Ayn Rand

Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology

 Expanded Second Edition, Edited by Harry Binswanger and Leonard Peikoff, Meridian Books, 1990, pp 153-183

 

 

 

 

Concepts as Mental Existents

pp153-158

 

Prof. F: In your definition of concept, you use the word "integration." You say: "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated according to a specific characteristic(s) and united by a specific definition."

 

AR: That's the generalized definition. The exact defini­tion is the one at the bottom of page 13. ["A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular mea­surements omitted. "]

 

Prof. F: Yes, there again the word "integration" is used. Do you mean that a concept is a process of integration or, alternatively, that a concept is the product of a process of integration?

 

AR: The second. Here I refer to the fact that the result of a process of concept-formation is a mental entity, a mental unit, which is an integration of the various elements in­volved in that process. The reason why I used the word "integration" is to indicate that it is not a mere sum but an inseparable sum forming a new mental unit.

 

Prof. F: If you and I have the same concept, does that mean that the same entity is in both of our minds?

 

AR: If we are both careful and rational thinkers, yes. Or rather, put it this way: the same entity should be in both of our minds.

 

Prof. F: Okay, taking concepts, therefore, as entities: they do not have spatial location, do they?

 

AR: No, I have said they are mental entities.

 

Prof. A: When you say a concept is a mental entity, you don't mean "entity" in the sense that a man is an entity, do you?

 

AR: I mean it in the same sense in which I mean a thought, an emotion, or a memory is an entity, a mental entity-or put it this way: a phenomenon of consciousness.

 

Prof. A: Wouldn't you say that consciousness is itself an attribute of man?

 

AR: Right. A faculty of man. And of animals, or at least the middle and higher animals.

 

Prof. F: When you form a concept, the concept itself is perfectly determinate, right?

 

AR: In which sense?

 

Prof. F: Even though the concept has been formed by leaving out measurements, the concept is still determinate in the sense that it is subject to the Law of Identity.

 

AR: Oh yes.

 

Prof. F: So therefore, in the case of a concept, you have a determinacy which is non-quantified.

 

AR: Except that a certain category of measurements is retained. Therefore it is quantified to that extent. When you form a concept, you determine what kind of measurements are appropriate. For instance, in the case of the concept "table," a certain range of measurements is included, but the particular measurements are omitted. So the table may be of any shape or any size, provided it has a flat surface and supports. You here set a range of measurements of shape to determine your concept, but you omit the individ­ual measurements.

 

Prof. F: So the difference between the concept and the concrete is that the concrete has a greater determinacy, right?

 

AR: Are you going from this to the idea that matter is the principle of individuation, that everything is one as a kind of Platonic form, but that matter constitutes individuals?

 

Prof. F: I'm saying that I'm confused about this particular point.

 

AR: I see. I think the nearest relationship is the relation­ship of algebraic symbols to arithmetical numbers. Could you say that arithmetical numbers have a greater determi­nacy or individuation? Not really.

 

Prof. F: Yes. The algebraic symbol is a variable, and the number which we finally substitute for the algebraic symbol at the end of the equation is what we speak of as the value of that variable. And it is more determinate. The variable must be at some place, and yet the specific place is not given.

 

AR: No, a variable can be at any given number of places within the specified range. And to say the number is more determinate introduces a certain kind of confusion. Because in a metaphysical sense only concretes exist. Therefore, when we form a concept, we cannot say that we have removed it in a certain sense from individuality or the exis­tence of concretes. Isn't there a Platonic element in the question?

 

The basic overall point would be always to keep in mind that this is a cognitive process, not an arbitrary process; it's a process of perceiving reality and is governed by the rules of reality. Nevertheless, it's our way of grasping reality; it isn't reality itself; it's only a method of acquiring knowl­edge, a method of cognition.

 

Prof. B: I see another confusion here. The concept as a mental entity is determinate. It's individual, it has identity, you can measure it in the way that you discuss in Chapter 4. The concept, if it is formed correctly, has a determinate reference, which means that it refers to a determinate aspect of reality. To say that the concept is less determinate than the concrete is to treat the concept as if it were a concrete in reality-

 

AR: Of a different kind, yes. That's right. That's the element that is somewhat Platonic here.

