Witt

Luiseach: 'Concepts' derive from language, though, do they not?

Of course.

John: Concept is a word used to represent an idea, mental entity.

Of course.

Luiseach: How can we have 'concepts' without language...

We cannot.

John: We cannot talk about concepts without language, but surely mental entities must exist before we attain language to talk about them. Another argument is that one must have language concepts in order to implement a language.
Maybe the issue here is that our concept of what a concept actually is, differs.

Surely, we cannot talk at all without language.

Language and the things that language talks about, precede logic.

Language and metaphysics are prior to logic!, don't you think so?

Witt

John Page

Here, from the Oxford Companion of Philosophy where they talk about the word concept.
Straw man, concepts may be communicated but I'm maintaining this is a one-way dependencies unless the concept is about language itslef - are you saying nonverbal language is necessary for someone to have an idea?
I'm lost for words! This seems to boil down to "People talk a lot therefore this talk causes all ideas" BTW I think legal language is so convoluted because we can have ideas that are difficult to describe precisely - pointing to the idea being separate from the language.
No, just a lower level of building block than language.

If someone would propose that a chain of reasoning requires language then I would be inclined to agree since the reasoning probably requires some internal verbalization to be formed (before being made public).
Why do you think I'm a Chomskian?
From Fowlers:From Pocket Oxford:Your non-private language definition of "concept" for which language must be a precondition, please.

Cheers, John

John Page

Agreement!
Disagreement! In my prior posts (unless I have my threads mixed up) I described the system by which the human mind works as "natural human logic" hoping to make a distinction between, but an anaolgy with, formal systems of logic invented by philosophers etc.

Being somewhat of an evolutionist, I'm having trouble imagining a situation where a fully formed mind springs into existence preceeded by language. For example, how could creatures have a (meaningful) word "smell" without the sense data from their noses being processed by their mind/brains into the conceptual form (the idea of) that sensation as different from something else.

Cheers, John

Luiseach

Agreed. A word.

We aren't born language users, so how can mental entities exist before we attain the language with which to talk about mental entities?

Ah! Interesting...so what are these 'language concepts,' exactly? Are you suggesting that the brain is hardwired with a predisposition to acquire language?

Maybe...I'm not sure yet.

Luiseach

Not in written text though! Except for smilies.

Gurdur

Not at all. Read again.
What the hell does that mean ? Precisely.
Nonverbal cognition is completely necessary as a pre-existing basis for verbal and other "higher" cognition in humans.
Care to try arguing this one?

Now that's a strawman ! Bollocks.
It's because reality, or our perception of reality, is so hard to specify in human language.
Not ideas. Ideas are usually much simpler.
I'm working here to bring in the concept of fuzzy categorization being essential to human cognition and language.
Explain numbering cognition in pigeons.
Explain tool use by chimpanzees.
Laziness ?
You're taking Chomsky way too far --- further than he ever did.
I was getting at the difference between mental constructs per se and complex concepts being a sub-class of general mental construct manipulation.

Luiseach

Could you please explain how metaphysics precedes logic?

Gurdur

They turned off the ability to have externally-hosted images in the Political Discussions forum here -- i.e. to have extra smilies from outside.

I suspect it was because of me ---- too many complained about me using deadly smilies of rolling along the floor laughing my guts out every time I hit the "arguments" of some laisse-faire capitalism advocate, or some sociopathic nihilist.

Since then I've had to make do with the standard SecWeb smilies in that particular forum, which is a drag.

John Page

Chicken and egg situation, then. Analogy: Concept is to Language as Brick is to House.

So, to what does the word "concept" actually refer? How can we understand the circularity of language and reach the part of reality that the words refer to? I think either a "unit of mental activity" or a "mental representation of a part of reality."
Language concepts are those developed to describe language itself such as nouns, verbs, sentences. These mental entities existed before linguistics developed the language to describe them, yes?
The brains of modern-day homo spaiens sapiens, yes. We had some links in another thread that went to sites discussing specialized areas of the brain responsible for verbalizing etc. and the speech defects found when lesions were found.

Cheers, John

Gurdur

I think Witt's both wrong and right, and though the question was not directed to me, I'll answer anyway.

Before you can do anything else (like have breakfast), you have to make at least the metaphysical assumption that there is a natural world out there (including bacon) which is seperate from your perceptions (otherwise it's difficult to learn how to cook).

So in that way metaphysics precedes logic --- i.e., you must make the choice as to whether use logic or not.

However, if you accept the natural world and evolution, then you can easily claim that a great deal of logic is already neurologically hardwired into your brain --- and therefore the logic you're born with precedes metaphysics.

This of course causes problems as soon as you ask yourself nasty questions about your own thinking;
or if you develop a nasty condition affecting cognition (such as hallucinatory drugs, clinical paranoia or the like)
or if you're the only one to have it right and all those around you have it wrong.