dmb, I've submitted dozens of posts, primarily in the 'Reifying Carrots' thread that offer such explanations from many different perspectives. Do you understand 'many different perspectives"?
Marsha On May 15, 2011, at 1:36 PM, david buchanan wrote: > > > Marsha said to Mark: > I see reification as a tool too. But as dmb says that James says, > "Intellectualism becomes vicious, he said, when concepts are reified, deified > and the empirical reality from which they were abstracted in the first place > is denigrated as less than real." > > dmb says: > Reification is not a tool. It is a certain kind of mistake, a conceptual > error. It is a particular way to misuse a concept or abuse an idea. Nobody > needs to take my word for it. Look it up. When generalizations and > abstractions are mistakenly given concrete, existential status, when a > concept is taken as something more than a concept. Around here, subjects and > objects would be the prime example. They are fine AS concepts. When they are > treated as different kinds of substances or mistaken for metaphysical > categories, you've committed the error known as reification. The term is used > to oppose various kinds of essentialism and Platonism, as well as SOM > > I think it was Marsha who said: > And in this reification process, it is that cage wall that creates separation > between the phenomenon/concept and the self when an image, construct or > definition is erected and assigned. imho > > dmb says: > I can't make much sense of this word salad but it's pretty clear that you're > confused about the definition of "definition". A definition is like a line or > a wall that surrounds a word or a concept. But that line does not separate > the word from experience or from the phenomenal reality. The wall around each > word or concept separates it from OTHER WORDS and OTHER IDEAS. Words mean > what they mean in relation to all the other words in the language. The > definition of every word is never anything except more words. It's a system > of relations. It's a system of distinctions and relations, similarities and > opposites, of subtle connotations and stark contrasts. That's root basis of > all conceptual thought. All these analogies, comparisons, oppositions and > distinctions are verbal and intellectual. They're explainable and knowable > and useful and good. There no rule that says this must be spoiled by > "reification". > > I think it would make sense to use that term to push back against the error > whenever it appears someone is committing it. If you or Mark actually > understood the problem and could recognize it when you saw it, you'd be on > the war path against Ham's essentialism. You can see here what James meant by > "reifying" the concept of a circle and "denigrating" the actual experiential > reality of circles. > > An essence characterizes a substance or a form, in the sense of the Forms or > Ideas in Platonic idealism. It is permanent, unalterable, and eternal; and > present in every possible world....Socrates was one of the first > essentialists, believing in the concept of ideal forms, an abstract entity of > which individual objects are mere facsimilies. To give an example; the ideal > form of a circle is a perfect circle, something that is physically impossible > to make manifest, yet the circles that we draw and observe clearly have some > idea in common — this idea is the ideal form. Plato believed that these ideas > are eternal and vastly superior to their manifestations in the world, and > that we understand these manifestations in the material world by comparing > and relating them to their respective ideal form. Plato's forms are regarded > as patriarchs to essentialist dogma simply because they are a case of what is > intrinsic and a-contextual of objects — the abstract properties that makes > them what they are. For more on forms, read Plato's parable of the cave. > > > The sun will come up tomorrow and the point of this post will be even further > over Marsha's head. > > > Bet on it. > > > > > > Moq_Discuss mailing list > Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. > http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org > Archives: > http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ > http://moq.org/md/archives.html ___ Moq_Discuss mailing list Listinfo, Unsubscribing etc. http://lists.moqtalk.org/listinfo.cgi/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org Archives: http://lists.moqtalk.org/pipermail/moq_discuss-moqtalk.org/ http://moq.org/md/archives.html
