Is there a clear line where “this is not a fish, but its mother is”?
We think of ring species as rare populations with interesting spatial distributions, but thanks to common descent every living thing is part of one big multi-ring species with a very interesting space-time distribution. It’s hard to categorize living things, in part because the obvious ideas for equivalence relations turned out to not be inherently transitive.
If someone gives me a new creature, there are things that I can do to ascertain whether it is a fish. The only question is how quickly I could do this.
Are you talking about the biologist’s stipulated definition of “fish”? This is different than one’s intuitive concept.
I see what you’re getting at with the intuitive concept (and philosophy matching how people actually are, rather than how they should be), but human imperfection seems to open the door to a whole lot of misunderstanding. Like, if someone said we were having fish for dinner, and then served duck, because they thought anything that swims is a fish, well I’d be put out to say the least.
I think my intuition is that my understanding of various concepts should approach the strictness of conceptual analysis. But maybe that’s just vanity. After all, border cases can easily be specified (if we’re having eel, just say ‘eel’ rather than ‘fish’).
The link I sent you to contains the argument for why it is that many common forms of conceptual analysis are committed to the view that concepts are encoded in the human brain in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
That doesn’t answer my question. I don’t want to rush to cry “logical rudeness objection” here; I suspect I’m asking the wrong question anyway. (But I do feel a bit frustrated.)
The “short-short” version of your post reads: the human mind doesn’t encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, we now know; a majority of conceptual analysis treats concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions; therefore conceptual analysis should be considered suspect, to the extent that it relies on untrue facts about the mind. (Did I get that mostly right?)
But “minds encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions” and “minds can work with the framework of necessary and sufficient conditions” are two distinct factual claims about minds.
The problem becomes clear when you replace “conceptual analysis” with “math”. Mathematicians are not relying to do their jobs on factual truths about how the mind represents mathematical concepts. They are relying to do their jobs on the pragmatic usefulness of the framework of necessary and useful conditions.
Why does that argument work for philosophers but fail for mathematicians? (I have an inkling, which is that they don’t look at the same kinds of concepts. But your post makes a muddle of that point, IMO.)
Oh, this is totally different than the objection I thought you were making. So thanks for clarifying.
Okay, so:
“minds encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions” and “minds can work with the framework of necessary and sufficient conditions” are two distinct factual claims about minds.
It is useful in many cases to talk about concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. I use stipulative definitions like this all the time.
My argument is not against the entire practice of seeking definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. My argument is against the practice of doing so under the assumption that what we’re getting at with such definitions are the concepts in our head, rather than more stipulatively defined concepts that, in many cases, may be more useful than our intuitive concepts anyway.
I may be way off base here, but isn’t the root of this disagreement that lukeprog is saying that our mental map called “conceptual analysis” doesn’t perfectly reflect the territory of the real world and should therefore not be the official model. While Morendil is saying, “but it’s good enough in most cases to get through most practical situations.” Which lukeprog agrees with.
It may not be a very good reason. To quote Wikipedia:
Because the term “fish” is defined negatively, and excludes the tetrapods (i.e., the amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals) which descend from within the same ancestry, it is paraphyletic, and is not considered a proper grouping in systematic biology. The traditional term pisces (also ichthyes) is considered a typological, but not a phylogenetic classification.
In other words, there are probably fish that are more distantly related to each other than one of them is to a dolphin (or you).
Good point. The initial experiment couldn’t even have been carried out without the biological definition of the fish category. If I’m asked to rate various fish as more or less typical, on a scale of 1 to 10, then I’ll give very different answers depending on whether 1 means “least typical of all biologically-defined fish” or “mammal” or “flower” or “pair of headphones”.
I think this is a little unfair. For example, I know exactly what the category ‘fish’ contains. It contains eels and it contains flounders, without question. If someone gives me a new creature, there are things that I can do to ascertain whether it is a fish. The only question is how quickly I could do this.
