The link I sent you to contains the argument for why it is that many common forms of conceptual analysis are committed to the view that concepts are encoded in the human brain in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
That doesn’t answer my question. I don’t want to rush to cry “logical rudeness objection” here; I suspect I’m asking the wrong question anyway. (But I do feel a bit frustrated.)
The “short-short” version of your post reads: the human mind doesn’t encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, we now know; a majority of conceptual analysis treats concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions; therefore conceptual analysis should be considered suspect, to the extent that it relies on untrue facts about the mind. (Did I get that mostly right?)
But “minds encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions” and “minds can work with the framework of necessary and sufficient conditions” are two distinct factual claims about minds.
The problem becomes clear when you replace “conceptual analysis” with “math”. Mathematicians are not relying to do their jobs on factual truths about how the mind represents mathematical concepts. They are relying to do their jobs on the pragmatic usefulness of the framework of necessary and useful conditions.
Why does that argument work for philosophers but fail for mathematicians? (I have an inkling, which is that they don’t look at the same kinds of concepts. But your post makes a muddle of that point, IMO.)
Oh, this is totally different than the objection I thought you were making. So thanks for clarifying.
Okay, so:
“minds encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions” and “minds can work with the framework of necessary and sufficient conditions” are two distinct factual claims about minds.
It is useful in many cases to talk about concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. I use stipulative definitions like this all the time.
My argument is not against the entire practice of seeking definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. My argument is against the practice of doing so under the assumption that what we’re getting at with such definitions are the concepts in our head, rather than more stipulatively defined concepts that, in many cases, may be more useful than our intuitive concepts anyway.
I may be way off base here, but isn’t the root of this disagreement that lukeprog is saying that our mental map called “conceptual analysis” doesn’t perfectly reflect the territory of the real world and should therefore not be the official model. While Morendil is saying, “but it’s good enough in most cases to get through most practical situations.” Which lukeprog agrees with.
The link I sent you to contains the argument for why it is that many common forms of conceptual analysis are committed to the view that concepts are encoded in the human brain in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions.
That doesn’t answer my question. I don’t want to rush to cry “logical rudeness objection” here; I suspect I’m asking the wrong question anyway. (But I do feel a bit frustrated.)
The “short-short” version of your post reads: the human mind doesn’t encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, we now know; a majority of conceptual analysis treats concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions; therefore conceptual analysis should be considered suspect, to the extent that it relies on untrue facts about the mind. (Did I get that mostly right?)
But “minds encode concepts in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions” and “minds can work with the framework of necessary and sufficient conditions” are two distinct factual claims about minds.
The problem becomes clear when you replace “conceptual analysis” with “math”. Mathematicians are not relying to do their jobs on factual truths about how the mind represents mathematical concepts. They are relying to do their jobs on the pragmatic usefulness of the framework of necessary and useful conditions.
Why does that argument work for philosophers but fail for mathematicians? (I have an inkling, which is that they don’t look at the same kinds of concepts. But your post makes a muddle of that point, IMO.)
Oh, this is totally different than the objection I thought you were making. So thanks for clarifying.
Okay, so:
Agreed. Like I say:
My argument is not against the entire practice of seeking definitions in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. My argument is against the practice of doing so under the assumption that what we’re getting at with such definitions are the concepts in our head, rather than more stipulatively defined concepts that, in many cases, may be more useful than our intuitive concepts anyway.
“It’s the map and not the territory,” right?
I may be way off base here, but isn’t the root of this disagreement that lukeprog is saying that our mental map called “conceptual analysis” doesn’t perfectly reflect the territory of the real world and should therefore not be the official model. While Morendil is saying, “but it’s good enough in most cases to get through most practical situations.” Which lukeprog agrees with.
Is that right?