[MD] Keep on ...

[MarshaV]

dmb,


It is not a mistake when in the end you know that these analogies are "not this, not that."  

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What do you want from me?  Do you know?  



Marsha 


On May 15, 2011, at 2:41 PM, david buchanan wrote:

> 
> 
> Marsha said to dmb:
> 
> 
> I've submitted dozens of posts, primarily in the 'Reifying Carrots' thread that offer such explanations from many different perspectives.   Do you understand 'many different perspectives"?
> 
> dmb says:
> Yes, but you make the same mistake over and over again. As is usually the case, you just posted a quote to support your contentions about "reification" but the quote does NOT support them. Quite the opposite. In fact, you repeatedly disputed William James by quoting one of the biggest William James fans in the world. You were, in effect, using James to oppose James. This shows quite clearly that you are deeply confused.
> 
> The quote you just re-posted for Mark says that creating "discreet entities [is] useful for manipulating, predicting and controlling" and is "conventionally indispensable". But reification is the problem that MAY enter into it. Your own evidence says this process "may impose ad hoc boundaries on what are actually densely interconnected systems and then grant autonomous existence to the segments." Now compare that to what I said in the post you are allegedly responding.
> dmb said:
> Reification is not a tool. It is a certain kind of mistake, a conceptual error... when generalizations and abstractions are mistakenly given concrete, existential status, when a concept is taken as something more than a concept. ...When they are treated as different kinds of substances or mistaken for metaphysical categories, you've committed the error known as reification. The term is used to oppose various kinds of essentialism and Platonism, as well as SOM.
> 
> What's the difference between "granting autonomous existence" and "given concrete, existential status"? There is no important difference. Both phrases express the same idea. And so you are using the quote to dispute what the quote says. The quote does not support your contention that this error is inherent to conceptualization. Think about it. How would that work? If there were no way to conceptualize without reification, how would it be possible to make a case against it? And yet you're quoting a case against it. The MOQ makes a case a against it. James made a case against it and so did your favorite James fan. They are all using concepts to opposed this conceptual error. If it were an inherent feature of conceptualization, this critique wouldn't even be conceivable. And yet there they are, right in front of you. This means that your contention cannot possibly be true. 
> 
> It's like saying "words have no particular meaning". If that were actually true you wouldn't be able to make the claim in the first place, at least not in way that anyone could ever understand. And so it is with the phrase "conceptualization reifies". Because that phrase is itself a concept, it would be inherently erroneous like every other concept. 
> 
> Yep. You can bet your bottom dollar that the sun will come up tomorrow and.. you know the rest.
> 
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