Full Idea
What sortal concepts we can bring to bear upon experience determines what we can find there.
Gist of Idea
Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience
Source
David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.6)
Book Reference
Wiggins,David: 'Sameness and Substance' [Blackwell 1980], p.141
A Reaction
Wiggins would wince at being classed among linguistic relativists of the Sapir-Whorf type, but that's where I'm putting this idea. Wiggins is a realist, who knows there are things out there our concepts miss. He compares it to a fishing net. He's wrong.