What you are saying is: There are apples and then there are apples.. All different sizes / colors / and flavors.... Perhaps even snowflakes differ from each other... So the essence of all things are alway subjectively perceived?
________________________________ From: "[email protected]" <[email protected]> To: [email protected] Sent: Mon, August 29, 2011 12:29:18 PM Subject: Re: Fiction Academics - from philosophers to psychologists to anthropologists to art critics - have, with varying success, grappled with the usage of 'abstraction', 'generalization', 'concept', 'category', 'quality', 'relation', 'similarity', 'kind' and other words where what they think of as "the referent" is not a specific "concrete" object. For example, they would say the apple there on the coffee table is "a specific "concrete" object", but the generic term 'apple' as distinguished from 'banana' has as its referent something non-concrete. (I use 'banana' there, and not the usual 'orange' because 'orange' is burdened by its capacity to occasion two or more distinct notions (e.g. a fruit, a color, a traffic-light message.) This is where William's "context" comes into play.) My position is that confusion lies in believing that words "have" at all, and a double confusion in thinking they "have a referent". But I won't tackle that error here. Instead, I'll spend a moment on the often asserted notion that one thing man can do and other animals can't is "have an abstract thought". If, to infer a generalization or category or quality is to entertain in one's mind an "abstraction", it seems reasonable to claim that animals think in abstractions all the time. I believe their guardedness (or lack of worry) when they see another animal in the vicinity depends not on the belief that this is the very animal that they remember chasing them before, but, rather, on their recognizing the "kind" of animal it is. Central Park has many pigeons walking about seeking scraps to eat. When I stroll in the park alone, a pigeon will mosey out of my direct path. When I walk with a dog on a leash, the bird explodes into flight. (Don't be quick to say, "Instinct!" 'Instinct' is a word that people regularly use when, in effect, they can come up with no other "explanation".)
