Women, Fire and Dangerous Things...

Note: The OP in this thread is Sophroniscus. The nic disappeared when we changed templates, which didn't support notation that wasn't a registered user. So Guest: Sophroniscus.

Been reading a book, Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things by George Lakoff...

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/CogSci/Lakoff.html

It's about the categories. It's quite interesting but if seriously flawed by the author's virtually total ignorance regarding the classical theory...

[CFTraveler]

Well, after swimming through the waters and meandering through the forest of evolving ideas, I found it diaphanously vaporous.
(Couldn't cram one more metapor in there, but tried. :) ).

[journyman161]

While semantics is important to understanding, the meaning of meaning is far more important. Lakoff seems to have missed the entire 20th century & it's development of a multitude of greys - he looks at the black & white world of the believer & forgets entirely that science & thinking people have moved beyond into relativity & even beyond that.

Strangely this thread is presented like something new but the movement towards relativity was begun over 100 years back. Only believers (not thinkers) think in the way Lakoff tries to define as how things are. The concepts presented are a little old fashioned - Count Alfred Korzybski went beyond them in the 1930's.

One should point out that the end result of such thinking is the obliteration of traditional religions - there is no room for grey or relativity in the black & white of good & evil.

IMO - not worth reading for anyone who has had an original thought in the last 30 years. The title turns out to be weirdly appropriate - the world has moved beyond seeing women as hazardous - except for the rednecks & various throwbacks to primitive times when the monotheistic male-God dominated religions overwhelmed the pantheistic earth/goddess religions that originated the term religion.

[CFTraveler]

While semantics is important to understanding, the meaning of meaning is far more important. Lakoff seems to have missed the entire 20th century & it's development of a multitude of greys - he looks at the black & white world of the believer & forgets entirely that science & thinking people have moved beyond into relativity & even beyond that.

Strangely this thread is presented like something new but the movement towards relativity was begun over 100 years back. Only believers (not thinkers) think in the way Lakoff tries to define as how things are. The concepts presented are a little old fashioned - Count Alfred Korzybski went beyond them in the 1930's.

One should point out that the end result of such thinking is the obliteration of traditional religions - there is no room for grey or relativity in the black & white of good & evil.

IMO - not worth reading for anyone who has had an original thought in the last 30 years. The title turns out to be weirdly appropriate - the world has moved beyond seeing women as hazardous - except for the rednecks & various throwbacks to primitive times when the monotheistic male-God dominated religions overwhelmed the pantheistic earth/goddess religions that originated the term religion. So I take it you didn't like it? :lol: :lol: :lol:

[journyman161]

Um... yep, you take it correctly. Can't be nice to have a view of the world like his but there was no need to share it in a book. :lol:

I think the book is probably a good summary of the psychology of the categories. But I have a number of objections to what he calls the classical theory. In this message, I would examine one of his claims...

From the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein, categories were thought be well understood and unproblematic. ~ page 6.

I would argue that Lakoff is merely continuing with a myth, that Aristotle held a stranglehold on Western philosophy.

It is far from clear to me that Aristotle's ideas regarding the Categories were well accepted by subsequent Greek thinkers -- after the time of Aristotle, Greek philosophy shifted to Stoicism. I have heard that the Stoics, in fact, proposed an alternative list of categories, though I can not at the moment supply a reference to that effect.

Afterward, Ammonius Saccas and his followers popularized a return to both Plato and Aristotle -- Neo-Platonism.. But Plotinus, the most significant of the Neo-Platonists, sharply criticized Aristotle's Categories. It was not until Porphyry wrote a commentary on the Categories that Aristotle's ideas were revived. Subsequently, Boethius wrote an important commentary on the Categories as well.

But that was not the end of the story. Immanuel Kant rejected Aristotle's Categories and proposed an alternative list of his own. Later, Charles Sanders Peirce produced a version of the Categories fundamentally different.

Lakoff seems to be completely ignorant of this history. The book seems to make no reference to Plotinus or Peirce. It contains only one almost irrelevant reference to Kant.

I think the book is probably a good summary of the psychology of the categories. But I have a number of objections to what he calls the classical theory. In this message, I would examine one of his claims...

From the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein, categories were thought be well understood and unproblematic. ~ page 6.

I would argue that Lakoff is merely continuing with a myth, that Aristotle held a stranglehold on Western philosophy.

It is far from clear to me that Aristotle's ideas regarding the Categories were well accepted by subsequent Greek thinkers -- after the time of Aristotle, Greek philosophy shifted to Stoicism. I have heard that the Stoics, in fact, proposed an alternative list of categories, though I can not at the moment supply a reference to that effect.

Afterward, Ammonius Saccas and his followers popularized a return to both Plato and Aristotle -- Neo-Platonism.. But Plotinus, the most significant of the Neo-Platonists, sharply criticized Aristotle's Categories. It was not until Porphyry wrote a commentary on the Categories that Aristotle's ideas were revived. Subsequently, Boethius wrote an important commentary on the Categories as well.

But that was not the end of the story. Immanuel Kant rejected Aristotle's Categories and proposed an alternative list of his own. Later, Charles Sanders Peirce produced a version of the Categories fundamentally different.

Lakoff seems to be completely ignorant of this history. The book seems to make no reference to Plotinus or Peirce. It contains only one almost irrelevant reference to Kant.
I suppose Lakoff might object that I am trying to interpret his book using classical ideas when I ought to adopt his theories on faith alone.

Well, I suppose I can try. To do that I must attempt to understand what he means by the classical theory. So we must find a prototype for the word classical for which the statement "From the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein, categories were thought be well understood and unproblematic" is true.

That in itself is a tall order, since clearly Aristotle, Plotinus, Porphyry, Kant and Peirce seem to disagree with each other. But if we add in the following the task seems impossible...

Thought is the mechanical manipulation of abstract symbols.
The mind is an abstract machine, manipulating symbols essentially in the way a computer does, that is, by algorithmic computation.
Symbols (e.g., words and mental representations) get their meaning via correspondences to things in the external world. All meaning is of this character. ~ page xii.

For it is far from clear what sort of mechanical manipulation Aristotle might have had in mind. What sort of computer might he have had in mind? History gives us few answers to that inquiry. There is the abacus, I suppose...

[journyman161]

Well, they were probably a little more sophisticated than just an abacus. Classical history leads us to think of anyone before us as being primitive & lacking ingenuity. The Antikythera device (http://archaeoastronomy.wordpress.com/2006/11/29/the-antikythera-mechanism/) has been the subject of study & has proven far more complex than its degraded appearance would suggest.

As a device it was an amazingly complex piece of equipment; as a computer it suggests a line of development of devices that has disappeared from our histories. Such complexity & such development of technology doesn't come from nowhere or one sudden spurt of creativity - there is a long line of development in the background of this device.

Well, they were probably a little more sophisticated than just an abacus. Classical history leads us to think of anyone before us as being primitive & lacking ingenuity. The Antikythera device (http://archaeoastronomy.wordpress.com/2006/11/29/the-antikythera-mechanism/) has been the subject of study & has proven far more complex than its degraded appearance would suggest.

As a device it was an amazingly complex piece of equipment; as a computer it suggests a line of development of devices that has disappeared from our histories. Such complexity & such development of technology doesn't come from nowhere or one sudden spurt of creativity - there is a long line of development in the background of this device.
Complex, perhaps. But could it manipulate abstract symbols in the way a computer does?

[journyman161]

Computers don't do that anyway, in spite of appearances. Computers add up & subtract 0's & 1's and that's all they do.

Yes it could manipulate symbols in the sense you could enter info & extract answers, just like our computers do. It was far more complex than an abacus & experts think there is nothing anywhere near as complex for at least 1000 years after the device went to the sea floor.

So there were complex mechanisms & a lot of knowledge around a long time before we thought possible & that we are only finding out about in recent times.

I suppose Lakoff might object that I am trying to interpret his book using classical ideas when I ought to adopt his theories on faith alone.

Well, I suppose I can try. To do that I must attempt to understand what he means by the classical theory. So we must find a prototype for the word classical for which the statement "From the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein, categories were thought be well understood and unproblematic" is true.

That in itself is a tall order, since clearly Aristotle, Plotinus, Porphyry, Kant and Peirce seem to disagree with each other. But if we add in the following the task seems impossible...

Thought is the mechanical manipulation of abstract symbols.
The mind is an abstract machine, manipulating symbols essentially in the way a computer does, that is, by algorithmic computation.
Symbols (e.g., words and mental representations) get their meaning via correspondences to things in the external world. All meaning is of this character. ~ page xii.

For it is far from clear what sort of mechanical manipulation Aristotle might have had in mind. What sort of computer might he have had in mind? History gives us few answers to that inquiry. There is the abacus, I suppose...
In spite or these problems, I suppose I should continue on my search for a prototype for the classical theory that might be of use.

As we look further into Lakoff's claims we see the following...

Machines that do no more than mechanically manipulate symbols that correspond to things in the world are capable of meaningful thought and reason. ~ page xiii.

Such a statement is bewildering, since it requires one to suppose that Aristotle, Plotinus, Porphyry, Kant, Peirce and others in between thought in such terms. Yet that supposition appears most doubtful.

Computers don't do that anyway, in spite of appearances. Computers add up & subtract 0's & 1's and that's all they do.

Yes it could manipulate symbols in the sense you could enter info & extract answers, just like our computers do. It was far more complex than an abacus & experts think there is nothing anywhere near as complex for at least 1000 years after the device went to the sea floor.

So there were complex mechanisms & a lot of knowledge around a long time before we thought possible & that we are only finding out about in recent times.
Personally I do not believe that computers do anything remotely similar. But Lakoff seems to have said that to be part of the classical theory. Since I am looking for a prototype for his classical theory, I must hypothetically imagine Aristotle, Plotinus, etc. to have believed that.

In any event, the Antikythera device appears to be a mere analog device and not a real computer. The link you provided asserts that the device was used to trace planetary motions.

Tycho Brahe and others built many such devices without having any real idea of the laws of motion. The very shape of the Antikythera device strongly suggests that it was just another attempt to convert circular motion into the planetary motions. Such a device might well have been constructed by simple trial and error.

As such I can not imagine it to have inspired Aristotle, Plotinus and others. Thus it would not serve me as a useful prototype for Lakoff's 'classical theory.'

In spite or these problems, I suppose I should continue on my search for a prototype for the classical theory that might be of use.

As we look further into Lakoff's claims we see the following...

Machines that do no more than mechanically manipulate symbols that correspond to things in the world are capable of meaningful thought and reason. ~ page xiii.

Such a statement is bewildering, since it requires one to suppose that Aristotle, Plotinus, Porphyry, Kant, Peirce and others in between thought in such terms. Yet that supposition appears most doubtful.
Yet things get worse. According to Lakoff we must leave behind a number of familiar ideas...

