[Reader-list] Re: Problematizing Definitions

[V NR]

Reply to Prem's post.

A concept is not a variable; it is constrained by the context, and
this context is a set of sentences (And the dispute is not much about
concepts in general, which a psychological theory of concepts can deal
with.) One can pick up any paragraph in any text, and problematize it:
there are software programs which do this job, for instance, check the
product of Inspiraton (dot) com. Some of our problems have to do with
semantics: the way labels are used; once labels are taken away, more
light is shed. Once if what is being talked about (reference) is
relatively fixed (some disputes in contemporary biology are centered
about reference itself: what is the reference of theory of evolition?
Is it population, species, or individual), the problems about
represenations (unlike the notion of how local MP,  MLAs represent
their constituents) of the world can be located. An answer to such a
cluster of problems could be a theory: after all, even a solution of
an arithmetical problem, for example, find x such that x + 1 = 2, is
part of some theory -- Dedekind-Peano system of arithmetic.

Lets look at Zainab's post. Compress first part of her post. A child
was crying. His legs were tethered. She took a picture, and a female,
prolly the child's mother, was saying "No photos here". So far no
problems--whether you are a pomo, poco, a feminist, a humanist. In
other words, all disputants are agreeing to this coarse description.
Even if we don't agree to this description, we can find another
description of this, which is acceptable to all of us. At different
level, the disputants can diverge about deeper explanations. Some of
such deeper unities are thus: an intentional explanation that the
mother pushed Zainab way, because the mother thinks, and Zainab
guesses, that the kids are put in foster care; the other explanation
that is for defense of the mother's actions: the mother's rights, the
kid's rights, the rights of the Sovereign that city of Mumbai is, and
so on; the conflict of these rights; and so on.

Similar can be said of thrash cans, cleanliness of Mumbai city, and
our NRI's experience of insensitivity of Indians toward garbage.

These two problems are not unique to the first phenomenon described in
Zainab's post. Some programmatic hypotheses, even when we are
oblivious to such hypotheses, are used to understand some phenomena.
And these hypotheses, which have become part and parcel of our
intuitions, are part of some deeper theories. Sure, no theory is
complete. Hence merely criticizing any theory does not help much: one
of such criticism is that essentialism is a sin, or that logic does
not reflect the structure of theoretical knowledge;
empirical/conceptual anomalies, and so on. There are deeper problems
here: replacing a explanatorily powerful theory by emasculated
theories.



Wish you all a happy new year

Best,
Reddy, V., Palo Alto, CA.