 

Prof. D: It was said that a concept is not a concrete, it is a determinate result with a determinate reference. Now we do have a concept of "concept," but I don't find any concretes that it is relating. Or if I do find concretes, they are things, existents.

 

AR: No, the referents of the concept "concept" are other concepts. For instance, let's say you form the concepts "ta­ble," "chair," "man," and a few other concepts of perceptu­ally given concretes. Then at a certain level you can form the concept of "concept," the concretes of which are all your other specific, earlier-formed concepts.

 

Prof. D: But they aren't concretes, though.

 

AR: They are mental concretes. You are now discussing an integration of mental entities. "Concept" refers to men­tal entities. The referents of the concept of "concept" are all the concepts which you have learned [and will ever learn].

 

Prof. D: Then a mental entity is a concrete?

 

AR: As a mental entity, yes. It is a concrete in relation to the wider abstraction which is the concept of "concept." Take another, similar case: the concept of "emotion." What are its concretes? The various emotions which you observe introspectively, which you are able to conceptualize. And first you conceptualize them individually. You would form the concepts "love," "hate," "anger," "fear," and then you arrive at the concept "emotion," the units of which will be these various emotions that you have identified.

 

Prof. D: I misunderstood, then, something that Professor B said. I thought that he was maintaining that these weren't really concretes, not even concretes with holes in them, so to speak-not even vague concretes.

 

Prof. B: No, that was the content of the concept. The concept as a mental entity would have measurements; it would be a certain mental product.

 

AR: A mental entity standing for a certain number of concretes-a concept-is not the same as the concretes in vague form. Because some schools of philosophy did hold just that-that a concept is a memory of a concrete, only very vague. You see a concept is not a vague concrete, it is a mental entity-which means an entity of a different kind, bearing a certain specific relationship to the physical concretes.

 

Prof. D: But metaphysically, though, the concept is a concrete; it's a mental entity. You have a concept of "emo­tion." The referents are these various mental entities, this particular emotion and that particular one. And then the concept of "emotion" itself is a mental entity in actual being.

 

AR: Yes, you can call it that.

 

Prof. D: So metaphysically, not epistemologically, all we have here are concretes.

 

AR: If you mean: does such a thing as the concept of "emotion" in a mind really exist? Yes, it exists-mentally. And only mentally.

 

Prof. E: Would it be fair to say that a concept qua concept is not a concrete but an integration of concretes, but qua existent it is a concrete integration, a specific men­tal entity in a particular mind?

 

AR: That's right. But I kept saying, incidentally, that we can call them "mental entities" only metaphorically or for convenience. It is a "something." For instance, before you have a certain concept, that particular something doesn't exist in your mind. When you have formed the concept of "concept," that is a mental something; it isn't a nothing. But anything pertaining to the content of a mind always has to be treated metaphysically not as a separate existent, but only with this precondition, in effect: that it is a mental state, a mental concrete, a mental something. Actually, "mental something" is the nearest to an exact identification. Because "entity" does imply a physical thing. Nevertheless, since "something" is too vague a term, one can use the word "entity," but only to say that it is a mental something as distinguished from other mental somethings (or from nothing). But it isn't an entity in the primary, Aristotelian sense in which a primary substance exists.

 

We have to agree here on the terminology, because we are dealing with a very difficult subject for which no clear definitions have been established. I personally would like to have a new word for it, but I am against neologisms. There­fore I think the term "mental unit" or "mental entity" can be used, provided we understand by that: "a mental something."

 

Prof. A: I think I can give an analogy to clarify the two perspectives on "concept" that had been confused. Suppose you have a map of a city. In relation to that city, the map is generalized: it doesn't include the shape of specific houses, every little curve in the street, etc. But if you look at the map not insofar as it refers to the city, but just as a piece of paper with lines and colors on it, it is entirely specific. It doesn't have any little regions of vagueness or non-identity.

 

AR: That's a very good comparison. Yes, that is correct.

 

 

 

Implicit Concepts

pp159-162

 

 

Prof. G: The question I have deals with the concept "im­plicit." I want first to get at the general notion of "implicit" and then its meaning in the notions of "implicit concept," "implicit measurement," etc.

 

AR: Well, I would like to state my general definition, and then let's examine it.