Meaning is based on truth and reference; it concerns the relationship between symbols and things in the world.[/*:m:1hjltawl]
Biological species are natural kinds, defined by common essential properties.[/*:m:1hjltawl]
The mind is separate from, and independent of, the body.[/*:m:1hjltawl]
Emotion has no conceptual content.[/*:m:1hjltawl]
Grammar is a matter of pure form.[/*:m:1hjltawl]
Reason is transcendental, in that it transcends--goes beyond--the way human beings, or any other kinds of beings, happen to think. It concerns the inferential relationships among all possible concepts in this universe or any other. Mathematics is a form of transcendental reason.[/*:m:1hjltawl]
There is a correct, God's eye view of the world--a single correct way of understanding what is and is not true.[/*:m:1hjltawl]
All people think using the same conceptual system.[/*:m:1hjltawl]
~ page 9.

Perhaps some of these ideas must be abandoned. Perhaps some should be held. It is not my intent to argue the point at this time. My intent is to focus on these ideas in my attempt to determine a prototype for Lakoff's Classical Theory. For some of the thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" held these ideas, some did not.

At this point I would also note that the above statements go far beyond the categories, themselves, and refer to reality beyond mere categorization and language. Whether it is possible to draw such a conclusion from the evidence provided by linguistics is far from clear.

[journyman161]

In any event, the Antikythera device appears to be a mere analog device and not a real computer. The link you provided asserts that the device was used to trace planetary motions.

Tycho Brahe and others built many such devices without having any real idea of the laws of motion. The very shape of the Antikythera device strongly suggests that it was just another attempt to convert circular motion into the planetary motions. Such a device might well have been constructed by simple trial and errorSome of the 1st computers were for precisely this reason, ie tracing planetary & even Earth orbits.

As far as not knowing laws of motion, you do realise that Newton isn't the be all & end all of things? That relativity turns out to only be accurate if you ignore the fact that Michelson-Morley experimentation was falsely reported? That Columbus was most certainly not out to prove the world was round because that has been known for thousands of years? That only Europeans were silly enough to think the Earth was the centre of the universe? (Sumerians, Egyptians, cultures in India, China & Japan ALL knew the Earth travelled around the sun)

Just saying that only in the extremely limited field of knowledge allowed by the church in Europe & Eastern Europe can the Antikythera device be considered as something out of the blue.

Speak to almost any engineer & get them to have a look at what is now known of the device & you will find they have a list longer than your arm of fields of knowledge that had to come before the device could be made, let alone conceived. It most certainly is not something cobbled together in a backyard shed by trial & error.

And I am unsure what you mean by the shape of it - best guess seems to be it was housed in a rectangular box - the shape of the cogs tells us nothing about what it was used for. Engineering isn't my strong suit but even I know that. - cogs are cogs - there aren't a lot of ways to make them & have them work.

The first decent computer was a design by Charles Babbage, called the difference engine - recently built from the plans, it works! Lots of cogs & gears in it too. If that was a computer (& the computer world thinks it was) then so is the Antikythera device - & somebody actually built[ the Antikythera device! The Babbage engine remained unbuilt for more than 100 years before Tech Institute students built it as a project.

Some of the 1st computers were for precisely this reason, ie tracing planetary & even Earth orbits.

As far as not knowing laws of motion, you do realise that Newton isn't the be all & end all of things? That relativity turns out to only be accurate if you ignore the fact that Michelson-Morley experimentation was falsely reported? That Columbus was most certainly not out to prove the world was round because that has been known for thousands of years? That only Europeans were silly enough to think the Earth was the centre of the universe? (Sumerians, Egyptians, cultures in India, China & Japan ALL knew the Earth travelled around the sun)

Just saying that only in the extremely limited field of knowledge allowed by the church in Europe & Eastern Europe can the Antikythera device be considered as something out of the blue.

Speak to almost any engineer & get them to have a look at what is now known of the device & you will find they have a list longer than your arm of fields of knowledge that had to come before the device could be made, let alone conceived. It most certainly is not something cobbled together in a backyard shed by trial & error.

And I am unsure what you mean by the shape of it - best guess seems to be it was housed in a rectangular box - the shape of the cogs tells us nothing about what it was used for. Engineering isn't my strong suit but even I know that. - cogs are cogs - there aren't a lot of ways to make them & have them work.

The first decent computer was a design by Charles Babbage, called the difference engine - recently built from the plans, it works! Lots of cogs & gears in it too. If that was a computer (& the computer world thinks it was) then so is the Antikythera device - & somebody actually built[ the Antikythera device! The Babbage engine remained unbuilt for more than 100 years before Tech Institute students built it as a project.
I am well aware of Charles Babbage, Lady Lovelace, etc. having taught computer science long ago for EKU...

http://www.eku.edu/

There is a clear historical record of them. As to the Antikythera device there is much speculation. But speculation is not the same as history.

As to the Church, I would simply note that the Church in its schools, monasteries, etc. did its best to preserve what knowledge of the classical ages could be salvaged. But I would not expect you to understand that.

According to Lakoff we must leave behind a number of familiar ideas...

Meaning is based on truth and reference; it concerns the relationship between symbols and things in the world.[/*:m:1gloo55u]
Biological species are natural kinds, defined by common essential properties.[/*:m:1gloo55u]
The mind is separate from, and independent of, the body.[/*:m:1gloo55u]
Emotion has no conceptual content.[/*:m:1gloo55u]
Grammar is a matter of pure form.[/*:m:1gloo55u]
Reason is transcendental, in that it transcends--goes beyond--the way human beings, or any other kinds of beings, happen to think. It concerns the inferential relationships among all possible concepts in this universe or any other. Mathematics is a form of transcendental reason.[/*:m:1gloo55u]
There is a correct, God's eye view of the world--a single correct way of understanding what is and is not true.[/*:m:1gloo55u]
All people think using the same conceptual system.[/*:m:1gloo55u]
~ page 9.

Perhaps some of these ideas must be abandoned. Perhaps some should be held. It is not my intent to argue the point at this time. My intent is to focus on these ideas in my attempt to determine a prototype for Lakoff's Classical Theory. For some of the thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" held these ideas, some did not.

At this point I would also note that the above statements go far beyond the categories, themselves, and refer to reality beyond mere categorization and language. Whether it is possible to draw such a conclusion from the evidence provided by linguistics is far from clear.
The first belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is "Meaning is based on truth and reference; it concerns the relationship between symbols and things in the world."

The statement seems to be poorly worded. One must suppose that Lakoff really meant to say that truth is based on meaning and reference. He seems to have reversed the connection between truth and meaning. It is a minor reversal, but worth noting.

But, let us go back to what we have seen Lakoff supposing earlier to be properties of classical thought...

Thought is the mechanical manipulation of abstract symbols.
The mind is an abstract machine, manipulating symbols essentially in the way a computer does, that is, by algorithmic computation.
Symbols (e.g., words and mental representations) get their meaning via correspondences to things in the external world. All meaning is of this character.

Machines that do no more than mechanically manipulate symbols that correspond to things in the world are capable of meaningful thought and reason.
Lakoff is, in fact, ascribing contradictory properties to classical thought. On the one hand it sees reason to be the mechanical manipulation of abstract thought. On the other hand, meaning is somehow related to truth and reference and so is not abstract, after all.

The first belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is "Meaning is based on truth and reference; it concerns the relationship between symbols and things in the world."

The statement seems to be poorly worded. One must suppose that Lakoff really meant to say that truth is based on meaning and reference. He seems to have reversed the connection between truth and meaning. It is a minor reversal, but worth noting.

But, let us go back to what we have seen Lakoff supposing earlier to be properties of classical thought...
[quote]Thought is the mechanical manipulation of abstract symbols.
The mind is an abstract machine, manipulating symbols essentially in the way a computer does, that is, by algorithmic computation.
Symbols (e.g., words and mental representations) get their meaning via correspondences to things in the external world. All meaning is of this character.

Machines that do no more than mechanically manipulate symbols that correspond to things in the world are capable of meaningful thought and reason.
Lakoff is, in fact, ascribing contradictory properties to classical thought. On the one hand it sees reason to be the mechanical manipulation of abstract thought. On the other hand, meaning is somehow related to truth and reference and so is not abstract, after all.[/quote:1yv0h075]
How did thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" think of the relations between symbols and things in the world?

Well, they held a variety of opinions. Many were Realists, as Lakoff suggests. Some were Nominalists, like William of Ockham...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Ockham
Some were Solipsists, such as George Berkeley...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley
Some were Dualists, such as René Descartes...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
Some were Idealists, such as Immanuel Kant...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

It is clear, therefore, that Realism does not characterize classical thought.

How did thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" think of the relations between symbols and things in the world?

Well, they held a variety of opinions. Many were Realists, as Lakoff suggests. Some were Nominalists, like William of Ockham...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_of_Ockham
Some were Solipsists, such as George Berkeley...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Berkeley
Some were Dualists, such as René Descartes...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ren%C3%A9_Descartes
Some were Idealists, such as Immanuel Kant...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immanuel_Kant

It is clear, therefore, that Realism does not characterize classical thought.
Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "Biological species are natural kinds, defined by common essential properties."

Here Lakoff has taken a sharp turn from metaphysics to biology. What is the connection between the two?

Aristotle is the connection. Contrary to popular belief, he was a scientist -- the greatest scientist of the ancient world. Arguably he was the greatest scientist until Galileo Galilei, indeed, perhaps the greatest scientist before Isaac Newton.

He was a biologist who dabbled in a variety of other subjects, such as physics, metaphysics, psychology and logic. He was an astute observer of the world about him. Wherever his student, Alexander went he collected samples of curiosities to send back to his teacher. One can imagine him at his examining table pondering some plant or animal that Alexander had sent back. Like Carolus Linnaeus, he knew that he needed to fit into his catalog of species.

Unlike Linnaeus, he was a philosopher as well as a scientist. His catalog included everything in the natural world about him, from stars above his head to the dirt below his feet. And so it was that he built his theory of the categories, the subject of the book we are considering.

Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "Biological species are natural kinds, defined by common essential properties."

Here Lakoff has taken a sharp turn from metaphysics to biology. What is the connection between the two?

Aristotle is the connection. Contrary to popular belief, he was a scientist -- the greatest scientist of the ancient world. Arguably he was the greatest scientist until Galileo Galilei, indeed, perhaps the greatest scientist before Isaac Newton.

He was a biologist who dabbled in a variety of other subjects, such as physics, metaphysics, psychology and logic. He was an astute observer of the world about him. Wherever his student, Alexander went he collected samples of curiosities to send back to his teacher. One can imagine him at his examining table pondering some plant or animal that Alexander had sent back. Like Carolus Linnaeus, he knew that he needed to fit into his catalog of species.

Unlike Linnaeus, he was a philosopher as well as a scientist. His catalog included everything in the natural world about him, from stars above his head to the dirt below his feet. And so it was that he built his theory of the categories, the subject of the book we are considering.
How, then did thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" view biological species?

