Huemer's Essay (1): Meaning and Referent
Dave OHearn
> Dave OHearn <dav...@wilde.oit.umass.edu> wrote in message
> news:39b3f46d$1...@oit.umass.edu...
> > I read what he wrote and I didn't think it was fair. Ayn Rand
> > distinguised between sense and reference, but in a less fundamental
> > way because she didn't believe in all the variants of the "two kinds
> > of truth" dichotomy. The meaning of the concept is all the entities
> > it subsumes, but the concept has a definition; that's reference and
> > sense, right there.
>
> Nice try. Unfortunately, if you want to claim that Objectivism accepts
> the distinction between sense and reference, then Peikoff's criticism of
> the distinction between analytic and synthetic propositions makes no
> sense.
Objectivism doesn't accept the distinction as anything important. A
concept must have a definition, but you can't play word substitution games
on the definitions alone to get truth. You have to keep in mind the
entities to which the definitions refer. If the meaning of a word is
entirely man-made, like "bachelor", you can draw some inference from the
word alone, such as "no bachelor is married". But those concepts are
trivial compared to the ones that deal with the world as-is, like gravity,
weather, food, etc. (I don't want to bore you with arguing this, anyway,
as you seem to understand the Objectivist epistemology thoroughly.)
> > That example was horrible. Jocaste isn't a concept; she is a specific
> > entity. She doesn't have a "definition" and she isn't an integration of
>
> And I never said Jocaste was a concept. She was a person.
Then how do sense and reference apply to her? It seems a worthless
example. Jocaste doesn't have a definition. Her sense is "everything I
know about Jocaste" and her reference is only a single entity, if those
terms can even be applied to proper names. If you had an example of a word
related to a number of physical things in nature, like "weather" or
"death", and you could show that the sense/reference distinction was
meaningful, that would be a much better example.
> Indeed, no words denote concepts, except the word "concept", "idea", and
> other, similar ones. You appear to be confusing words, ideas, and
> objects.
I was using the Objectivist definition of concept, which is an integration
of two or more entities that have something in common worth integrating.
I don't claim that every two people that use the same word have the same
concept in mind (that's ridiculous), but that they must have *something*
in mind, otherwise they're just reciting strings of sound.
Dave O'Hearn
Owl
news:39b5233d$1...@oit.umass.edu...
> entities to which the definitions refer. If the meaning of a word is
> entirely man-made, like "bachelor", you can draw some inference from the
> word alone, such as "no bachelor is married". But those concepts are
> trivial compared to the ones that deal with the world as-is, like
gravity,
> weather, food, etc. (I don't want to bore you with arguing this, anyway,
I don't see how this differs from the standard, traditional view of
analytic & synthetic propositions.
> > And I never said Jocaste was a concept. She was a person.
>
> Then how do sense and reference apply to her? It seems a worthless
They don't. This is why I said you were confusing words with objects.
Jocaste didn't have a sense, because she was a person, not a word. Cats
don't have senses either, and this has nothing to do with whether there
are more than one of them. Only words (and ideas) have senses and
references.
> example. Jocaste doesn't have a definition. Her sense is "everything I
> know about Jocaste" and her reference is only a single entity, if those
> terms can even be applied to proper names. If you had an example of a
word
> related to a number of physical things in nature, like "weather" or
> "death", and you could show that the sense/reference distinction was
> meaningful, that would be a much better example.
I've responded to this in the past. You can probably locate a thread on
"water" and "H2O" in deja. The issues are exactly the same. There is no
relevance whatsoever to the distinction between proper names and common
names here.
Dave OHearn
> They don't. This is why I said you were confusing words with objects.
> Jocaste didn't have a sense, because she was a person, not a word. Cats
> don't have senses either, and this has nothing to do with whether there
> are more than one of them. Only words (and ideas) have senses and
> references.