 

The "implicit" is that which is available to your conscious­ness but which you have not conceptualized. For instance, if you state a certain proposition, implicit in it are certain conclusions, but you may not necessarily be aware of them, because a special, separate act of consciousness is required to draw these consequences and grasp conceptually what is implied in your original statement. The implicit is that which is available to you but which you have not conceptualized.

 

Prof. G: This is one of the points I want to get at. In both Chapter 1 and other parts of your book, you use the con­cept "implicit" to talk about "implicit concepts," "implicit knowledge," and "implicit measurement-omission." Now, I thought I could observe that there were several senses of "implicit," both as it is actually used in ordinary discussions and in your own discussions. What I would like to under­stand is in what sense or senses you were using the term in each of the above cases.

 

AR: Remember, we are not linguistic analysts here.

 

Prof. G: I don't think there is any assumption of that. I am not a linguistic analyst.

 

AR: Okay.

 

Prof. G: Take the notion of "implicit measurement­ omission." There seem to be two senses of "implicit" here. One sense could be that there is some form of awareness or recognition, but not an explicit formulation, of the process of measurement-omission. I know you don't hold that. But, for example, you could say that when concepts are formed, there is a certain form of awareness or recognition that something like measurement-omission is involved, but one can't explicitly state the fact that the concepts are formed through measurement-omission.

 

The other sense of "implicit" would be not that there is some form of awareness or recognition-that might not be present at all-but the sense of "implicit" in which some­thing is presupposed by, or is a condition for, something else. I think this might be present in axiomatic concepts, for example. When you say that axiomatic concepts are implicit in all knowledge, the sense of "implicit" there might also include the notion that axiomatic concepts have a relation­ship to other concepts in a hierarchy-there is a logical connection between axiomatic concepts and other concepts. And I think that the nature of the relationship here would be that axiomatic concepts are presupposed in higher concepts.

 

AR: I would have to ask you what you mean by "presup­pose." Normally, "presuppose" means that you cannot hold concept A unless you have first grasped concept B. There is an almost chronological projection here-if you do not grasp B, you cannot grasp A. That is what "presuppose" means. That isn't the same thing as "implicit."

 

Prof. G: Then I was just wrong on that.

 

AR: You are wrong on the second but, as near as I understand you, you are right on the first: "implicit" is a knowledge which is available to you but which you have not yet grasped consciously. And by "grasped consciously" I mean: brought into conceptual terms. You have not identi­fied it conceptually. So that, if I say that "existence" is implicit in the first awareness, I mean the material from which the concept "existence" will come is present, but the child just learning concepts would not be able to form the concept "existence" until he has formed a sufficient number of concepts of particular existents.

 

Prof. G: What I would like to do is to get a better understanding of the nature of that awareness. Let's con­sider the notion of "implicit concept." You state, on page 6, that when one has an implicit concept, one grasps the con­stituents of what may later be integrated into a concept.

 

AR: Yes.

 

Prof. G: Now, I take it that, in this sense of "implicit," there is a form of awareness here which is below the level of the explicit. There is no formulation on the part of the person involved.

 

AR: It simply means just what I said. It is not yet concep­tualized, but it is available. Therefore, if you substitute the definition "conceptualized or not" for "explicit and im­plicit," it will be perfectly clear.

 

Prof. G: Why do you identify this type of awareness as an implicit concept? There seems to be an obvious objection that the notion of "implicit concept" is a contradiction in terms. For you to have a concept, there must be some form of integration, and you are speaking here only of an aware­ness which is avowedly not integrated; it is just an aware­ness of the units themselves.

 

Prof. E: May I make one brief observation? If I follow the drift of your comment, you would also say that it is a self-contradiction to describe a fertilized egg in the womb as a "potential man," because a man is defined as a rational animal and the egg is not yet a rational animal; so we are applying an adjective to a noun where the adjective, out of context, doesn't allow for the defining characteristic of the noun. Is that the drift of your argument? Because on the face of it that seems awfully linguistic-analytical to me. That is, you just observe the conjunction of an adjective and a noun, and divorce it altogether from the content of the two concepts.

 

AR: I am afraid so.

 

Prof. G: It would be like saying that calling a fertilized egg a "potential man" is a contradiction in terms. That's helpful. Let me ask a related question. Would you want to maintain that animals, which do have an awareness of the units, would have implicit concepts?