Aristotle, himself, considered the evolution of species, quoting Empedocles...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empedocles

Aristotle rejected the idea, saying...

For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true.

~ Physics

His rejection of evolution, however, was complicated by his acceptance of the idea that animals can develop spontaneously due to chance events.

The next major thinker on the subject was Lucretius...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretius

who proposed a detailed theory in favor of evolution...

The earth and sun formed from swirls of dust congregated from atoms colliding and vibrating in the void; early plants and animals sprang from the early earth's own substance because of the insistence of the atoms that formed the earth; the aging earth gave birth to a succession of animals including a series of progressively less brutish humans that made a succession of improved tools, laws, and civilizations with increasing complexity finally arriving at the current earth and lifeforms as they are.
~ On the Nature of Things

Unfortunately the methods of science available at the time precluded general acceptance of his theory. It was not until Charles Darwin's book, The Origin of Species that the idea seriously came to be considered by scientists.

There are, however, strong arguments against the theory outlined by Darwin. Thus, although the general structure of evolution has generally been accepted by biologists, there is no similar agreement on its mechanisms.

[CFTraveler]

There are, however, strong arguments against the theory outlined by Darwin. Thus, although the general structure of evolution has generally been accepted by biologists, there is no similar agreement on its mechanisms. I agree. Having studied Anthropology in my original 4 years of college :roll: , what was considered evolutionary theory was quite more diverse than what is considered the same nowadays. The science of the 80's was not so married to Darwinism in a strict sense. Then came the politicizing of the theory, which IMO made it take a step backwards. But then it's just my perception.

There are, however, strong arguments against the theory outlined by Darwin. Thus, although the general structure of evolution has generally been accepted by biologists, there is no similar agreement on its mechanisms. I agree. Having studied Anthropology in my original 4 years of college :roll: , what was considered evolutionary theory was quite more diverse than what is considered the same nowadays. The science of the 80's was not so married to Darwinism in a strict sense. Then came the politicizing of the theory, which IMO made it take a step backwards. But then it's just my perception.
Personally, I don't know what I believe. There are ways of interpreting Genesis metaphorically that are perfectly compatible with Darwin; so I have no religious objections to it.

On the other hand, I have no philosophical objections to Creationism.

What I think is important is consistency. One who adopts a particular school of thought should follow through with it consistently. Creationism places stiff demands on one who wishes to do so consistently.

I suppose I am most sympathetic to Intelligent Design. Certainly whatever evolved did so because of the inherent potential of matter to assume forms congenial to life. That potency didn't create itself. It had to have been in matter before matter was capable of evolution or else it couldn't have gotten anywhere to begin with.

[CFTraveler]

I agree with you, but don't get used to it. :wink:

[journyman161]

Surprisingly, so do I. I might lean more to any potential ID being directed at the initial conditions & thus making life inevitable, but it fits closer to what I think & learn than random brane collisions.

I'm not by any means convinced, but the thought sits more easily. Particularly if Branes are aware!

*walks away muttering... 'something must be wrong...'*

*grins*

... a very reasonable post, Soph.

Surprisingly, so do I. I might lean more to any potential ID being directed at the initial conditions & thus making life inevitable, but it fits closer to what I think & learn than random brane collisions.

I'm not by any means convinced, but the thought sits more easily. Particularly if Branes are aware!

*walks away muttering... 'something must be wrong...'*

*grins*

... a very reasonable post, Soph.
How perfectly delightful!!

Personally I believe that everything seems to contain mind. I distinguish my belief from simple animism. Animism imagines that rocks, rivers, etc. are alive. I do not. They are merely accidental groupings of matter. But on a quantum level, there seems to be life in them -- they seem to contain effete mind as Charles Peirce said...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce

At the same time, I would repeat myself in saying that I have no particular problem with either Darwinism or with Creationism.

How, then did thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" view biological species?

Aristotle, himself, considered the evolution of species, quoting Empedocles...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empedocles

Aristotle rejected the idea, saying...
[quote]For teeth and all other natural things either invariably or normally come about in a given way; but of not one of the results of chance or spontaneity is this true.

~ Physics

His rejection of evolution, however, was complicated by his acceptance of the idea that animals can develop spontaneously due to chance events.

The next major thinker on the subject was Lucretius...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lucretius

who proposed a detailed theory in favor of evolution...

The earth and sun formed from swirls of dust congregated from atoms colliding and vibrating in the void; early plants and animals sprang from the early earth's own substance because of the insistence of the atoms that formed the earth; the aging earth gave birth to a succession of animals including a series of progressively less brutish humans that made a succession of improved tools, laws, and civilizations with increasing complexity finally arriving at the current earth and lifeforms as they are.
~ On the Nature of Things

Unfortunately the methods of science available at the time precluded general acceptance of his theory. It was not until Charles Darwin's book, The Origin of Species that the idea seriously came to be considered by scientists.

There are, however, strong arguments against the theory outlined by Darwin. Thus, although the general structure of evolution has generally been accepted by biologists, there is no similar agreement on its mechanisms.[/quote:35xvhoo1]
Another idea which Lakoff would have us abandon is "The mind is separate from, and independent of, the body."

It is far from clear what he means. For the word, mind is used in a variety of senses. Some people consider the mind to be a part of man, saying that a man is composed of "body, mind and soul." On the other hand, many Western philosophers from Aristotle onward have tended to consider the mind to be a faculty of the soul. That is to say, the mind is man's ability to think, and not in a separate part of man.

Aristotle divided the mind into two separate aspects, the active intellect and the passive intellect, with the active intellect illuminating the object of the senses and the passive intellect, somehow 'becoming' that object.

Unfortunately, Aristotle's presentation of the subject is said to be one of the most obscure points in his work. Alexander of Aphrodisias is said to have asserted that the active intellect is God, Himself, acting in man. Islamic interpreters asserted that there is one active intellect for all men: Avicenna held that the passive intellect was individuated; Averrhoës held neither to be individuated.

The Scholastics, following Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas held the mind to be a mere faculty of the soul.

Modern philosophy has tended to ignore the distinction between the active and passive intellects. Instead the mind has tended to be conceived more and more as a purely material, sensory activity. Immanuel Kant recognized a distinction between sense and mind, conceiving sense as purely objective and mind as purely subjective.

Another idea which Lakoff would have us abandon is "The mind is separate from, and independent of, the body."

It is far from clear what he means. For the word, mind is used in a variety of senses. Some people consider the mind to be a part of man, saying that a man is composed of "body, mind and soul." On the other hand, many Western philosophers from Aristotle onward have tended to consider the mind to be a faculty of the soul. That is to say, the mind is man's ability to think, and not in a separate part of man.

Aristotle divided the mind into two separate aspects, the active intellect and the passive intellect, with the active intellect illuminating the object of the senses and the passive intellect, somehow 'becoming' that object.

Unfortunately, Aristotle's presentation of the subject is said to be one of the most obscure points in his work. Alexander of Aphrodisias is said to have asserted that the active intellect is God, Himself, acting in man. Islamic interpreters asserted that there is one active intellect for all men: Avicenna held that the passive intellect was individuated; Averrhoës held neither to be individuated.

The Scholastics, following Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas held the mind to be a mere faculty of the soul.

Modern philosophy has tended to ignore the distinction between the active and passive intellects. Instead the mind has tended to be conceived more and more as a purely material, sensory activity. Immanuel Kant recognized a distinction between sense and mind, conceiving sense as purely objective and mind as purely subjective.
How, then does Lakoff conceive of the mind and how does he connect it with the body? There is only one index entry for mind -- and that as the 'Mind as body metaphor.' There are no index entries for soul or intellect. There is, however, a chapter title containing the word, mind -- The Mind-As-Machine Paradigm.
The mind-as-machine view shares the traditional mind-body distinction, according to which the mind is disembodied, abstract, and independent of bodily functioning. According to this view, the mind is a computer with biological hardware and runs using programs essentially like those used in computers today.
~ page 338.

So presumably, it is this view of the mind, that it is "disembodied, abstract, and independent of bodily functioning" which we must abandon.

How, then does Lakoff conceive of the mind and how does he connect it with the body? There is only one index entry for mind -- and that as the 'Mind as body metaphor.' There are no index entries for soul or intellect. There is, however, a chapter title containing the word, mind -- The Mind-As-Machine Paradigm.
The mind-as-machine view shares the traditional mind-body distinction, according to which the mind is disembodied, abstract, and independent of bodily functioning. According to this view, the mind is a computer with biological hardware and runs using programs essentially like those used in computers today.
~ page 338.

So presumably, it is this view of the mind, that it is "disembodied, abstract, and independent of bodily functioning" which we must abandon.
Did thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" hold to this Mind-As-Machine Paradigm?

Certainly Aristotle did not. He was in many ways a proto-animist. Today we would say that fire and air rise while earth and water fall because of forces acting on them. Aristotle said that fire and water rise because they loved the heavens. He would say that earth and water fell because they loved stability at the center. Such proto-animism was accepted through the Middle Ages. It could have hardly been otherwise, given poetic imagery of the Bible...

Hallelujah! Praise the LORD from the heavens; give praise in the heights.
Praise him, all you angels; give praise, all you hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon; give praise, all shining stars.
Praise him, highest heavens, you waters above the heavens.
Let them all praise the LORD'S name; for the LORD commanded and they were created,
Assigned them duties forever, gave them tasks that will never change.
Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deep waters;
You lightning and hail, snow and clouds, storm winds that fulfill his command;
You mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars;
You animals wild and tame, you creatures that crawl and fly;
You kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all who govern on earth;
Young men and women too, old and young alike.
Let them all praise the LORD'S name, for his name alone is exalted, majestic above earth and heaven.
The LORD has lifted high the horn of his people; to the glory of all the faithful, of Israel, the people near to their God. Hallelujah!~ Psalm 148

Thomas Aquinas described Aristotle's belief as natural desire. Thus fire naturally desired to rise and water to fall.

The use of clocks during the Middle Ages seems to have been the first real machine of any significance. The early history of the clock is lacking, but it seems that clocks were used in the Twelfth Century. Such clocks were important for monasteries and churches, since prayers were supposed to occur at regular hours.

It was René Descartes was seems to have inspired the dualistic thinking so common today. He thought of the bodies of animals as complex but reducible machines, thus formulating the mechanistic theory, also known as the "clockwork paradigm." Yet, at the same time, Descartes' dualism assigned mind to the realm of spirit, removed from the world of physics. Immanuel Kant accepted Descartes' dualism, though he made mind purely subjective.

Thomas Hobbes on the other hand, assigned mind to physics, and sought to explain intellect as a form of sensation. Étienne Bonnot de Condillac developed John Locke's Empiricism ideas into Sensationism, pure and simple, in which all cognition was reduced to sense.

Alan Turing would seem to be the true author of the Mind-As-Machine Paradigm. His Turing Test described in his 1950 paper "Computing machinery and intelligence" sets forth that claim that machines can be regarded as having minds.

