Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'works', 'Anthropological Studies of Classification' and 'Concepts without Boundaries'

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10 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality

8983	If 'red' is vague, then membership of the set of red things is vague, so there is no set of red things [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: Sets have sharp boundaries, or are sharp objects; an object either definitely belongs to a set, or it does not. But 'red' is vague; there objects which are neither definitely red nor definitely not red. Hence there is no set of red things.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §2)
	A reaction: Presumably that will entail that there IS a set of things which can be described as 'definitely red'. If we describe something as 'definitely having a hint of red about it', will that put it in a set? In fact will the applicability of 'definitely' do?

7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories

10496	Monothetic categories have fixed defining features, and polythetic categories do not [Ellen]
	Full Idea: Many categories are 'monothetic' (the defining set of features is always unique), and others are 'polythetic' (single features being neither essential to group membership nor sufficient to allocate an item to a group).
	From: Roy Ellen (Anthropological Studies of Classification [1996], p.33)
	A reaction: This seems a rather important distinction which hasn't made its way into philosophy, where there is a horrible tendency to oversimplify, with the dream of a neat and unified picture. But see Goodman's 'Imperfect Community' problem (Idea 7957).

10497	In symbolic classification, the categories are linked to rules [Ellen]
	Full Idea: Symbolic classification occurs when we use some things as a means of saying something about other things. ..They enhance the significance of some categories, so that categories imply rules and rules imply categories.
	From: Roy Ellen (Anthropological Studies of Classification [1996], p.35)
	A reaction: I'm afraid the anthropologists seem to have more of interest to say about categories than philosophers do. Though maybe we couldn't do anthropology if philosophers had made us more self-conscious about categories. Teamwork!

7. Existence / E. Categories / 2. Categorisation

8986	We should abandon classifying by pigeon-holes, and classify around paradigms [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: We must reject the classical picture of classification by pigeon-holes, and think in other terms: classifying can be, and often is, clustering round paradigms.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §8)
	A reaction: His conclusion to a discussion of the problem of vagueness, where it is identified with concepts which have no boundaries. Pigeon-holes are a nice exemplar of the Enlightenment desire to get everything right. I prefer Aristotle's categories, Idea 3311.

7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism

10495	Continuous experience sometimes needs imposition of boundaries to create categories [Ellen]
	Full Idea: Because parts of our experience of the world are complexly continuous, it is occasionally necessary to impose boundaries to produce categories at all.
	From: Roy Ellen (Anthropological Studies of Classification [1996], p.33)
	A reaction: I like it. Ellen says that people tend to universally cut nature somewhere around the joints, but we can't cope with large things, so the sea tends to be labelled in sections, even though most of the world's seas are continuous.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects

8982	Vague concepts are concepts without boundaries [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: If a word is vague, there are or could be borderline cases, but non-vague expressions can also have borderline cases. The essence of vagueness is to be found in the idea vague concepts are concepts without boundaries.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], Intro)
	A reaction: He goes on to say that vague concepts are not embodied in clear cut sets, which is what gives us our notion of a boundary. So what is vague is 'membership'. You are either a member of a club or not, but when do you join the 'middle-aged'?

8984	If concepts are vague, people avoid boundaries, can't spot them, and don't want them [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: Vague concepts are boundaryless, ...and the manifestations are an unwillingness to draw any such boundaries, the impossibility of identifying such boundaries, and needlessness and even disutility of such boundaries.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
	A reaction: People have a very fine-tuned notion of whether the sharp boundary of a concept is worth discussing. The interesting exception are legal people, who are often forced to find precision where everyone else hates it. Who deserves to inherit the big house?

8985	Boundaryless concepts tend to come in pairs, such as child/adult, hot/cold [Sainsbury]
	Full Idea: Boundaryless concepts tend to come in systems of contraries: opposed pairs like child/adult, hot/cold, weak/strong, true/false, and complex systems of colour terms. ..Only a contrast with 'adult' will show what 'child' excludes.
	From: Mark Sainsbury (Concepts without Boundaries [1990], §5)
	A reaction: This might be expected. It all comes down to the sorites problem, of when one thing turns into something else. If it won't merge into another category, then presumably the isolated concept stays applicable (until reality terminates it? End of sheep..).

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 4. Cultural relativism

10498	Classification is no longer held to be rooted in social institutions [Ellen]
	Full Idea: The view that all classification finds its roots in social institutions is now generally considered untenable.
	From: Roy Ellen (Anthropological Studies of Classification [1996], p.36)
	A reaction: And about time too. Ellen (an anthropologist) inevitably emphasises the complexity of the situation, but endorses the idea that people everywhere largely cut nature at the joints.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

7667	There are two sides to men - the pleasantly social, and the violent and creative [Diderot, by Berlin]
	Full Idea: Diderot is among the first to preach that there are two men: the artificial man, who belongs in society and seeks to please, and the violent, bold, criminal instinct of a man who wishes to break out (and, if controlled, is responsible for works of genius.
	From: report of Denis Diderot (works [1769], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism
	A reaction: This has an obvious ancestor in Plato's picture (esp. in 'Phaedrus') of the two conflicting sides to the psuché, which seem to be reason and emotion. In Diderot, though, the suppressed man has virtues, which Plato would deny.