I understand the source of our confusion now and I can be clearer. The
word "Jocaste" denotes a single entity, while a word like "cat" denotes a
concept. I will look up your example of water vs H2O on deja, but I still
don't find the Oedipus-Jocaste example illustrative in any way. Sense, or
intention, is used to mean the definition of a term as opposed to its
referents, or extention. When a word denotes a single entity, the
distinction withers to uselessness. Your example equated "reference" with
omniscience about a subject.
Dave O'Hearn
George Dance
> Dave OHearn <dav...@lessing.oit.umass.edu> wrote in message
> news:39b5233d$1...@oit.umass.edu...
> > entities to which the definitions refer. If the meaning of a word is
> > entirely man-made, like "bachelor", you can draw some inference from
the
> > word alone, such as "no bachelor is married". But those concepts are
> > trivial compared to the ones that deal with the world as-is, like
> gravity,
> > weather, food, etc. (I don't want to bore you with arguing this,
anyway,
>
Owl <a@a.a> wrote:
> I don't see how this differs from the standard, traditional view of
> analytic & synthetic propositions.
So what? Does Owl think that this coment somehow refutes O'Hearn's
view? Or is it nothing more than a *non sequitur*?
--
- 30 -
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Owl
> I understand the source of our confusion now and I can be clearer. The
> word "Jocaste" denotes a single entity, while a word like "cat" denotes
a
> concept. I will look up your example of water vs H2O on deja, but I
still
No. "Cat" refers to cats, just like "Jocaste" refers to Jocaste.
> don't find the Oedipus-Jocaste example illustrative in any way. Sense,
or
> intention, is used to mean the definition of a term as opposed to its
Not in the confused Objectivist sense of "definition."
> referents, or extention. When a word denotes a single entity, the
> distinction withers to uselessness. Your example equated "reference"
with
> omniscience about a subject.
I have no idea what you mean by that.
George Dance
> George Dance (georg...@my-deja.com) wrote:
> > ...
> > Huemer's first charge is that the Objectivist notion of meaning -
that
> > the meaning of a concept is its referents - fails to distinguish
> > between the a concept's "sense" and its [reference]....
Dave OHearn <dav...@wilde.oit.umass.edu> wrote:
> I read what he wrote and I didn't think it was fair.
I appreciate your reply; it is the only acknowledgement I have that my
essay appeared here, as the day it was posted (Sept. 2) is inaccessible
through deja. I wonder, though, why you changed the series title.
> Ayn Rand distinguised
> between sense and reference, but in a less fundamental way because she
> didn't believe in all the variants of the "two kinds of truth"
> dichotomy.
> The meaning of the concept is all the entities it subsumes, but the
> concept has a definition; that's reference and sense, right there.
I don't see the equivalence. Quoting the "Summary" in *ITOE*
(Objectivist, Inc. 1967): "A concept is a mental integration of two or
more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s)," while
"A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of a concept's
units. A correct definition must specify the distinguishing
characteristic(s) of the concept's units." (75) It sounds as though the
meaning of a concept is a mental event (or a thought), while a
definition of one is a statement that expresses that thought. It
follows from that the definition of a concept is not something
independent of the meaning, and that, so far as it differs from the
meaning, it is incorrect.
> Ayn
> Rand was looser in sense; if you gain new knowledge (expand your
> context)
> and realize that the "sense", or definition, of the concept isn't
> clear enough, you refine it.
Rand did recognize that "/all definitions are contextual/" (her
emphasis), but that was not meant to make them something less rigorous
than than the concepts themselves, since for her "concept-formation is
[itself] contextual." (76) That was not to endorse relativism, of
course, but simply to acknowledge fallibility: any of our definitions
could be wrong, but that in turn meant that there every concept has one
correct meaning, and a corresponding correct definition.
> > As evidence, he offers the plotline of *Oedipus Rex*....
> That example was horrible. Jocaste isn't a concept; she is a specific
> entity. She doesn't have a "definition" and she isn't an integration
> of two or more "Jocastes". Not all words denote concepts; some are
> proper names.
That is a very good point. Let's look again at the Objectivist
definition of "concept":
" A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing
the same distinguishing characteristic(s)" (75)
Oedipus, Sophocles, and the reader will have thoughts about Jocaste.