Did thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" hold to this Mind-As-Machine Paradigm?

Certainly Aristotle did not. He was in many ways a proto-animist. Today we would say that fire and air rise while earth and water fall because of forces acting on them. Aristotle said that fire and water rise because they loved the heavens. He would say that earth and water fell because they loved stability at the center. Such proto-animism was accepted through the Middle Ages. It could have hardly been otherwise, given poetic imagery of the Bible...

Hallelujah! Praise the LORD from the heavens; give praise in the heights.
Praise him, all you angels; give praise, all you hosts.
Praise him, sun and moon; give praise, all shining stars.
Praise him, highest heavens, you waters above the heavens.
Let them all praise the LORD'S name; for the LORD commanded and they were created,
Assigned them duties forever, gave them tasks that will never change.
Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deep waters;
You lightning and hail, snow and clouds, storm winds that fulfill his command;
You mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars;
You animals wild and tame, you creatures that crawl and fly;
You kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all who govern on earth;
Young men and women too, old and young alike.
Let them all praise the LORD'S name, for his name alone is exalted, majestic above earth and heaven.
The LORD has lifted high the horn of his people; to the glory of all the faithful, of Israel, the people near to their God. Hallelujah!~ Psalm 148

Thomas Aquinas described Aristotle's belief as natural desire. Thus fire naturally desired to rise and water to fall.

The use of clocks during the Middle Ages seems to have been the first real machine of any significance. The early history of the clock is lacking, but it seems that clocks were used in the Twelfth Century. Such clocks were important for monasteries and churches, since prayers were supposed to occur at regular hours.

It was René Descartes was seems to have inspired the dualistic thinking so common today. He thought of the bodies of animals as complex but reducible machines, thus formulating the mechanistic theory, also known as the "clockwork paradigm." Yet, at the same time, Descartes' dualism assigned mind to the realm of spirit, removed from the world of physics. Immanuel Kant accepted Descartes' dualism, though he made mind purely subjective.

Thomas Hobbes on the other hand, assigned mind to physics, and sought to explain intellect as a form of sensation. Étienne Bonnot de Condillac developed John Locke's Empiricism ideas into Sensationism, pure and simple, in which all cognition was reduced to sense.

Alan Turing would seem to be the true author of the Mind-As-Machine Paradigm. His Turing Test described in his 1950 paper "Computing machinery and intelligence" sets forth that claim that machines can be regarded as having minds.

Did thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" regard mind as "disembodied, abstract, and independent of bodily functioning?"

With regard to Aristotle, himself, I would answer with a qualified No. As noted before, he was a biologist who dabbled in a variety of other subjects. His book, On the Soul (Perì Psūchês) is, in fact, a book covering the whole subject of biology, precisely from the stated position that all living beings have souls. That's right, according to Aristotle all living beings: plants, animals and men have souls. Plants have vegetative souls; animals have sensitive souls; men have rational souls.

From there, the plot thickens. Aristotle describes the relation between these souls in a way similar to the relation between geometric figures...

It is now evident that a single definition can be given of soul only in the same sense as one can be given of figure. For, as in that case there is no figure distinguishable and apart from triangle, &c., so here there is no soul apart from the forms of soul just enumerated. It is true that a highly general definition can be given for figure which will fit all figures without expressing the peculiar nature of any figure. So here in the case of soul and its specific forms. Hence it is absurd in this and similar cases to demand an absolutely general definition which will fail to express the peculiar nature of anything that is, or again, omitting this, to look for separate definitions corresponding to each infima species. The cases of figure and soul are exactly parallel; for the particulars subsumed under the common name in both cases-figures and living beings-constitute a series, each successive term of which potentially contains its predecessor, e.g. the square the triangle, the sensory power the self-nutritive.
~ Book II; Chapter 3.

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/ ... soul2.html (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8so/soul2.html)

Thus the term soul is a sort of genus divided into three sub-genera. The rational soul potentially contains the sensitive soul; the sensitive soul potentially contains the vegetative soul. He defines the genus, soul thus...

LET the foregoing suffice as our account of the views concerning the soul which have been handed on by our predecessors; let us now dismiss them and make as it were a completely fresh start, endeavouring to give a precise answer to the question, What is soul? i.e. to formulate the most general possible definition of it.

We are in the habit of recognizing, as one determinate kind of what is, substance, and that in several senses, (a) in the sense of matter or that which in itself is not ‘a this’, and (b) in the sense of form or essence, which is that precisely in virtue of which a thing is called ‘a this’, and thirdly (c) in the sense of that which is compounded of both (a) and (b). Now matter is potentiality, form actuality; of the latter there are two grades related to one another as e.g. knowledge to the exercise of knowledge.

Among substances are by general consent reckoned bodies and especially natural bodies; for they are the principles of all other bodies. Of natural bodies some have life in them, others not; by life we mean self-nutrition and growth (with its correlative decay). It follows that every natural body which has life in it is a substance in the sense of a composite.

But since it is also a body of such and such a kind, viz. having life, the body cannot be soul; the body is the subject or matter, not what is attributed to it. Hence the soul must be a substance in the sense of the form of a natural body having life potentially within it. But substance is actuality, and thus soul is the actuality of a body as above characterized. Now the word actuality has two senses corresponding respectively to the possession of knowledge and the actual exercise of knowledge. It is obvious that the soul is actuality in the first sense, viz. that of knowledge as possessed, for both sleeping and waking presuppose the existence of soul, and of these waking corresponds to actual knowing, sleeping to knowledge possessed but not employed, and, in the history of the individual, knowledge comes before its employment or exercise.

That is why the soul is the first grade of actuality of a natural body having life potentially in it. The body so described is a body which is organized. The parts of plants in spite of their extreme simplicity are ‘organs’; e.g. the leaf serves to shelter the pericarp, the pericarp to shelter the fruit, while the roots of plants are analogous to the mouth of animals, both serving for the absorption of food. If, then, we have to give a general formula applicable to all kinds of soul, we must describe it as the first grade of actuality of a natural organized body. That is why we can wholly dismiss as unnecessary the question whether the soul and the body are one: it is as meaningless as to ask whether the wax and the shape given to it by the stamp are one, or generally the matter of a thing and that of which it is the matter. Unity has many senses (as many as ‘is’ has), but the most proper and fundamental sense of both is the relation of an actuality to that of which it is the actuality. We have now given an answer to the question, What is soul?-an answer which applies to it in its full extent. It is substance in the sense which corresponds to the definitive formula of a thing’s essence. That means that it is ‘the essential whatness’ of a body of the character just assigned. Suppose that what is literally an ‘organ’, like an axe, were a natural body, its ‘essential whatness’, would have been its essence, and so its soul; if this disappeared from it, it would have ceased to be an axe, except in name. As it is, it is just an axe; it wants the character which is required to make its whatness or formulable essence a soul; for that, it would have had to be a natural body of a particular kind, viz. one having in itself the power of setting itself in movement and arresting itself. Next, apply this doctrine in the case of the ‘parts’ of the living body. Suppose that the eye were an animal-sight would have been its soul, for sight is the substance or essence of the eye which corresponds to the formula, the eye being merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed the eye is no longer an eye, except in name-it is no more a real eye than the eye of a statue or of a painted figure. We must now extend our consideration from the ‘parts’ to the whole living body; for what the departmental sense is to the bodily part which is its organ, that the whole faculty of sense is to the whole sensitive body as such.

We must not understand by that which is ‘potentially capable of living’ what has lost the soul it had, but only what still retains it; but seeds and fruits are bodies which possess the qualification. Consequently, while waking is actuality in a sense corresponding to the cutting and the seeing, the soul is actuality in the sense corresponding to the power of sight and the power in the tool; the body corresponds to what exists in potentiality; as the pupil plus the power of sight constitutes the eye, so the soul plus the body constitutes the animal.

From this it indubitably follows that the soul is inseparable from its body, or at any rate that certain parts of it are (if it has parts) for the actuality of some of them is nothing but the actualities of their bodily parts. Yet some may be separable because they are not the actualities of any body at all. Further, we have no light on the problem whether the soul may not be the actuality of its body in the sense in which the sailor is the actuality of the ship.

This must suffice as our sketch or outline determination of the nature of soul.
~ Book II; Chapter 1.

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/ ... soul2.html (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8so/soul2.html)

Thus the soul, at least -- though separable from the body -- is hardly independent from it. Rather, it is the soul which constitutes the body as ‘a this.’ It is not an abstraction, but is a power, the first act of the body.

"From this it indubitably follows that the soul is inseparable from its body, or at any rate that certain parts of it are (if it has parts) for the actuality of some of them is nothing but the actualities of their bodily parts. Yet some may be separable because they are not the actualities of any body at all. Further, we have no light on the problem whether the soul may not be the actuality of its body in the sense in which the sailor is the actuality of the ship."

The question comes up whether the mind is a part that is separable from the body. And if it is separable from the body, how so...

But first we must consider sensation. Is sense somehow separable from the body? Indeed, what is sensation?

Aristotle's approach to sensation is quite obscure, at least to one in the habit of thinking literally. For he said that if a man sees an object, say a dog, he becomes the object seen. Thus one would in seeing a dog, become that dog.

The idea understood literally is absurd. Indeed, if I become a dog how can I ever resume my life as a man? It would seem impossible; it would seem that I would have no choice but to walk around on four legs sniffing the ground, wagging my tail and barking -- unless, of course, I then looked at a man and somehow became him. But what if I looked, instead at a woman? Would the dog that I have become then become a woman? Or if I looked at a tree, would I then stop barking and grow bark, instead?

The absurdities would seem to have no end. I do not believe Aristotle could have come up with such a conclusion. I believe that he was trying to say that the mind manufactures what we might now call a virtual reality in which the object seen -- the dog -- can go about walking around on four legs sniffing the ground, wagging its tail and barking. This virtual reality seems to contain real objects and we react to them as such, though they are not real, but virtual.

Thus some aspect of myself becomes the object seen, virtually.

So some aspect of myself may become an object seen, virtually. How does that happen?

For Plato there was a world of ideal forms in which an ideal dog might ideally walk around on four ideal legs ideally sniffing the ideal ground, wagging its ideal tail and barking, ideally.

But Aristotle was a biologist. Undoubtedly, he wanted to understand how it might occur, biologically.

It's been some time since I have read the Iliad. I seem to remember that in ancient Greece, the priests would give the liver of an animal they had sacrificed to a soothsayer. The prophet would then study the lobes to determine what to foretell.

The Exciting World of the Liver Lobes (http://www.niaid.nih.gov/Dir/services/animalcare/MouseNecropsy/liverlungs.html)

I can imagine Aristotle at his examining table dissecting some animal. I suspect he would wonder what it was that soothsayers saw in the liver. Undoubtedly he never saw a dog walking around in the liver.

