[FRIAM] More friam followup

[Phil Henshaw]

Nick,
Sometimes I can't tell from careful efforts to be rigorous (like the
common thread in Whitehead, Ryle and Wittgenstein you point out),
whether it refers only to semantics and theories or also refers to
physical things.    A lack of clarity on whether a subject concerns the
forms of mental constructs or the forms of things outside the mind to
which we can only point is the most common of the misplaced referents I
know of.   To me it's highly relevant whether the subject is inside or
outside our minds, as the former tend to be projections which can be
associated with any other and are limitlessly pliable and extendable,
and the latter are not.   Does your understanding of category error'
include that?
 
 

Phil Henshaw                       ¸¸¸¸.·´ ¯ `·.¸¸¸¸
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
680 Ft. Washington Ave 
NY NY 10040                       
tel: 212-795-4844                 
e-mail: pfh at synapse9.com          
explorations: www.synapse9.com <http://www.synapse9.com/>     

-----Original Message-----
From: friam-bounces at redfish.com [mailto:friam-bounces at redfish.com] On
Behalf Of Nicholas Thompson
Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 5:02 PM
To: friam at redfish.com
Subject: [FRIAM] More friam followup





Hi all, 
 
I think of our discussions as cumulative, so here is somethat that was
discussed today that I would like to nail down.  We isolated the concept
of "misplaced concreteness (Whitehead) which is a version of a "category
error" (Ryle) or the violation of a language game (Wittegenstein) or the
error of Hypostization. (spelling?)(source?) or Reification (ditto).    
 
We will ALWAYS disagree when somebody says that to say that hunger is IN
the stomach is an example of misplaced concreteness, but we will never
again be confused or ignorant about what is being asserted: that hunger
is a complex set of relations that may involve the stomach essentially,
but also involves many other things.  Even our use of words like
probabililty (I probably will go down town today) or  (there is a 50
percent chance it will rain today) or causality (guns dont cause crime;
people do)  lays us open to accusations of misplaced concreteness.  
 
Nick
 
Nicholas S. Thompson
Research Associate, Redfish Group, Santa Fe, NM (nick at redfish.com)
Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University
(nthompson at clarku.edu)
 
 
 



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