[Wittrs] Re: What is Conceptual Analysis?
- From: "SWM" <SWMirsky@xxxxxxx>
- To: wittrsamr@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 17 May 2010 11:36:49 -0000
--- In Wittrs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx, Joseph Polanik <jPolanik@...> wrote:
> SWM wrote:
>
> >Joseph Polanik wrote:
>
> SWM wrote [Quoting Searle]:
>
> >>>I claim we will not understand the relation of the mental to the
> >>>physical as long as we continue to take seriously the old conceptual
> >>>apparatus of dualism, monism, materialism and all the rest. Here I am
> >>>proposing a conceptual revision on the grounds that the old concepts
> >>>are not adequate to the facts as we can understand them, given a
> >>>century of work on the brain. . . "
>
> >>the quote is a good one; and, should suffice to show that Searle is
> >>not using 'conceptual truth' as a synonym for 'analytic truth'.
>
> >I never claimed he was.
>
> you dragged the notion of analytic truth into a thread concerned with
> exposing the conflation of identity, constitution and causation. I was
> explaining the three card monte scam and you objected by performing an
> instance of the scam before our very eyes.
>
Nonsense. I referred to Searle's claim of "conceptual truth". You raised the
question of what anyone meant by that and how did we know what Searle meant. I
provided links to (plus excerpts from) two on-line definitions (one from a
dictionary, the other a wikipedia discussion). I noted that 1) there were
certainly debates about what anyone meant by "conceptual truth" in philosophy
(it being a technical philosophical term) and 2) that Searle's use was pretty
clear since he had said, in the same context, that what made the statement he
was referring to "conceptually true" was that it was trivially true, something
we could see just by thinking about it. I pointed out that THAT usage was
consistent with the definitions I had linked the list to.
You seem to want to make this a debate about "analytical truth" which, as most
of us will know, is an ongoing controversy in modern philosophy, i.e., is there
really any such thing and if there is is it anything more than claims about
what is definitionally true, etc.
I subsequently checked Searle on the question and posted on this list some text
from him from one of his books about his own methodology which, he averred,
involved conceptual analysis which, of course, is one reading of what one means
by analytical philosophy.
As usual, you are fighting to pull us off the trail, to divert the discussion
down new paths where, perhaps, you hope to shift the focus from the CRA which
you have thus far failed to successfully defend as a convincing argument.
> [Joe]: the meaning of 'identity' that is consistent with the is of
> constitution (and, often, with claims of constitution not using 'is') is
> not identical to the meaning of 'identity' that is consistent with
> Leibniz's Law.
>
> [Stuart]: That's certainly true but the idea of "conceptually true" is
> dependent on the notion of logical identity (a thing is the same as
> itself).
>
> [Joe]: what is the basis of your claim that "the idea of 'conceptually
> true' is dependent on the notion of logical identity"?
>
> [Stuart supplies quotes indicating documenting that those language users
> treated 'conceptual truth' as synonymous with 'analytic truth'.]
>
And the examples presented involved definitional identity, e.g., "a bachelor is
an unmarried man". Insofar as this isn't an empirical question about how the
terms are used in a particular language, it's a point about how the concepts
represented by the terms are the same and that one definition covers both. If
the referents of the two terms are definitionally the same in every particular
they are logically identical.
Now Sean has previously pointed out that language usage isn't perfectly
symmetrical or fixed or closed off. Thus what we mean by the terms may differ
in different contexts in which case he rightly raised the question of whether
one could, indeed, make the equation that a "bachelor" = an "unmarried man".
But that is a point about language, not about the particular usage represented
in the statement in the context of explaining the relation of two terms WHEN
they mean the same thing.
> >My point was that he [Searle] said of something that it was
> >"conceptually true" and that by that he meant it is true by examination
> >of the concepts, what the terms, themselves, mean.
>
> so what does it mean to say that something is conceptually true?
>
That it is true by simply thinking about the meanings of the terms, i.e., we
don't need to go off and collect evidence, take a survey, etc. It's a question
that is answered by examining the meanings of the terms, the concepts denoted
and their relations -- not one that is answered by an empirical undertaking.
> in my view, a statement is said to be conceptually true when it is taken
> as true on the basis of a conceptual analysis; but, that just invites
> the next question, 'what counts as a conceptual analysis?'.
>
As I said, Joe, I will NOT be drawn into a sidebar here when the issue is
whether the CRA works as an argument or not. It's enough to know what Searle
means by "conceptually true". We don't need to embark on a debate and analysis
of the term itself in terms of other thinkers down through history. THAT is no
more relevant here than was arguing about how much of Descartes one had to
subscribe to before being legitimately dubbed a "Cartesian dualist". It's a
distraction and I'm not interested in adding distractions.
> consider the lexicographer roaming the countryside incognito making
> notes as to how people use particular words.
>
> is the lexicographer doing a conceptual analysis; and, if not, what do
> philosophers do (instead of or in addition to what lexicographers do)
> that constitutes conceptual analysis?
>
An interesting question, though not relevant to whether Searle called something
"conceptually true" or what he meant by it (though we already have evidence of
what he meant by it and it was not lexicography).
SWM
> Joe
>
>
> --
>
> Nothing Unreal is Self-Aware
>
> @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
> http://what-am-i.net
> @^@~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~@^@
>
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