I suppose a liver may, indeed, be a holographic image and had he the eyes of a prophet he may have seen such things. But he was a biologist and he wanted to understand using the tools he had as a biologist.

In my humble opinion, he did not have the tools required for the task, microscopes, electronic sensors, video recorders, whatever... He could observe and take careful notes. To go beyond that, he had to speculate philosophically.

One thing he knew was that -- although a man might see a dog walk around on four legs sniffing the ground, wagging its tail and barking -- men do not always see that particular image. Rather a man's virtual reality is always changing. To Aristotle that meant that two things were involved in vision...
There must be something in an animal that potentially becomes a virtual image. We might call this something passive vision. It sees nothing, in itself, for if it did, it could not fail to see that thing, always.[/*:m:3bmsmfpk]
There must be something in an animal that moves passive vision to have an actual image. We might call this something active vision.[/*:m:3bmsmfpk]
The eye is clearly associated with active vision. But what is passive vision? It must be something belonging to the body since it is moved by bodily affections.

What is true of vision is true of the other senses, as well: There must be active hearing and passive hearing; active smell and passive smell; active taste and passive taste; active touch and passive touch.

Yet each sense has something proper to it. Light, dark and color are proper to vision. Sound is proper to hearing. Odor is proper to smell. Sweet and sour, etc. are proper to taste. Hard and soft, rough and smooth, hot and cold etc. are proper to touch.

Some things are common to more than one sense: movement, time, size, shape, number, etc. Since no one sense judges such things there must be some common sense which applies to each of the particular senses.

And there are ideas which seem to be unrelated to sense at all: noun, verb, sentence, truth, good, being, etc. What judges them? Plato, of course, placed all of these things in the world of ideal form. But how should a scientist think of them?

What is true of vision is true of the other senses, as well: There must be active hearing and passive hearing; active smell and passive smell; active taste and passive taste; active touch and passive touch.

Yet each sense has something proper to it. Light, dark and color are proper to vision. Sound is proper to hearing. Odor is proper to smell. Sweet and sour, etc. are proper to taste. Hard and soft, rough and smooth, hot and cold etc. are proper to touch.

Some things are common to more than one sense: movement, time, size, shape, number, etc. Since no one sense judges such things there must be some common sense which applies to each of the particular senses.

And there are ideas which seem to be unrelated to sense at all: noun, verb, sentence, truth, good, being, etc. What judges them? Plato, of course, placed all of these things in the world of ideal form. But how should a scientist think of them?
One thing he knew was that -- although a man might think an abstract idea -- men do not always think any particular idea. Rather a man's thoughts are always changing. To Aristotle that meant that two things were involved in abstract thought...
There must be something in man that potentially becomes a virtual image corresponding to abstract terms. We might call this something passive intellect. It thinks nothing, in itself, for if it did, it could not fail to think that thing, always. [/*:m:o533qof4]
There must be something in man that moves passive intellect to have an actual idea. We might call this something active intellect.[/*:m:o533qof4]
Are either of these separable from the body? I have already noted that Alexander of Aphrodisias is said to have asserted that the active intellect is God, Himself, acting in man. Islamic interpreters asserted that there is one active intellect for all men: Avicenna held that the passive intellect was individuated; Averrhoës held neither to be individuated.

Does it make any difference? For many years it made no difference to European thought. In Eastern Europe, Greek thinkers elevated Neo-Platonic philosophy. Western Europe cared little one way or another -- Western thought was not particularly philosophical. The West despised Greek thought, supposing it to be too clever for anyone's good.

But with the Renaissance, there arose an interest in classical thought. Around A.D. 1220, Michael Scott translated Averrhoës' Great Commentary from Arabic into Latin. Thomas Aquinas then wrote his own commentary on On the Soul, showing that the most reasonable interpretation of Aristotle is that both the active and passive intellects are individuated in the soul.

So who was right? Was Aquinas reading his own prejudice into Aristotle?

One thing he knew was that -- although a man might think an abstract idea -- men do not always think any particular idea. Rather a man's thoughts are always changing. To Aristotle that meant that two things were involved in abstract thought...
There must be something in man that potentially becomes a virtual image corresponding to abstract terms. We might call this something passive intellect. It thinks nothing, in itself, for if it did, it could not fail to think that thing, always. [/*:m:1w8bzu17]
There must be something in man that moves passive intellect to have an actual idea. We might call this something active intellect.[/*:m:1w8bzu17]
Are either of these separable from the body? I have already noted that Alexander of Aphrodisias is said to have asserted that the active intellect is God, Himself, acting in man. Islamic interpreters asserted that there is one active intellect for all men: Avicenna held that the passive intellect was individuated; Averrhoës held neither to be individuated.

Does it make any difference? For many years it made no difference to European thought. In Eastern Europe, Greek thinkers elevated Neo-Platonic philosophy. Western Europe cared little one way or another -- Western thought was not particularly philosophical. The West despised Greek thought, supposing it to be too clever for anyone's good.

But with the Renaissance, there arose an interest in classical thought. Around A.D. 1220, Michael Scott translated Averrhoës' Great Commentary from Arabic into Latin. Thomas Aquinas then wrote his own commentary on On the Soul, showing that the most reasonable interpretation of Aristotle is that both the active and passive intellects are individuated in the soul.

So who was right? Was Aquinas reading his own prejudice into Aristotle?

First one should consider the reason why some commentators had concluded otherwise...
Many commentators were somewhat Platonic or Neo-Platonic in their outlook. That is particularly true of Islamic commentators. Socrates and Plato believed that there was a world of ideal forms. Thus it made some sense that they might suppose the intellect to belong to that realm and be separate from the body.[/*:m:1w8bzu17]
Aristotle seems to say it, himself. So only strong reasons should prevail against what he actually wrote.[/*:m:1w8bzu17]
On the other hand...
Aristotle was far from Platonic. I am not aware that he ever said anything good in his writings about anyone else -- certainly he used every occasion to criticize Plato. He had his own agenda at work, no doubt: He had a school to think about, the Lyceum. So obviously he had reasons to be opposed to Plato's school, the Academy.[/*:m:1w8bzu17]
Aristotle was clearly naturalistic in his general outlook. He taught that there was a first cause who created all things. But he believed that the creator didn't particularly concern himself with creation. He wouldn't have been one to imagine man's intellect to be identical to the first cause, as Alexander of Aphrodisias had done.[/*:m:1w8bzu17]
His own argument for the immortality of the rational soul is seems to require that the agent intellect be an operation of the soul, itself. Thus it could not be a separate substance as Avicenna and Averrhoës claimed.[/*:m:1w8bzu17]
He says that the passive intellect is corruptible, clearly associating it with the body and with bodily death.[/*:m:1w8bzu17]
But how did Aquinas argue against Aristotle's statement, that the mind was separate from the body? He argued that Aristotle meant that the mind is separate from the body in the sense that it is separate from any particular organ. Thus he was opposing mind to sense, though it remained tied to the soul as an operation of the soul. And since it was tied to the soul, it was tied, likewise, to the body as long as the soul remains in the body.

On the whole, I believe Aquinas was correct, at least as to his interpretation of Aristotle -- though the point is debatable. Thus I leave it to the reader to form his own opinion...

Turning now to the part of the soul with which the soul knows and thinks (whether this is separable from the others in definition only, or spatially as well) we have to inquire (1) what differentiates this part, and (2) how thinking can take place.

If thinking is like perceiving, it must be either a process in which the soul is acted upon by what is capable of being thought, or a process different from but analogous to that. The thinking part of the soul must therefore be, while impassible, capable of receiving the form of an object; that is, must be potentially identical in character with its object without being the object. Mind must be related to what is thinkable, as sense is to what is sensible.

Therefore, since everything is a possible object of thought, mind in order, as Anaxagoras says, to dominate, that is, to know, must be pure from all admixture; for the co-presence of what is alien to its nature is a hindrance and a block: it follows that it too, like the sensitive part, can have no nature of its own, other than that of having a certain capacity. Thus that in the soul which is called mind (by mind I mean that whereby the soul thinks and judges) is, before it thinks, not actually any real thing. For this reason it cannot reasonably be regarded as blended with the body: if so, it would acquire some quality, e.g. warmth or cold, or even have an organ like the sensitive faculty: as it is, it has none. It was a good idea to call the soul ‘the place of forms’, though (1) this description holds only of the intellective soul, and (2) even this is the forms only potentially, not actually.

Observation of the sense-organs and their employment reveals a distinction between the impassibility of the sensitive and that of the intellective faculty. After strong stimulation of a sense we are less able to exercise it than before, as e.g. in the case of a loud sound we cannot hear easily immediately after, or in the case of a bright colour or a powerful odour we cannot see or smell, but in the case of mind thought about an object that is highly intelligible renders it more and not less able afterwards to think objects that are less intelligible: the reason is that while the faculty of sensation is dependent upon the body, mind is separable from it.

Once the mind has become each set of its possible objects, as a man of science has, when this phrase is used of one who is actually a man of science (this happens when he is now able to exercise the power on his own initiative), its condition is still one of potentiality, but in a different sense from the potentiality which preceded the acquisition of knowledge by learning or discovery: the mind too is then able to think itself.

Since we can distinguish between a spatial magnitude and what it is to be such, and between water and what it is to be water, and so in many other cases (though not in all; for in certain cases the thing and its form are identical), flesh and what it is to be flesh are discriminated either by different faculties, or by the same faculty in two different states: for flesh necessarily involves matter and is like what is snub-nosed, a this in a this. Now it is by means of the sensitive faculty that we discriminate the hot and the cold, i.e. the factors which combined in a certain ratio constitute flesh: the essential character of flesh is apprehended by something different either wholly separate from the sensitive faculty or related to it as a bent line to the same line when it has been straightened out.

Again in the case of abstract objects what is straight is analogous to what is snub-nosed; for it necessarily implies a continuum as its matter: its constitutive essence is different, if we may distinguish between straightness and what is straight: let us take it to be two-ness. It must be apprehended, therefore, by a different power or by the same power in a different state. To sum up, in so far as the realities it knows are capable of being separated from their matter, so it is also with the powers of mind.

The problem might be suggested: if thinking is a passive affection, then if mind is simple and impassible and has nothing in common with anything else, as Anaxagoras says, how can it come to think at all? For interaction between two factors is held to require a precedent community of nature between the factors. Again it might be asked, is mind a possible object of thought to itself? For if mind is thinkable per se and what is thinkable is in kind one and the same, then either (a) mind will belong to everything, or (b) mind will contain some element common to it with all other realities which makes them all thinkable.

(1) Have not we already disposed of the difficulty about interaction involving a common element, when we said that mind is in a sense potentially whatever is thinkable, though actually it is nothing until it has thought? What it thinks must be in it just as characters may be said to be on a writingtablet on which as yet nothing actually stands written: this is exactly what happens with mind.

