Singular Concepts Again

Ed writes,

Your counter-arguments are very useful but I find some of them puzzling. One argument that repeatedly occurs is that a concept cannot contain the object that it is a concept of. Our concept of Venus (if we have one) cannot contain Venus, for example.

My difficulty is that I agree with this argument, indeed it’s a cornerstone of the thesis in the book. See e.g.

The standard theory is a development of Mill’s theory, and is attended by the same difficulties. It explains properness by a semantic connection between proper name and bearer whereby the name can only signify that thing, but this leads to all the well-known difficulties mentioned in the last chapter, for example (i) how a large planetary body like Jupiter could be a part of a meaning or a thought, (ii) how identity statements involving different names for the same thing, such as “Hesperus is Phosphorus” can sometimes be informative, and (iii) how negative existential statements, which apparently deny a meaning for the name, are possible at all.

My emphasis. So where are we disagreeing I wonder? Is it that I claim a singular term has a meaning or sense? But in other posts of yours, you seem to agree that singular terms have a sense.

Or is it that you think that the sense of a singular term is ‘general’?

BV: Yes, that is what I claim. A singular term such as a name has a sense, but its sense is general. But I note that you switched from 'concept' to 'sense.'  They are closely related. We may have to examine whether they are equivalent.  

If so, you need to define what ‘general’ means. I define it as repeatable. A repeatable concept is one that we can without contradiction suppose to be instantiated by more than one individual, perhaps by individuals in different possible worlds. A singular concept by contrast is one where we cannot suppose repeatability without contradicting ourselves. For example, I cannot rationally entertain the thought that there could have been someone else who was Boris Johnson in 2021. That is because ‘someone else’ in this context means ‘someone other than Boris Johnson’, but ‘who was Boris Johnson’ means ‘someone who was no other than Boris Johnson’.

Thus to suppose that there could have been someone else who was Boris Johnson in 2021 is to suppose that there could have been someone who was both (1) other than Boris Johnson and (2) not other than Boris Johnson.

BV: I accept your definitions of 'general concept' and 'singular concept' pending some caveats to come.  We agree that there are general concepts.  We also agree that there are general terms and that there are singular terms. Presumably we also agree that a term is not the same as the concept the term expresses.  The English word 'tree' and the German word 'Baum' are both token-distinct and type-distinct. But they express the same concept. Therefore, a word and the concept it expresses are not the same.  And the same goes for sense: a word is not the same as its sense.

We disagree about whether there are singular concepts. You say that there are and I say that there aren't.   

I think the onus is on you to establish that there cannot be unrepeatable concepts in the sense defined above.

BV: Why is the onus probandi on me rather than on you? Why is there a presumption in favor of your position that I must defeat, rather than the other way around? But let's not worry about where the burden of proof lies. We are not in a court room.  You want an argument from me to the conclusion that there are no singular/individual/unrepeatable concepts. The demand is legitimate regardless of burden-of-proof considerations.

We agree that a first-level singular concept C, if instantiated, is instantiated by exactly one individual in the actual world and by the very same individual in every merely possible world in which C is instantiated.  This is essentially your definition of 'singular concept.' I don't disagree with it but I say more. 

I say that every concept is a mental grasping by the person who deploys the concept of the thing or things that instantiate (fall under, bear) the concept.  A concept of an individual, then, would have to be a mental grasping of what makes that individual be the very individual it is and not some other actual or possible individual.  So if there is the irreducibly singular concept Socrateity, then my deployment of that concept would allow we to grasp the haecceity (thisness) of Socrates which is precisely his and 'incommunicable' (as a schoolman might say) to any other individual actual or possible.  But this is what minds of our type cannot grasp. Every concept we deploy is a general concept, and it doesn't matter how specific the concept is. Specificity no matter how far protracted never gets the length of singularity.

All of our concepts are mental representations of the repeatable features of things.  It follows that all of our concepts are general. The individual, however, is essentially unrepeatable. For that very reason there cannot be a concept of the individual qua individual.

Consider Max Black's world in which there are exactly two iron spheres, alike in all monadic and relational respects, and nothing else. If there were an individual concept of the one sphere, then it would also be an individual concept of the other.  But then it would not be an individual or singular concept: it would be general.  It would be general because it would have two instances. The only way there could be two individual concepts is if each had as a constituent an iron sphere -- which is absurd.  Therefore, there cannot be any individual concepts.

 

Comments

[OZ]

>We disagree about whether there are singular concepts. You say that there are and I say that there aren't.

Before we get to the meat, let’s be clear where we agree, and where not. We both agree (1) that there are general terms and that there are singular terms. (2) that both have senses. So if we define ‘concept’ as just another word for ‘sense’ (which is consistent with Aristotelian/scholastic doctrine), it turns out that we both agree there are concepts expressed by singular terms.

Where we differ is that you think the sense of a singular term is repeatable. Yes? It’s important to agree which proposition we disagree on.

More later.

[BV]

>>Where we differ is that you think the sense of a singular term is repeatable.<< I agree that this is the bone of contention or the locus of disagreement.

But it depends on what each of us means by 'sense.' I understand by 'sense' what Frege meant by Sinn, or something very close to that.

Another issue is what all counts as a singular term. Proper names, no doubt. Do you also include demonstratives and non-demonstrative indexicals such as the first-person singular pronoun? 'This' and 'I' may have senses, but these senses are not reference-determining.