 

AR: No, because conceptualization as such is not possible to them.

 

Prof. G: So the notion of implicit concept presupposes the awareness of a conceptual being.

 

AR: It presupposes a consciousness capable of conceptu­alization.

 

* * *

 

Prof. B: Would you say that a child has an implicit con­cept of "table" at the stage when he has isolated the differ­entiating characteristics of tables but has not yet integrated them?

 

AR: At any stage before he is ready to grasp the word "table." An implicit concept is the stage of an integration when one is in the process of forming that integration and until it is completed.

 

Prof. B: Any time after he detects the similarities and differences?

 

AR: Right. What has to be clearly delimited is only this: not everything that is around you is an implicit concept. For instance, subatomic physics is operative there in the room which the infant first observes, but you can't say that its concepts are implicit merely because when he reaches col­lege age he will grasp them. They are not implicit concepts. An implicit concept is the stage, that period of time what­ever it might be, when a child is actually focusing on a certain group of concretes, isolating them from the rest of his field, and/or integrating them. And that's not all done instantaneously: it is a process. It is in that process that the future concept is implicit.

 

 

 

 

The Role of Words

pp163-183

 

Words and Concepts

 

Prof. F: On page 16, you refer to words as being themselves concepts. Do you mean that literally? For instance, you say that prepositions are concepts. Do you mean that preposi­tions stand for concepts? Is this a shorthand way of saying that?

 

AR: Oh yes, certainly. I have stated that words are per­ceptual symbols which stand for these products of the men­tal integrations.

 

And in case this isn't clear, I would like to add one thing. Why did I say "perceptual"? Because words are available to us either visually or auditorially. They are given to us in sensory, perceptual form. And by means of grasping them, on the perceptual level, we are able to operate with con­cepts as single mental units. In other words, every time we think of the concept "table," we don't have to add up the sum of all the tables we have seen or visualize them. "Ta­ble" as a sound or a visual image is on the perceptual level. Mentally, it stands for that particular integration of con­cretes which we have called "table."

 

So the word is not the concept, but the word is the auditory or visual symbol which stands for a concept. And a concept is a mental entity; it cannot be perceived perceptu­ally. That's the role played by words.

 

Prof. D: On page 19, you say: "The process of forming a concept is not complete until its constituent units have been integrated into a single mental unit by means of a specific word." Now this seems to imply that words precede concepts -- ­that without the word there wouldn't be the concept. But you also speak of words "designating" concepts and words "symbolizing" concepts-which seems to imply that the word does not precede the concept. Again, you say on page 10: "Every word ... is a symbol which denotes a concept." This passage seems to have the same implication: a denial that the word is first and the concept second.

 

AR: Most emphatically, I did not mean that words pre­cede concepts. And I would like to know what gave you that impression-because even the sentence you quoted from page 19 made clear, I thought, that the word comes at the end of a process of conceptualization, not at the beginning. One's mind first has to grasp the isolation and the integra­tion which represents the formation of a concept; but to complete that process-and particularly to retain it, and later to automatize it – a man needs a verbal symbol. But as far as the process of concept-formation is concerned, the word is the result of the process.

 

Prof. D: So the concept would be formed prior to the introduction of the word, and the word would be used as a device for retaining the concept?

 

AR: That is a word's main function, but its function is not merely that. I meant exactly what I said: to complete the process. Let me make this a little clearer. Suppose a child is forming the concept "table." First, he has to isolate a table from the rest of his perceptual concretes, then integrate it with other tables. Now, in this process words are not pres­ent yet, because he is merely observing, and performing a certain mental process. It is after he has fully grasped that these particular objects (tables) are special and different in some way from all the other objects he perceives-it is then that he has to firm up, in effect, his mental activity in his own mind by designating that special status of these particular objects in some sensory form [i.e., by means of a word].

 

It is for the purpose not only of retaining the concept but also of making and completing the process of concept­ formation that he has to designate the tables by some kind of sensory symbol. The main function of doing so is to enable him to retain the concept and be able to use it subsequently. But even apart from the future, in the process of forming that concept, in order for it not to remain a momentary impression or observation which then vanishes-in order to make it in a concept forming process-he has to identify what he has just observed in some one, concrete, specific, sensory form.

