|
Dear
Leo,
[Opinion on]
Everything is a concept: entities, relations among them,
properties, attributes, even many instances/individuals (days of the week; Joe
Montana; etc.) Especially when you think of concept in animal mental apparatus
as a placeholder for something real in the real world (I am a realist). Sure, I
have a concept for 'Joe Montana'. Is that concept a general notion, i.e., a
class of something? No.
The general problem (from my perspective) is that we are
typically always addressing two perspectives: 1) ontology, i.e., what exists in
the world? and 2) semantics, i.e., what is the relationship between our ways of
talking/thinking and those things in the world? To me it's clear that we are
talking about (1) things of the world, but our language (and our thought, I
would say) interposes another layer or two. I would say there are minimally 3
things: 1) our language (terms and compositions of terms), 2) the senses of
terms (and their compositions) which we might characterize as concepts, and 3)
real world referents that those senses or concepts somehow point to. In formal
semantics, a good theory of reference (i.e., (3)) is hard to come by.
[Opinion off]
I have
the same view of concept as you do, as it happens. However, I notice that this
is not universally held by any means, and also that there is controversy
attached to the term. For this reason I would prefer not to use it. So far I
have found I can always manage that.
Regards
Matthew West
Reference Data Architecture and
Standards Manager
Shell International Petroleum Company Limited
Registered
in England and Wales
Registered number: 621148
Registered office: Shell
Centre, London SE1 7NA, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 20 7934 4490 Mobile: +44
7796 336538
Email: matthew.west@xxxxxxxxx
http://www.shell.com
http://www.matthew-west.org.uk/
|