We pattern-match on ‘has fins’, ‘moves via tail’, etc. because we can do that fast, and because animals with those traits are likely to share other traits like ‘is billaterally symetrical’ (and perhaps ‘disease is more likely to be communicable from similarly shaped creatures’). But that doesn’t mean the hard-and-fast ‘fish’ category is meaningless; there is a reason dolphins aren’t fish.
I’m guessing you’d quickly say “yes” for Panderichthys and “no” for Acanthostega… but what about Tiktaalik? Or if that’s too easy to answer (which answer?), pick any clear amphibian and start looking at its ancestors. Is there a clear line where “this is not a fish, but its mother is”?
We think of ring species as rare populations with interesting spatial distributions, but thanks to common descent every living thing is part of one big multi-ring species with a very interesting space-time distribution. It’s hard to categorize living things, in part because the obvious ideas for equivalence relations turned out to not be inherently transitive.
Are you talking about the biologist’s stipulated definition of “fish”? This is different than one’s intuitive concept.
I see what you’re getting at with the intuitive concept (and philosophy matching how people actually are, rather than how they should be), but human imperfection seems to open the door to a whole lot of misunderstanding. Like, if someone said we were having fish for dinner, and then served duck, because they thought anything that swims is a fish, well I’d be put out to say the least.
I think my intuition is that my understanding of various concepts should approach the strictness of conceptual analysis. But maybe that’s just vanity. After all, border cases can easily be specified (if we’re having eel, just say ‘eel’ rather than ‘fish’).
Sure. But that normative claim is different than the descriptive claim I made about concepts.
But which philosopher(s) are you claiming made the opposite, false descriptive claim, namely that our brains represent them that way?
Tons of ’em. See here.
I looked where you asked me to look, and I still don’t know who you’re referring to. Could be me being stupid, but if so that’s not my intention.
Would you give me the name of one philosopher who says that concepts are encoded in the human brain in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions?
The link I sent you to contains the argument for why it is that many common forms of conceptual analysis are committed to the view that concepts are encoded in the human brain in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
That doesn’t answer my question. I don’t want to rush to cry “logical rudeness objection” here; I suspect I’m asking the wrong question anyway. (But I do feel a bit frustrated.)
The “short-short” version of your post reads: the human mind doesn’t encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, we now know; a majority of conceptual analysis treats concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions; therefore conceptual analysis should be considered suspect, to the extent that it relies on untrue facts about the mind. (Did I get that mostly right?)
But “minds encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions” and “minds can work with the framework of necessary and sufficient conditions” are two distinct factual claims about minds.
The problem becomes clear when you replace “conceptual analysis” with “math”. Mathematicians are not relying to do their jobs on factual truths about how the mind represents mathematical concepts. They are relying to do their jobs on the pragmatic usefulness of the framework of necessary and useful conditions.
Why does that argument work for philosophers but fail for mathematicians? (I have an inkling, which is that they don’t look at the same kinds of concepts. But your post makes a muddle of that point, IMO.)
Oh, this is totally different than the objection I thought you were making. So thanks for clarifying.
Okay, so:
Agreed. Like I say:
My argument is not against the entire practice of seeking definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. My argument is against the practice of doing so under the assumption that what we’re getting at with such definitions are the concepts in our head, rather than more stipulatively defined concepts that, in many cases, may be more useful than our intuitive concepts anyway.
“It’s the map and not the territory,” right?
I may be way off base here, but isn’t the root of this disagreement that lukeprog is saying that our mental map called “conceptual analysis” doesn’t perfectly reflect the territory of the real world and should therefore not be the official model. While Morendil is saying, “but it’s good enough in most cases to get through most practical situations.” Which lukeprog agrees with.
Is that right?
It may not be a very good reason. To quote Wikipedia:
In other words, there are probably fish that are more distantly related to each other than one of them is to a dolphin (or you).
Good point. The initial experiment couldn’t even have been carried out without the biological definition of the fish category. If I’m asked to rate various fish as more or less typical, on a scale of 1 to 10, then I’ll give very different answers depending on whether 1 means “least typical of all biologically-defined fish” or “mammal” or “flower” or “pair of headphones”.