 

This probably becomes somewhat clearer in the chapter on the cognitive role of concepts, but I would ask you all to keep in mind that a very important part of my entire theory is what I call unit-economy: the substitution of one mental unit for an indefinite number of concretes of a certain kind. That is the essence of why we need concepts-that is the essence of what concepts do for us. Therefore, the substitu­tion of one unit which refers to x number of possible units is the essence of concept-formation. The process is not com­plete without that substitution.

 

Prof. D: So until the word was interposed, there would not in the strict sense be a concept?

 

AR: Right.

 

Prof. D: Then I take it that the process is as follows. An integration occurs which cannot yet be said to be a concept. And a sound, a sensuous concrete, is introduced to hold down, so to speak, this integration. And at that point the sound, as being used to hold down this integration, becomes a word whose meaning is the integration.

 

AR: Oh no. The meaning is not the integration. The integration is the process. The meaning is the objects which are being isolated and integrated. The meaning of the word is always metaphysical, in the sense of its referents, not psychological. The meaning of the word is out there in existence, in reality. The process that one had to perform in order to arrive at that meaning, and at that integration, is psychological.

 

I want to stress this; it is a very important distinction. A great number of philosophical errors and confusions are created by failing to distinguish between consciousness and existence -- between the process of consciousness and the reality of the world outside, between the perceiver and the perceived. Therefore, it's very important here, if the issue arises at all, to stress emphatically that a concept and its symbol, the word, stands for certain objective referents-for existents outside, in reality. And in the case of concepts of consciousness, one's own consciousness serves as the ob­server and the processes of consciousness as the observed, as the object which one observes and integrates. But in either case, whether it is concepts of outside existents or of one's own consciousness, the concepts always refer to some facts which one is conceptualizing, and never to one's method or process.

 

Prof. D: Then would this do as the statement of the process? One integrates, then introduces a sensuous con­crete holding the integration. At that point the sound or the sensuous concrete becomes a word whose meaning is the objects integrated.

 

AR: That's right.

 

Prof. D: And at the same time one has for the first time a concept.

 

AR: That's right. I also want to stress what I said earlier: the essential nature and purpose of the process of concept­ formation is unit-economy. And therefore when a great number of concretes, an indefinitely large number, has been transformed into one unit, then the process is completed.

 

Now, it has to be a specific unit; and it cannot be specific, it cannot be concrete, unless it is sensuous. Because reality is concrete, and we perceive by means of our senses. Sup­pose we attempted to have a concept which was symbolized by a certain feeling. Let's say that I have a feeling of combined pleasure and disgust at the concept "table" - suppose I tried to hold that concept by means of such a feeling. Needless to say, that would not be a concept. It would not last beyond the mood of the moment. And I would not have performed the most important part of the process-namely, the substitution of one handleable, per­ceivable, firm, objective unit for the enormity which I want to subsume under this concept.

 

Prof. D: There's still some puzzlement concerning the difference between "unit" and "concept." Take the stage of concept-formation where a child regards certain entities as resembling each other. A child is observing these three notepads, and they are just entities so long as he does not show that he is treating them as distinct from other objects.

 

AR: Okay.

 

Prof. D: But now he notices similarities and differences, and treats these as related together and distinguished from some other things. So these three objects are at this point units. But has he thereby arrived at the point of conceptual­izing them? As far as I can see there is one more step involved in this unification, according to the definition given of "concept" on page 10: "A concept is a mental integration of two or more units which are isolated according to specific characteristics and united by a specific definition."

 

AR: Aren't you confusing two aspects here? The defini­tion on page 10 refers to what a concept is-it refers to the product of the process. But now you are describing the process. Well now, as a process yes, you first have to sepa­rate them as you described. And in the process of deciding that these three have something in common and are differ­ent from others, you are treating them as a unit. You are now looking at them not only as three blue objects, but three units of one group that have something in common as against everything else.

 

Prof. D: I've described the process, but I have arrived also at a product which is: these regarded as units. Now at that point do I have the concept of "pad," or do I still have something further to do, a further integration to make, before the product would be a concept?

 

AR: Yes. You have to give it a name.

 

Prof. D: Oh, give it a name-not "united by a specific definition"?