(Mind is itself thinkable in exactly the same way as its objects are. For (a) in the case of objects which involve no matter, what thinks and what is thought are identical; for speculative knowledge and its object are identical. (Why mind is not always thinking we must consider later.) (b) In the case of those which contain matter each of the objects of thought is only potentially present. It follows that while they will not have mind in them (for mind is a potentiality of them only in so far as they are capable of being disengaged from matter) mind may yet be thinkable.
~ Book III; Chapter 4.
Since in every class of things, as in nature as a whole, we find two factors involved, (1) a matter which is potentially all the particulars included in the class, (2) a cause which is productive in the sense that it makes them all (the latter standing to the former, as e.g. an art to its material), these distinct elements must likewise be found within the soul.

And in fact mind as we have described it is what it is what it is by virtue of becoming all things, while there is another which is what it is by virtue of making all things: this is a sort of positive state like light; for in a sense light makes potential colours into actual colours.

Mind in this sense of it is separable, impassible, unmixed, since it is in its essential nature activity (for always the active is superior to the passive factor, the originating force to the matter which it forms).

Actual knowledge is identical with its object: in the individual, potential knowledge is in time prior to actual knowledge, but in the universe as a whole it is not prior even in time. Mind is not at one time knowing and at another not. When mind is set free from its present conditions it appears as just what it is and nothing more: this alone is immortal and eternal (we do not, however, remember its former activity because, while mind in this sense is impassible, mind as passive is destructible), and without it nothing thinks.
~ Book III; Chapter 5.

http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/ ... soul3.html (http://etext.library.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/a8so/soul3.html)

I have already noted how Rene Descartes thought of the bodies of animals were but complex machines. He denied that plants and animals had souls and completely separated the mind from matter, making it "disembodied, abstract, and independent of bodily functioning." The extent to which his ideas have obscured earlier thinking is truly remarkable. Many Roman Catholics who otherwise may give lip-service to Scholastic thought express disbelief and even shock when it is pointed out to them that Scholasticism held that plants and animals have souls, a belief which they naively associate with paganism.

On the other hand, the Sensationism of Etienne Bonnot de Condillac though rejecting Descartes' dualism, led to much the same conclusions regarding the mind identifying it with the brain -- operating according to physical laws, alone. Thus it is only natural that those who accept Sensationism would accept the Mind-As-Machine Paradigm.

Another idea which Lakoff would have us abandon is "The mind is separate from, and independent of, the body."

It is far from clear what he means. For the word, mind is used in a variety of senses. Some people consider the mind to be a part of man, saying that a man is composed of "body, mind and soul." On the other hand, many Western philosophers from Aristotle onward have tended to consider the mind to be a faculty of the soul. That is to say, the mind is man's ability to think, and not in a separate part of man.

Aristotle divided the mind into two separate aspects, the active intellect and the passive intellect, with the active intellect illuminating the object of the senses and the passive intellect, somehow 'becoming' that object.

Unfortunately, Aristotle's presentation of the subject is said to be one of the most obscure points in his work. Alexander of Aphrodisias is said to have asserted that the active intellect is God, Himself, acting in man. Islamic interpreters asserted that there is one active intellect for all men: Avicenna held that the passive intellect was individuated; Averrhoes held neither to be individuated.

The Scholastics, following Albert the Great and Thomas Aquinas held the mind to be a mere faculty of the soul.

Modern philosophy has tended to ignore the distinction between the active and passive intellects. Instead the mind has tended to be conceived more and more as a purely material, sensory activity. Immanuel Kant recognized a distinction between sense and mind, conceiving sense as purely objective and mind as purely subjective.
Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "Emotion has no conceptual content."

This, like many of Lakoff's ideas, is hard to interpret. What does he mean by it?

The very idea that emotion has no conceptual content is, of course, directly contrary to the idea that categories are defined by essential properties. How is love distinguished from hate; anger from compassion; envy from empathy -- unless it is that they represent different concepts? Mere feeling does not seem to qualify as emotion until such conceptual distinctions are added in. A man may burn his hand on a hot stove. But the feeling of pain is not generally regarded as an emotion unless he -- for example -- starts blaming someone for the pain. The emotion may persist long after the pain has faded away, if he broods over the injury. And what is that brooding if not the repetition of thoughts -- AKA concepts -- long afterward?

So who exactly imagines emotion to have no conceptual content?

Trying to answer my own question, I searched through the index, etc. looking for something that might explain what Lakoff meant. I really can't find anything to explain it...

Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "Emotion has no conceptual content."

This, like many of Lakoff's ideas, is hard to interpret. What does he mean by it?

The very idea that emotion has no conceptual content is, of course, directly contrary to the idea that categories are defined by essential properties. How is love distinguished from hate; anger from compassion; envy from empathy -- unless it is that they represent different concepts? Mere feeling does not seem to qualify as emotion until such conceptual distinctions are added in. A man may burn his hand on a hot stove. But the feeling of pain is not generally regarded as an emotion unless he -- for example -- starts blaming someone for the pain. The emotion may persist long after the pain has faded away, if he broods over the injury. And what is that brooding if not the repetition of thoughts -- AKA concepts -- long afterward?

So who exactly imagines emotion to have no conceptual content?
Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "Grammar is a matter of pure form."

Which of the thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" held this belief? I am not sure that any noteworthy philosopher did. It seems to have been derived from the work of the mathematician, David Hilbert...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert

Hilbert wished to formalize all of mathematics -- to reduce mathematics to a branch of logic, devoid of anything but pure form. It was a grand scheme. Too grand, in fact, as Kurt Gödel...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del

was later to prove. Goedel's work dates back to 1931 and is very widely accepted. His results have been reproduced by other mathematicians using completely different techniques. Among them were Alan Turing...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

and Gregory Chaitin...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_J._Chaitin

It seems strange that in 1987 -- the year Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things was published -- there should have been any real debate regarding the errors behind Hilbert's thesis.

I found an interesting article about Wittgenstein and Gödel...

http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarg ... at_atlarge (http://www.newyorker.com/critics/atlarge/articles/050228crat_atlarge?050228crat_atlarge)

Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "Grammar is a matter of pure form."

Which of the thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" held this belief? I am not sure that any noteworthy philosopher did. It seems to have been derived from the work of the mathematician, David Hilbert...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Hilbert

Hilbert wished to formalize all of mathematics -- to reduce mathematics to a branch of logic, devoid of anything but pure form. It was a grand scheme. Too grand, in fact, as Kurt Gödel...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del

was later to prove. Goedel's work dates back to 1931 and is very widely accepted. His results have been reproduced by other mathematicians using completely different techniques. Among them were Alan Turing...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

and Gregory Chaitin...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregory_J._Chaitin

It seems strange that in 1987 -- the year Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things was published -- there should have been any real debate regarding the errors behind Hilbert's thesis.
Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "Reason is transcendental, in that it transcends--goes beyond--the way human beings, or any other kinds of beings, happen to think. It concerns the inferential relationships among all possible concepts in this universe or any other. Mathematics is a form of transcendental reason."

Unfortunately, Lakoff has completely missed certain fundamental distinctions without which the matter can not be properly analyzed.

One can certainly believe in transcendental reason without identifying it with discursive reason or logic.

In The Organon...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organon

Aristotle set forth a complete science of logic in six works: Categories, Prior Analytics, On Interpretation, Posterior Analytics, On Sophistical Refutations, and Topics.

But did successive philosophers follow his lead? Not really. Stoic logic, such as the works of Chrysippus...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysippus

held sway. It was not until the Middle Ages that Scholastics such as Albertus Magnus...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Magnus

returned to the Organon. Unfortunately, the return was short-lived. The dualism of René Descartes and Immanuel Kant placed reason in a transcendental realm far removed from real life.

Charles Peirce...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce

however, sought to put logic on more pragmatic footing. He conceived of reason in terms of a "trivium of conceivable sciences. The first would treat of the formal conditions of symbols having meaning, that is of the reference of symbols in general to their grounds or imputed characters, and this might be called formal grammar; the second, logic, would treat of the formal conditions of the truth of symbols; and the third would treat of the formal conditions of the force of symbols, or their power of appealing to a mind, that is, of their reference in general to interpretants, and this might be called formal rhetoric."

http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/by ... -frame.htm (http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/newlist/nl-frame.htm)

Certainly in Peirce one sees little hint of transcendental logic, per se.

Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "Reason is transcendental, in that it transcends--goes beyond--the way human beings, or any other kinds of beings, happen to think. It concerns the inferential relationships among all possible concepts in this universe or any other. Mathematics is a form of transcendental reason."

Unfortunately, Lakoff has completely missed certain fundamental distinctions without which the matter can not be properly analyzed.

One can certainly believe in transcendental reason without identifying it with discursive reason or logic.

In The Organon...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organon

Aristotle set forth a complete science of logic in six works: Categories, Prior Analytics, On Interpretation, Posterior Analytics, On Sophistical Refutations, and Topics.

But did successive philosophers follow his lead? Not really. Stoic logic, such as the works of Chrysippus...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrysippus

held sway. It was not until the Middle Ages that Scholastics such as Albertus Magnus...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albertus_Magnus

returned to the Organon. Unfortunately, the return was short-lived. The dualism of René Descartes and Immanuel Kant placed reason in a transcendental realm far removed from real life.

Charles Peirce...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Peirce

however, sought to put logic on more pragmatic footing. He conceived of reason in terms of a "trivium of conceivable sciences. The first would treat of the formal conditions of symbols having meaning, that is of the reference of symbols in general to their grounds or imputed characters, and this might be called formal grammar; the second, logic, would treat of the formal conditions of the truth of symbols; and the third would treat of the formal conditions of the force of symbols, or their power of appealing to a mind, that is, of their reference in general to interpretants, and this might be called formal rhetoric."

http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/by ... -frame.htm (http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/bycsp/newlist/nl-frame.htm)

Certainly in Peirce one sees little hint of transcendental logic, per se.
Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "There is a correct, God's eye view of the world--a single correct way of understanding what is and is not true."

Having expressed his own disbelief in one of the ancient mysteries Lakoff proceeded to drop the ball. Is there a God whose 'view' of the world should be regarded as the single correct way of understanding what is and is not true?

He did pretend to explore the question in Chapter 16, A New Realism. But in fact, the question he explores there is whether man has a single correct way of understanding what is and is not true. He totally ignores the question of God's knowledge.

The interesting thing is that I checked the index looking for hints of his argument, but could find none. There is no index entry for God or God's eye view or Religion or Theology or any other subject obviously hinting at the topic. It seems that the whole question -- which he had raised -- went completely over his head without 'touching' it, as it were.

But Lakoff's failure to address the question he raised does not mean that thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" have been silent on the subject.

Aristotle believed that there is one First Cause of all being. This notion, however, does not precisely correspond to that of a Creator since he believed that the universe is eternal. To be more precise, he believed that matter is eternal. Matter itself, is, according to Aristotle, mere potency -- the possibility that some form would exist, actualizing it as substance.