To make my thesis more precise and limited: the sense of a proper name as used by a person is the same as the sense of the definite description(s) in terms of which the person thinks of the bearer of the name, and the senses of those descriptions are always general/repeatable.

So when I say, "Boris Johnson appears not to own a comb," I am thinking about this man via the sense of the definite description 'the man who alone in 2021 is the prime minister of the U.K.' and this sense is general.

[oz]

so in "Boris Johnson is the man who alone in 2021 is the prime minister of the U.K, but Boris Johnson might not have been the man who alone in 2021 was the prime minister of the U.K", the name "Boris Johnson" appears twice.

Do both tokens have the same sense? i would say so. and yet, according to you, in the second case we are still thinking about this man via the sense of the definite description 'the man who alone in 2021 is the prime minister of the U.K."

[David Brightly]

Bill >> A concept of an individual, then, would have to be a mental grasping of what makes that individual be the very individual it is and not some other actual or possible individual.

Would it, though? If I am told,

There is an individual called 'Socrates' and another individual called 'Plato',

I learn nothing of these individuals apart from their names and that they are distinct. Yet I can distinguish them in my mind and learn more. I can say 'Tell me first about Socrates, what kind of thing is it?' and expect my idea of this individual to become elaborated by the responses. At no time do I need to grasp what makes that individual be the very individual it is. Quite the contrary. All I need to grasp is that an individual is a locus of instantiation of general concepts, not a mere cluster of concepts, that individuals are countable, that two individuals can instantiate the same general concepts yet be distinct, and so on.

>> We agree that a first-level singular concept C, if instantiated, is instantiated by exactly one individual in the actual world and by the very same individual in every merely possible world in which C is instantiated.

I suspect that 'instantiation' here is misleading. A singular concept is more akin to a representation of an instance. If my example above makes sense there can be singular concepts with nil general conceptual content. Far from uniquely instantiable!

Singular concepts appear to be very different animals from general concepts.

[O.Z.]

Turning to Bill’s argument starting at “I say that every concept is a mental grasping …”, most of it is question begging, i.e. repeating the conclusion he is arguing for. E.g.

“But [a singular concept] is what minds of our type cannot grasp.”
“Every concept we deploy is a general concept”
“All of our concepts are mental representations of the repeatable features of things” (my emphasis).
“If there were an individual concept of the one sphere [in Black’s example], then it would also be an individual concept of the other.”

The only support I can find for these claims is that “A concept of an individual … would have to be a mental grasping of what makes that individual be the very individual it is and not some other actual or possible individual.” But that presumes, and here I agree with Brightly, that we need to grasp “what makes that individual be the very individual it is”. Why? I have a concept of Moses that I acquired from reading the Hebrew Bible, Exodus 2. “Now a man of the tribe of Levi married a Levite woman, and she became pregnant and gave birth to a son.” Then we are told that Pharoah’s daughter named him ‘Moses’, saying, “I drew him out of the water.” Then we are told all sorts of things about Moses, which we accept to be true, but which we don’t have to accept as true. We can coherently and without contradiction deny that Moses was any of the things he was said to be. We could even deny he was called ‘Moses’!

Brightly: “I suspect that 'instantiation' here is misleading.” I don’t think so. An individual instantiates the concept *Moses* if and only if that individual is no other than Moses. Note my claim earlier that ‘other than Moses’ signifies a repeatable concept, thus ‘no other than Moses’ signifies an unrepeatable concept. This follows from my definition of repeatable. A concept *F* is repeatable iff we can without contradiction maintain that there is an F, and there is another F. It follows logically that *no other than Moses* is not repeatable. Otherwise there could be someone other than Moses who was no other than Moses, which is contradictory.

[David Brightly]

Thanks, Ed, that makes sense. It's the individual concept that's unrepeatable, not any greater or lesser cluster of descriptive concepts forming part of its content.

[BV]

Perhaps the only way forward at this point would be to move from the question Are there singular concepts? to the logically prior question What is a concept?

Otherwise it is a standoff.

https://maverickphilosopher.typepad.com/maverick_philosopher_stri/2018/03/the-concept-of-standoff-in-philosophy.html

[oz]

>Perhaps the only way forward at this point would be to move from the question Are there singular concepts? to the logically prior question What is a concept?

Quite, and I suggested this a while back.

It might help to start with the traditional, er, conception.

http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Ockham/Summa_Logicae/Book_I/Chapter_1

The word 'concept' is from conceptus, pp of concipio. "That which is conceived."

Ockham "A conceived term is an intention or affection of the soul naturally signifying or co-signifying something, suited to be a part of a mental proposition and suited to supposit for the same thing. Hence these conceived terms and the propositions put together from them are the "mental words" that the blessed Augustine says belongs to no language because they remain only in the mind and cannot be uttered outwardly, although utterances are pronounced outwardly as though signs subordinated to them."

We don't have to accept this framework, but it's a good starting point given that the vocabulary of Western philosophy is taken from the scholastic Latin.

[oz]

Even so, Bill, you need to bite the bullet on the term 'other than N'. If it signifies a concept, then so does 'no other than N', et habeo propositum. If it does not signify a concept, then no impure concept can be a concept. E.g. “the man who shot Leon Trotsky”, “grandchild of Queen Victoria”, “Londoner” etc etc.