 

AR: A definition would be involved in more complex subjects, but on the first level, you don't have to have a definition. None of us would use a definition of "table," but in fact a definition is possible. In regard to a higher com­plexity of concepts, however, you couldn't possibly hold it in mind beyond a moment, without giving it a definition.

 

But here, as you described the process of forming a con­cept of three perceptual entities, when you've reached the point you described-that is, you now regard them as units of one group-that knowledge as such is not going to be a concept in your mind, for the following reason. In order to hold the group, you still have to mentally project, visualize, or deal with three entities. Therefore you are not yet men­tally out of the stage of perceptual awareness.

 

Prof. D: In other words, at this stage there would be just this perceptual group.

 

AR: That's exactly what you would have: a perceptual group.

 

Prof. D: Now suppose I hadn't given them a name yet, and I go to another room. And there are some more of these notepads on a table. Would it mean that I wouldn't identify these, just automatically, as related?-that I would have to go through this integration over again, and then that integration would again be just at the perceptual level?

 

AR: No, it depends on how bright a child you are. I suspect -- strictly by empirical observation --that a child does precisely this before he's ready to learn to speak. That is, to grasp that a word identifies a certain group of objects, he would probably be doing exactly what you describe. He would observe something in common in these pads, and then he goes into another room and he sees two more. He might connect them in his mind, so that if he could state his mental process, it would amount to: "Oh, these are some­thing like the three I saw in the other room." Only he wouldn't have any of these words nor the concept "three." But it would be precisely by observing certain objects more than once and not necessarily only in one room-it's pre­cisely by learning to differentiate, which I believe takes quite a period of time-that a child becomes ready to form the concept fully, which happens when he finds a word for it.

 

Prof. D: Now suppose this child tasted these, but he still doesn't have any words. And he tastes them and he likes them. But later when there aren't any in the room, he starts squalling. And his mother runs around wondering how to quiet him. She tries bringing him different objects, but nothing quiets him. And then she brings him one of these pads, and that quiets him, and he starts eating it. And so she says, "Why, he was crying for the pad all along." But he still doesn't have a name for these things. Isn't this behavior indicative of his approaching these now open-endedly? There wasn't even one in the room, and he was crying for it. And so one would have to say that even without a name these are being treated in an open-ended way rather than a purely perceptual way?

 

AR: Only to this extent: what you are describing is ex­actly the preconceptual stage. That is the mind in process. At the end of that process, he will be ready to grasp that a word names these objects.

 

Otherwise, observe the following. Infants in the first weeks of life are not able to learn words. Before they begin to speak, you observe that they are beginning to make sounds, inarticulate sounds, as if they were trying to communicate something. Therefore some enormous amount of informa­tion is already in their mind-perceptual information on its way to becoming conceptualized or brought into conceptual order. But in order for it to become a concept, the infant has to acquire some method of identifying the total of these objects conceptually. That's the purpose that a word serves. Because if he doesn't have a word, he will be tied to his perceptual material.

 

So assuming for a moment that he could learn to speak but without concepts, he would have to say to his mother the equivalent of: "I want another one of those blue objects which I saw day before yesterday."

 

But he can't say any of that, nor can he hold it in his mind that way for very long.

 

Therefore, if your question is: at what point does this preliminary mental activity become a full-fledged concept? I say it becomes that when the child learns that a perceptual symbol-remember that a sound or the visual shape of a word is a percept-when he learns that that percept stands for all those concretes that he's trying to integrate.

 

Prof. D: The word takes him beyond the perceptual level because now he's not limited to the five pads he saw. But even without the word, though, in the case of the child I was referring to, isn't he already beyond the five pads he saw? He might have eaten the five.

 

AR: He wouldn't be there to ask for the sixth if he did.

 

Prof. D: But suppose he does the next day, though. He knows they are gone, and he's howling, and when he's brought a new one he's satisfied. And he smiles when he sees it being brought. Let's suppose that the presence of a word is necessary for the existence of a concept. Is it be­cause the word open-ends the unification going on?

 

AR: It ends the process.

 

Prof. D: Didn't he already have it open-ended without the word? He went on to new ones.

