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15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 4. Objectification

[tendency to treat properties and concepts as objects]

6 ideas

12476	Every external object or internal idea suggests to us the idea of unity [Locke]
	Full Idea: Existence and unity are two other ideas that are suggested to the understanding, by every object without, and every idea within. ..And whatever we can consider as one thing, whether a real being, or idea, suggests to the understanding the idea of unity.
	From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.07.07)
	A reaction: It seems to me blatantly obvious that there is a close tie between this fact of metaphysics or psychology (or both) and the notion of a 'unit' in mathematics. Without this faculty of 'identifying' things, there would be no numbers or counting.

12501	The mind can make a unity out of anything, no matter how diverse [Locke]
	Full Idea: There are no things so remote, nor so contrary, which the mind cannot, by its art of composition, bring into one idea, as is visible in that signified by the name 'Universe'.
	From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.24.03)
	A reaction: This encourages ideas like unrestricted mereological composition, and the existence of the trout-turkey, but Locke is only saying that we can think of things that way. We can still strongly resist bizarre unities, and look only for natural ones, or none.

20338	We often treat a type as if it were a sort of token [Wollheim]
	Full Idea: Much of the time we think and talk of a type as though it were itself a kind of token.
	From: Richard Wollheim (Art and Its Objects [1968], 35)
	A reaction: A helpful way of connecting what I call 'objectification' to the more conventional modern philosophical vocabulary. Thus I might claim that beauty is superior to truth, as if they were two tokens.

12065	Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins]
	Full Idea: It seems mandatory to an observer of soldiers to give 'the final touch of unity' to their aggregate entity (the army). ...Similar claims arise with the ontological and explanatory claims of other corporate entities.
	From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.13.3)
	A reaction: Wiggins must say (following Leibniz Essays II.xxiv,1) that we add the unity, but I take the view that an army has powers, and hence offers explanations, which are lacking in a merely group of disparate soldiers. So an army has an essence and identity.

10004	Our minds are at their best when reasoning about objects [Hofweber]
	Full Idea: Our minds mainly reason about objects. Most cognitive problems we are faced with deal with particular objects, whether they are people or material things. Reasoning about them is what our minds are good at.
	From: Thomas Hofweber (Number Determiners, Numbers, Arithmetic [2005], §4.3)
	A reaction: Hofweber is suggesting this as an explanation of why we continually reify various concepts, especially numbers. Very plausible. It works for qualities of character, and explains our tendency to talk about universals as objects ('redness').

14930	Maybe the only way we can think about a domain is by dividing it up into objects [Ladyman/Ross]
	Full Idea: Speculating cautiously about psychology, it is possible that dividing a domain up into objects is the only way we can think about it.
	From: J Ladyman / D Ross (Every Thing Must Go [2007], 3.5)
	A reaction: Typical physicists - they speculate about psychology instead of studying it. Have they no respect for science? Neverthless my speculative psychology agrees with theirs. This fact may well be the key to all of metaphysics.