[lit-ideas] Re: Language, Justice and Social Practices (long)

  • From: wokshevs@xxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 28 Sep 2005 10:05:08 -0230

 A few reflections on the flurry of posts:

I would venture to say that, no, one cannot experience pain without a concept
ofpain. The same sensory and/or emotional feelings might be differently named
depending upon whether they were wanted or unwanted by the individual
undergoing those feelings. Also, there are different kinds of pain and which
pain is which is identifiable only through the possession of concepts (and
their names) able to do the work of discernment. (Aside: Names, as I understand
them, identify something as an individuated "this"; concepts house the
inferences and entailments between what is named and the relations to other
things or concepts through which individuation is achieved. "Pawn" can be the
name of a piece in chess; the possible moves of a pawn, it's starting position,
but not the shape or colour or how much money one loses in losing a pawn, make
up its concept.) To continue: The "pain" between lovers that is bittersweet is
not the pain of realizing one has lost one's investment in mutual funds or of
not seeing that your opponent's knight is about to fork your queen and rook.
But without the relevant concepts, one ends up only able to say "That hurts" in
the variety of pain-producing contexts. 

Young children, after falling off a swing, will often look to the reactions of
their parents to see whether what they are feeling is something to cry about.
The concepot of pain they develop much depends upon parental reactions in this
way.

No, young children, at an egocentric stage of cognitive development do not
possess the concept of moral obligation; hence, they cannot feel morally
bound.

By the way, am I the guilty party who started this commotion? Cheers, Walter
Memorial U

Quoting Robert Paul <robert.paul@xxxxxxxx>:

> Phil Enns wrote:
> 
> [1] How does one know that English monoglots have these concepts?  Certainly
> many English monoglots have experienced Treppenwitz but why take that to
> be evidence of a concept yet to be named? [2] Does one have to have a
> concept of pain to experience pain?
> 
> [1] Because (although this is a weak inductive argument) I had the 
> concept for years without knowing that it had a name in some languages.
> 
> [2] No.
> 
> Trivia question. How does one learn the extension, or for that matter, 
> the intension of the word 'concept'?
> 
> Trivial note. I can identify, as can we all, far more colors than we can 
> name. If, in my depleted vocabulary, I do not have the word 'sepia,' 
> although I can consistently pick out instances of what other people call 
> sepia, would I then have no concept of such a color?
> 
> Mean-spirited observation. If 'the-piece-that-starts-at-this-position' 
> is now a name, then I quit. The German language and Phil have settled 
> the issue. Before we were arguing over the common noun 'pawn.' Now it 
> seems that a name just is any concatenation of words making up a 
> description joined by hyphens. This is merely a way around my suggestion 
> that descriptions pick and identify every bit as much as, and often more 
> precisely than, names. And it turns out that in having the description 
> 'the-realization-of-what-one-should-have-said-or-retorted-or-quipped 
> after-it-is-too-late-for-one-to-say-it,' I had a concept after all.
> 
> I must now thank Phil, and leave further comments until tomorrow, for I 
> have to read Susan Sontag's Regarding the Pain of Others. It is a 
> thoroughly bad book but it was assigned.
> 
> Robert Paul
> The Reed Institute.
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
> To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
> digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
> 



------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html

Other related posts:

  1. Home
  2. lit-ideas
  3. Archive
  4. 09-2005