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 ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Professor of Psychology and Ethology, Clark University ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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