Perfect knowledge, according to Aristotle, is of cause and effect. Thus one knows by syllogism from first principles. Induction allows man to abstract from singular facts to universals. But familiarity with singular facts does not constitute knowledge. The First Cause needs no such familiarity with singular facts, since it knows the principles which cause their becoming.

Plotinus believed in three hypostases: The One, Mind (νοῦς) and The Soul of the All. Unlike the Christian Trinity these hypostases were essentially different and unequal. The One is completely one and indivisible. Mind, on the other hand, has a holistic, non-discursive intuition of Plato's Spiritual Forms. It is unchanging and timeless. The Soul of the All knows the passage of time. Thus it is able to have a discursive knowledge of the world.

Plotinus was an early advocate of Negative, Apophatic Theology -- that one can not say what the Absolute is -- only what the Absolute is not. Thus, Plotinus radically differed from the idea of a single correct description of what is and is not. For Plotinus there is much that is ineffable.

Plotinus believed in three hypostases: The One, Mind (νοῦς) and The Soul of the All. Unlike the Christian Trinity these hypostases were essentially different and unequal. The One is completely one and indivisible. Mind, on the other hand, has a holistic, non-discursive intuition of Plato's Spiritual Forms. It is unchanging and timeless. The Soul of the All knows the passage of time. Thus it is able to have a discursive knowledge of the world.

Plotinus was an early advocate of Negative, Apophatic Theology -- that one can not say what the Absolute is -- only what the Absolute is not. Thus, Plotinus radically differed from the idea of a single correct description of what is and is not. For Plotinus there is much that is ineffable.
The influence of Plotinus on both Christianity and Islam can not be overstated. Many concluded that he was the greatest of the pagan philosophers. Augustine credits him with putting him on the road to truth.

Apophatic Theology was fundamental to the theology of Maximos...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximos


The Good that is beyond being and beyond the unoriginate is one, the holy unity of three persons, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. It is an infinite union of three infinities. Its principle of being, together with the mode, the nature and the quality of its being, is altogether inaccessible to creatures. For it eludes every intellection of intellective beings, in no way issuing from its natural hidden inwardness, and infinitely transcending the summit of all spiritual knowledge.~ First Century of Various Texts, Text 1.

Plotinus' effect on Islam was the result of a bit of confusion. An Arabic translation of a section of Plotinus' Six Enneads, along with Porphyry's commentary, appeared, titled the Theology of Aristotle. Since the medieval Islamic thinkers thought very highly of Aristotle, this work exerted a strong formative influence on Islamic philosophical thought. The end result is that the thought of Plotinus and Aristotle were blended together.

The Thirteenth Century has sometimes been called The Greatest of Centuries due to the dramatic changes in Western Europe which occurred then...

http://www2.nd.edu/Departments/Maritain/etext/walsh.htm

One of the most important of these developments came as the response to two challenges from the East. On the one hand, there was the Emperor in Constantinople. On the other, there was Islam. An important part of the effort was religious and philosophical.

The excommunication of Michael Cerularius...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Cerularius

had shown the weakness of the empire. Since that time, the West had been looking for ways to distance itself even further from the Greek Church. The Greeks had always seemed too clever for anyone's good.

Negative theology simply had to go. It was too much of both the Greek and Islamic approach to philosophy. Thus the scholars at the University of Paris delved into Aristotle's works looking for ways to avoid negative solutions to questions about God.

Thomas Aquinas' theory of the Analogy of Being seemed to be the answer.

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1013.htm#6

Whether analogy really does solve the problems Aquinas was dealing with or not remains to be seen. Many swear by it. Others swear at it.

In any event, Aquinas's solution does not go quite as far as he might have hoped. First of all, he was forced to admit that man does not comprehend God...

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1012.htm#7

And secondly, he had to admit that God's knowledge is not discursive...

http://www.newadvent.org/summa/1014.htm#7

But even so, the damage had been done. Scholasticism became self-absorbed as men debated finer and finer points, ad infinitum.

I believe this happened for two reasons...
Negative theology is self-limiting. There is only so much one can say on the subject. Positive theology, however, is a different matter. [/*:m:3fkiol80]
Analogy is hardly a solid basis. There are far too many analogies that one can consider. Thomas Aquinas never defined what he meant other than that one should interpret the Names of God according to a higher sense than is used of creatures.[/*:m:3fkiol80]

Perhaps Aquinas, himself, eventually came to understand the problem. At the end of his life he beheld a vision of God. At this point, he set aside his philosophical works. He never finished his masterwork, the Summa Theologiae. When asked why he had stopped writing, Aquinas replied, "I cannot go on . . . All that I have written seems to me like so much straw compared to what I have seen and what has been revealed to me."

Personally, I believe there is a way to make certain limited positive statements about God. But, in my humble opinion, analogy is not the way to do it.

Since the decline of Scholasticism, the matter has -- so far as I am aware -- never been an important question. I suspect that most Protestants would regard God's knowledge as an all-inclusive, discursive description of all creation -- never suspecting the logical pitfalls such an approach entails. But who am I to say? In any event, it is more than clear that the traditions of Western thought "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" are much richer than Lakoff seems to have recognized.

Another belief that Lakoff would have one abandon is that "There is a correct, God's eye view of the world--a single correct way of understanding what is and is not true."

Having expressed his own disbelief in one of the ancient mysteries Lakoff proceeded to drop the ball. Is there a God whose 'view' of the world should be regarded as the single correct way of understanding what is and is not true?

He did pretend to explore the question in Chapter 16, A New Realism. But in fact, the question he explores there is whether man has a single correct way of understanding what is and is not true. He totally ignores the question of God's knowledge.

The interesting thing is that I checked the index looking for hints of his argument, but could find none. There is no index entry for God or God's eye view or Religion or Theology or any other subject obviously hinting at the topic. It seems that the whole question -- which he had raised -- went completely over his head without 'touching' it, as it were.

But Lakoff's failure to address the question he raised does not mean that thinkers "from the time of Aristotle to the later work of Wittgenstein" have been silent on the subject.

Aristotle believed that there is one First Cause of all being. This notion, however, does not precisely correspond to that of a Creator since he believed that the universe is eternal. To be more precise, he believed that matter is eternal. Matter itself, is, according to Aristotle, mere potency -- the possibility that some form would exist, actualizing it as substance.

Perfect knowledge, according to Aristotle, is of cause and effect. Thus one knows by syllogism from first principles. Induction allows man to abstract from singular facts to universals. But familiarity with singular facts does not constitute knowledge. The First Cause needs no such familiarity with singular facts, since it knows the principles which cause their becoming.
The last point which Lokoff says we "must leave behind" is that "All people think using the same conceptual system."

What does Lakoff mean by a conceptual system?

Since he never defined the term, I must suppose that he has no technical definition in mind, but merely means what the words would seem to imply.

Yet it is so much of a truism that different men think differently that one would think that few, if any, serious thinkers would suppose otherwise...


Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!
~ Rudyard Kipling - The Ballad of East and West

So what is Lakoff getting at?

The point seems central to Chapter 18, Whorf and Relativism, where he presents the ideas of Benjamin Lee Whorf...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Whorf

Lakoff argues for conceptual relativism, the notion that because men think in different ways, there can be no God's Eye View, no one, certain truth to which man's views ought to conform. His arguments, of course, only show that God's view is, indeed, a view, and not a description.

Fundamental to his argument is the idea of commensurability between conceptual systems. He proposes a list of criteria for commensurability...
Translation: Is it possible to translate propositions from one language to another in such a way that a proposition is true in one language only if its translation is also true?[/*:m:1iucy2cy]
Understanding: Is it possible for a person to understand both languages?[/*:m:1iucy2cy]
Use: Are concepts used in the same way in each language?[/*:m:1iucy2cy]
Framing: Do two languages frame situations in the same way so that there is a one-to-one correspondence between concepts, frame to frame?[/*:m:1iucy2cy]
Organization: Are two languages organized in the same way?[/*:m:1iucy2cy]

The last point which Lokoff says we "must leave behind" is that "All people think using the same conceptual system."

What does Lakoff mean by a conceptual system?

Since he never defined the term, I must suppose that he has no technical definition in mind, but merely means what the words would seem to imply.

Yet it is so much of a truism that different men think differently that one would think that few, if any, serious thinkers would suppose otherwise...


Oh, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet,
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God’s great Judgment Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!
~ Rudyard Kipling - The Ballad of East and West

So what is Lakoff getting at?

The point seems central to Chapter 18, Whorf and Relativism, where he presents the ideas of Benjamin Lee Whorf...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Whorf

Lakoff argues for conceptual relativism, the notion that because men think in different ways, there can be no God's Eye View, no one, certain truth to which man's views ought to conform. His arguments, of course, only show that God's view is, indeed, a view, and not a description.

Fundamental to his argument is the idea of commensurability between conceptual systems. He proposes a list of criteria for commensurability...
Translation: Is it possible to translate propositions from one language to another in such a way that a proposition is true in one language only if its translation is also true?[/*:m:2v9qhm51]
Understanding: Is it possible for a person to understand both languages?[/*:m:2v9qhm51]
Use: Are concepts used in the same way in each language?[/*:m:2v9qhm51]
Framing: Do two languages frame situations in the same way so that there is a one-to-one correspondence between concepts, frame to frame?[/*:m:2v9qhm51]
Organization: Are two languages organized in the same way?[/*:m:2v9qhm51]
Lakoff quickly cedes the high ground in regard to the first point, translation. Personally, I think he could have fought to convince people that even here, languages are incommensurable. Perhaps it was professional pride that stopped him. What linguist would imagine that he could not translate from one arbitrary language into another?

Certainly there are points at which translation is difficult, if not impossible. Humor can -- so I understand -- present extreme difficulties to a translator: A joke from one language, accurately translated into another language, may completely fail to amuse any prospective audience...

[star]

impossible. Humor can -- so I understand -- present extreme difficulties to a translator: A joke from one language, accurately translated into another language, may completely fail to amuse any prospective audience...

Haiku in particular. It certainley just seems to lose any meaning it might have had.

Haiku in particular. It certainley just seems to loose any meaning it might have had.
Thanks for your response!!

The problems in translating jokes or poetry illustrate why Lakoff used more than one criteron for incommensurability.

The first criteron, translatability -- as Lakoff defined it -- actually does not consider meaning at all. If one translates a joke or a Haiku it doesn't matter whether the joke is funny or the Haiku beautiful. It only matters whether it has the same truth value.

Strictly speaking many jokes and Haiku are -- from the viewpoint of the translatability criteron -- meaningless, because they are not assertions at all. Questions, likewise, are not assertions. Honestly, I do not know how Lakoff would interpret his first criteron in regard to such matters -- how strictly he intended one to apply the rule. Certainly limiting the question of commensurability to assertions ignores significant aspects of how men communicate.

Certainly one can patch up the rule by considering the context to include possible answers to questions, evaluating the answer instead of the question, or perhaps combining the question and its answer into an assertion. But how does one evaluate the truth value of a joke or a Haiku?

