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Rule-Following and Action (take # 963)
Oct. 13th, 2007 12:25 amIf conceptualization/meaning is determined by rules, these rules will be of the form if...., then it's an x. e.g. If it has a flat bill and white feathers, it's a duck. This eventually breaks down, since some concept or other will be needed in the antecedent of the rule. e.g. If it....[what?], then it's red. Justifications come to an end; spades are turned, etc. With concepts such as color concepts, there isn't much to say at the personal level about how we (i.e. how we know how to) employ them. They are basic concepts: concepts we employ without reference to any other concepts. Aside from comparisons to other color concepts (e.g. "kind of like orange" or "not blue, or green, or..."), it's hard to say by virtue of what we call something red.
Basic conceptualizations are like basic actions--actions we do without doing them through any other action. Our epistemological situation with respect to these "basic" concepts is much like our epistemological situation with respect to basic actions. The parallel between the regress arguments that apply to each is clear: by means of what do we act? If by means of a volition, by means of what do we will to act? (etc.) By means of what do we call that cube "red"? If by means of some other property, how do we determine on the basis of that property whether the cube is red? (etc.)
What this means is that the way we employ a concept, like an action, can be opaque to us, in a demonstrable way. The questioning in which we engage when we ask (well, I ask--others not so much) how actions begin if not in other actions or in some non-action may be compared to the questioning in which we engage when we ask how we can be sure whether our concepts pick out what we think they do, given that the way we apply some of them cannot be elaboated upon. The lack of data at the personal level to explain basic actions or the application of basic concepts makes possible both the regress arguments that attend them and a measure of skepticism: If we aren't sure how we do these things, or how we apply those concepts, then perhaps the delineation of actions from nonactions, or of certain concepts from other concepts, will begin to look hard to explain. (I am not sure whether this problem amounts to the same problem that rule-following or meaning skepticism is generally taken to be. Or even is "skepticism" is necessarily the right word for it. It's a form of aporia.)
((Note: It is quite possible that I am crazy and this comparison is incoherent. Takes 1-962 on rule-following and action definitely were.))
Basic conceptualizations are like basic actions--actions we do without doing them through any other action. Our epistemological situation with respect to these "basic" concepts is much like our epistemological situation with respect to basic actions. The parallel between the regress arguments that apply to each is clear: by means of what do we act? If by means of a volition, by means of what do we will to act? (etc.) By means of what do we call that cube "red"? If by means of some other property, how do we determine on the basis of that property whether the cube is red? (etc.)
What this means is that the way we employ a concept, like an action, can be opaque to us, in a demonstrable way. The questioning in which we engage when we ask (well, I ask--others not so much) how actions begin if not in other actions or in some non-action may be compared to the questioning in which we engage when we ask how we can be sure whether our concepts pick out what we think they do, given that the way we apply some of them cannot be elaboated upon. The lack of data at the personal level to explain basic actions or the application of basic concepts makes possible both the regress arguments that attend them and a measure of skepticism: If we aren't sure how we do these things, or how we apply those concepts, then perhaps the delineation of actions from nonactions, or of certain concepts from other concepts, will begin to look hard to explain. (I am not sure whether this problem amounts to the same problem that rule-following or meaning skepticism is generally taken to be. Or even is "skepticism" is necessarily the right word for it. It's a form of aporia.)
((Note: It is quite possible that I am crazy and this comparison is incoherent. Takes 1-962 on rule-following and action definitely were.))