Some of those thoughts will undoubtedly be conceptual: she was a woman,
a wife, a mother, a widow. But (by the Objectivist definition of
concept) no one has a "concept of Jocaste". The idea of "Jocaste" in
and of itself does not integrate Jocaste with anything, nor does it
give any of her distinguishing characteristics (except of course for
her name; and as you point out, "she is not being integrated" with
other women named "Jocaste."
Note that Huemer's context for his discussion was what he was writing
specifically to refute: the Objectivist theory of concepts. Yet his
prime example is not even a concept, by the Objectivist theory.
He commits the same error again, with the other example he employs to
make his point: the alleged concept of the "Empire State Building."
I noticed this when I wrote my rebuttal, but left it out as it seemed
merely incidental; it seemed that Huemer would have no trouble using
real concepts (in the Objectivist meaning) to make his point. But this
point has bothered me since. Is Huemer that ignorant of his subject?
Or is he merely too contemptuous of Objectivism, and Objectivists, to
bother to try to understand what Rand was saying? Possibly it was both,
as his ignorance could only come from unwillingness to verify what
actually wrote.
Which is just one more piece of evidence that Huemer's essay is not a
philosophical work at all but a propaganda piece, not a search for
truth but an attack perpetrated without regard for fairness or truth.
Dave OHearn
> I appreciate your reply; it is the only acknowledgement I have that my
> essay appeared here, as the day it was posted (Sept. 2) is inaccessible
> through deja. I wonder, though, why you changed the series title.
I never do that, at least not intentionally. I must have made some sort of
cut-and-paste error when I posted.
> > Ayn Rand distinguised
> > between sense and reference, but in a less fundamental way because she
> > didn't believe in all the variants of the "two kinds of truth"
> > dichotomy.
> > The meaning of the concept is all the entities it subsumes, but the
> > concept has a definition; that's reference and sense, right there.
>
> I don't see the equivalence. Quoting the "Summary" in *ITOE*
> (Objectivist, Inc. 1967): "A concept is a mental integration of two or
> more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s)," while
> "A definition is a statement that identifies the nature of a concept's
> units. A correct definition must specify the distinguishing
> characteristic(s) of the concept's units." (75) It sounds as though the
> meaning of a concept is a mental event (or a thought), while a
> definition of one is a statement that expresses that thought. It
> follows from that the definition of a concept is not something
> independent of the meaning, and that, so far as it differs from the
> meaning, it is incorrect.
I didn't mean that Ayn Rand agreed with the sense/reference distinction,
but rather that her theory notes the importance of definition. So when she
denies the distinction, it isn't out of ignorance or lack of philosophic
knowledge. She knew perfectly well that we have definitions and why we
need them, but came to her own conclusions that the definition merely
designtates what referents the concept has; it isn't meaningful apart from
those referents.
> Note that Huemer's context for his discussion was what he was writing
> specifically to refute: the Objectivist theory of concepts. Yet his
> prime example is not even a concept, by the Objectivist theory.
Yes, this is exactly what's wrong with the example. Moreover, in Huemer's
replies to me, he talked only about words having sense and reference.
This is so far off from Objectivism that his argument is entirely out of
context. If he has his own theory about words and their sense/reference,
that theory has to be presented before his arguments, otherwise the idea
that a word has a reference without the underlying concept is just
gibberish.
Dave O'Hearn
Owl
news:39c1787f$1...@oit.umass.edu...
> Yes, this is exactly what's wrong with the example. Moreover, in
Huemer's
> replies to me, he talked only about words having sense and reference.
> This is so far off from Objectivism that his argument is entirely out of
> context. If he has his own theory about words and their sense/reference,
> that theory has to be presented before his arguments, otherwise the idea
> that a word has a reference without the underlying concept is just
> gibberish.
Dave,
I think you need to read it again, with an eye towards understanding the
author's point of view, rather than finding something to criticize at all
costs. I don't know what "has a reference without the underlying concept"
means, but I certainly never denied the existence of concepts, nor that
they refer to things.