Worse yet, it is possible to imagine translating things in such a way that resulting assertions have the same truth value but completely different meanings. I say imagine because I don't know how one would do that in practice.

Come to think of it, I do know how to do it...

Suppose one makes two lists of all the propositions in a given language, say Japanese. One list would contain all the true propositions; the other, all the false ones. The lists would be infinitely long, of course, allowing for arbitrarily complex expressions. It would clearly be possible to do it, since one could sort the propositions alphabetically.

Do the same thing with another language, say Hopi.

Now translate all the true Japanese propositions into true Hopi propositions by matching up the two lists. And translate all the false Japanese propositions into false Hopi propositions by matching up the two lists. Such a translation would preserve the truth value of each statement -- even though meanings would become totally lost.

It would clearly work for any two languages that allowed for infinitely many propositions. It would also work for any two languages which allowed the same (finite) number of propositions.

I'm not sure this is what Lakoff had in mind, but it seems to match what he wrote...
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if each language can be translated into the other, sentence by sentence, preserving truth conditions.
~ Page 322.

It certainly seems that something needs to be added to translatability to make any sense of it. I suspect that Lakoff would add the restriction that a translation represents the same external reality as did the original statement. That would seem to be the bare minimum that one could add to make sense of it.

How do jokes and Haiku fit in as external representations? Humor and the appreciation of beauty seem to be internal judgments. They are externalized in the sense that men talk about them. So I would expect that any literal translation would satisfy such an amended version of Lakoff's translatability criteron. But who am I to say?

Lakoff quickly cedes the high ground in regard to the first point, translation. Personally, I think he could have fought to convince people that even here, languages are incommensurable. Perhaps it was professional pride that stopped him. What linguist would imagine that he could not translate from one arbitrary language into another?

Certainly there are points at which translation is difficult, if not impossible. Humor can -- so I understand -- present extreme difficulties to a translator: A joke from one language, accurately translated into another language, may completely fail to amuse any prospective audience...
The second criterion is understanding.
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if they can both be understood by a person--presumably via the preconceptual (sic) structure of his experiences and his general conceptualizing capacity.
~ Page 322.

Some things to consider...
The first criterion equates conceptual system and language. The second does not seem to do that.[/*:m:3qpj2uj7]
Does it count if a machine understands two conceptual systems? (As if such a question really meant something!!) Personally, I believe that is what Lakoff was trying to setup with the first criterion -- some sort of computer analog.[/*:m:3qpj2uj7]
If a conceptual system is not a language, what is it? Presumably it is something that a person might understand. A person might understand jokes and Haiku. Are they commensurable conceptual systems according to this second criterion? They don't seem particularly commensurable to me.[/*:m:3qpj2uj7]
Perhaps we should apply the term conceptual system to something a bit more globally applicable than either jokes or Haiku. But the second criterion supposes that a person might be able to understand two of whatever a conceptual system is.[/*:m:3qpj2uj7]
Would a computer operating system count as a conceptual system? There was a time when a single person might claim to understand the internals of such a system. So one might ask whether two such systems might be considered commensurable if one person understands them both. Is that what Lakoff is getting at?[/*:m:3qpj2uj7]
What is to be said of things one does not understand -- or understands incompletely? That one might not understand jokes and Haiku tells us that they are not part of his conceptual system. But it does not tell us that they are not commensurable. Is it ever possible to know that two conceptual systems are incommensurable? If not, then the second criterion is fairly meaningless in practice.[/*:m:3qpj2uj7]
Are there grades of commensurability corresponding to things incompletely understood?[/*:m:3qpj2uj7]

The second criterion is understanding.
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if they can both be understood by a person--presumably via the preconceptual (sic) structure of his experiences and his general conceptualizing capacity.
~ Page 322.

Some things to consider...
The first criterion equates conceptual system and language. The second does not seem to do that.[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
Does it count if a machine understands two conceptual systems? (As if such a question really meant something!!) Personally, I believe that is what Lakoff was trying to setup with the first criterion -- some sort of computer analog.[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
If a conceptual system is not a language, what is it? Presumably it is something that a person might understand. A person might understand jokes and Haiku. Are they commensurable conceptual systems according to this second criterion? They don't seem particularly commensurable to me.[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
Perhaps we should apply the term conceptual system to something a bit more globally applicable than either jokes or Haiku. But the second criterion supposes that a person might be able to understand two of whatever a conceptual system is.[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
Would a computer operating system count as a conceptual system? There was a time when a single person might claim to understand the internals of such a system. So one might ask whether two such systems might be considered commensurable if one person understands them both. Is that what Lakoff is getting at?[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
What is to be said of things one does not understand -- or understands incompletely? That one might not understand jokes and Haiku tells us that they are not part of his conceptual system. But it does not tell us that they are not commensurable. Is it ever possible to know that two conceptual systems are incommensurable? If not, then the second criterion is fairly meaningless in practice.[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
Are there grades of commensurability corresponding to things incompletely understood?[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
The third criterion is use.
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if they use the same concepts in the same ways.
~ Page 322.

Some things to consider...
This third criterion is actually what led me to the amended first criterion that I posted. I kept coming back in my mind to this criterion. I realized that for Lakoff the essential distinction between the two must consist in the distinction between what is objective, external and what is subjective, internal. Hence the amendment I offered.[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
Like the second criterion, no mention is made of language. So, once again, it is not clear what Lakoff means by conceptual system.[/*:m:23u5b4z2]
One might consider modifying this third criterion to say...

Two conceptual systems are commensurable if each language can be translated into the other, sentence by sentence, preserving their conceptual context.
[/*:m:23u5b4z2] In practice, two things which are subjective can not be objectively compared. So it would seem that this third criterion -- even as amended -- requires speculative knowledge.[/*:m:23u5b4z2]

The third criterion is use.
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if they use the same concepts in the same ways.
~ Page 322.

Some things to consider...
This third criterion is actually what led me to the amended first criterion that I posted. I kept coming back in my mind to this criterion. I realized that for Lakoff the essential distinction between the two must consist in the distinction between what is objective, external and what is subjective, internal. Hence the amendment I offered.[/*:m:28l3w37e]
Like the second criterion, no mention is made of language. So, once again, it is not clear what Lakoff means by conceptual system.[/*:m:28l3w37e]
One might consider modifying this third criterion to say...
[quote:28l3w37e]Two conceptual systems are commensurable if each language can be translated into the other, sentence by sentence, preserving their conceptual context.
[/*:m:28l3w37e] In practice, two things which are subjective can not be objectively compared. So it would seem that this third criterion -- even as amended -- requires speculative knowledge.[/*:m:28l3w37e][/quote:28l3w37e]
The fourth criterion is framing.
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if they frame situations in the same way and if there is a one-one (sic) correspondence between concepts in the two systems, frame by frame.
~ Page 322.

Some things to consider...
Like the second and third criteria, no mention is made of language. So, once again, it is not clear what Lakoff means by conceptual system.[/*:m:28l3w37e]
It would seem that any two conceptual systems which are commensurable by this fourth criterion would also be commensurable by the third criterion since there would be a one-to-one correspondence between concepts in the two systems, frame by frame.[/*:m:28l3w37e]
One might consider modifying this fourth criterion to say...

Two conceptual systems are commensurable if each language can be translated into the other, sentence by sentence, preserving conceptual framing.
[/*:m:28l3w37e] Once again... two things which are subjective can not be objectively compared. So it would seem that this fourth criterion -- even as amended -- requires speculative knowledge.[/*:m:28l3w37e]

The fourth criterion is framing.
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if they frame situations in the same way and if there is a one-one (sic) correspondence between concepts in the two systems, frame by frame.
~ Page 322.

Some things to consider...
Like the second and third criteria, no mention is made of language. So, once again, it is not clear what Lakoff means by conceptual system.[/*:m:1ksrcdih]
It would seem that any two conceptual systems which are commensurable by this fourth criterion would also be commensurable by the third criterion since there would be a one-to-one correspondence between concepts in the two systems, frame by frame.[/*:m:1ksrcdih]
One might consider modifying this fourth criterion to say...
[quote:1ksrcdih]Two conceptual systems are commensurable if each language can be translated into the other, sentence by sentence, preserving conceptual framing.
[/*:m:1ksrcdih] Once again... two things which are subjective can not be objectively compared. So it would seem that this fourth criterion -- even as amended -- requires speculative knowledge.[/*:m:1ksrcdih][/quote:1ksrcdih]
The fifth criterion is organization.
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if they have the same concepts organized relative to one another in the same way.
~ Page 322.
Once again, there is no reference to language. So it is not clear what Lakoff means by conceptual system[/*:m:1ksrcdih]
It would seem that any two conceptual systems which are commensurable by this fifth criterion would also be commensurable by the third criterion, since the fifth criterion merely adds organization requirements to the third criterion.
One might consider modifying this fourth criterion to say...
Quote:
Two conceptual systems are commensurable if each language can be translated into the other, sentence by sentence, preserving conceptual organization.[/*:m:1ksrcdih]
It is difficult to say how one can define the organization of concepts independently of the conceptual system in which they exist. So it would seem that this fifth criterion -- even as amended -- requires speculative knowledge. [/*:m:1ksrcdih]

I don't personally see much in these criteria. They do not seem to prove the case for relativism, as Lakoff hoped.

It might bother me if it could be shown that the mere process of translation introduced inescapable paradoxes.

I believe that if there is a need for fuzzy logic in terms of translation it would be in translating grammatical terms. I once read that Chinese does not divide words into categories like noun, verb, adjective, etc. but into yang words and yin words. That might make perfect sense to someone who speaks Chinese, I suppose. But it doesn't help me much to understand grammatical structure of the language.

Consider a simpler case. Take the expression "This expression is English." Suppose I translate it into French. I might arrive at "Cette expression est l'anglais," as a perfectly literal translation. I say it is a literal translation because I generated using a translation engine available on the internet...

http://translation2.paralink.com/

The English version is true; the French translation, false. A paradox? Not to me, since the phrase is reflexive, referring to itself precisely in terms of its language. Certainly any paradox involved is not inescapable. The reflexive nature of the expression can be avoided by considering, instead, the expression, "The expression, 'This expression is English,' is English," translated to, "L'expression, 'This expression is English,' est l'anglais," both of which are true.

I suppose I should confess, however, that I cheated here. The translation engine I referred to above really translated "The expression, 'This expression is English,' is English," to "L'expression, 'Cette expression est l'anglais,' est l'anglais," but I replaced the inner expression with the English original. So which is right, machine or the me?

Regardless of how one answers the question, I think it clear that there is nothing inescapable in any paradox one sees here.

But Lakoff, himself, admitted that translations do not provide any interesting challenges...

Having considered each of the points which Lokoff says we "must leave behind," I must move on. Specifically, I would o consider some of the positive points of the book...