 

AR: He has an open-ended identification from memory. He might remember that there were blue pads, and he would like more blue pads. But he couldn't hold more than, well, let's say five identifications of that kind. Maybe he'll remember the five pads and two ashtrays and three pens. But if each time he has to hold it by a visual type of memory, or by taste if he's eaten it, without any other form of identification, it would be impossible for him to progress beyond that stage.

 

Prof. D: You say that the word, then, permits him to let go, as it were, of visual memory. The word, though, is a sound that is denoting the concept, i.e., this group of things in an open-ended way.

 

AR: Right.

 

Prof. D: But now the meaning of the sound, then, is what it denotes.

 

AR: Right.

 

Prof. D: But what it denotes will have to be present to his mind.

 

AR: Well, certainly. But not every instance of it.

 

Prof. D: No, but what will be present to his mind again would be perceptual memories, wouldn't it?

 

AR: At first just the memory of one blue pad; as his conceptual development goes higher: the essential charac­teristics of the concretes which form the units of a given concept. It isn't that he lets go of concretes in the sense that he no longer has to know what his concept refers to. But he doesn't have to carry in mind the specific memory of all the different concretes of that kind which he has observed.

 

Prof. D: Now every entity, mental and otherwise, is a concrete existent.

 

AR: That's right.

 

Prof. D: So that related to the sound can only be some concrete existents that are present to his mind.

 

AR: Not if it's a sound which he accepts as standing for an unlimited class of specific, concrete existents. The sound has a crucial distinction from just a noise in nature. He learns to understand its meaning as: the word-the con­crete, if you wish-that names an unlimited number of existents.

 

Prof. D: Could I pursue my question from a slightly different angle? Suppose we now have a sound which sup­plies us with a perceptual concrete, and we relate this sound to this open-ended group-to these things and things like it.

 

AR: That's right.

 

Prof. D: And the sound is just a perceptual concrete that serves for my making this relation. Why would a word, a sound, be needed? Why couldn't I use, say, just one of the perceptual concretes of this kind and respond to it as repre­senting "that and anything like it"? It's not a word, it's just one of the perceptual concretes held visually.

 

AR: Then I would ask you: how long could you continue this process? Assuming now that you have no words at all, but you are able to hold it by this kind of method. Instead of a sound, you deal with a visual memory of a pad plus the parenthetical implication "and other objects like this." Now how would you proceed beyond the level of identifying objects?

 

Prof. D: Isn't that all I'd have to do at the most basic level of conceptualization-just be able to identify in my mind such and such pads and things like the pads that I consider concretely? And why couldn't I use simply a non­verbal concrete to hang these relations on?

 

AR: You could, up to a certain point. And I'm sure that that's what children begin with. But after you have identi­fied a certain number of perceptually given objects, then you want to establish relationships, let us say. Well, how would you do it? By the equivalent of what? You would have to say "length" is that attribute which I see in-then visual image: table, visual image: pad, visual image: street­ and you'd stop right there.

 

The principle involved here is unit-economy. The proper answer to your question comes in the book where I discuss what I call the "crow-epistemology": the fact that any consciousness-animal or human-can deal mentally with only so many units [in one frame of awareness]. And ob­serve on an adult level: you know that you could not deal with all of your knowledge in any one instant of time, that you can handle only so many aspects of a subject, you can hold it in the focus of your attention only so long and no more. In other words, no human mind has the capacity to hold all of its knowledge simultaneously.

 

Therefore, the question becomes: how much can a mind handle if one has to constantly carry images of concretes? How much if, when you identify or try to analyze any aspect or attribute of these concretes, you have to do it by holding these mental images? From the aspect of the capacity of a human consciousness, it would be enormously restricted. Whereas what the substitution of words for images does is enable you to handle a total as a single unit.

 

That's probably the most important aspect of why human beings have concepts. What purpose do they serve? Why can we learn and do much more than animals can? Precisely because by conceptual means we substitute one concrete for an unlimited number of concretes. If you want to concen­trate on the concept "table," you can learn an enormous amount about how to build a table, how to use it, what you can do with it, how to change and make variations on tables. What makes that type of thinking possible? Only the fact that you do not have to carry in mind a concrete image.

 

Otherwise, you'd have to have a concrete image of table, of length, of weight, of color, of shape, and I don't know how many other things would be involved. That cannot be done, simply because a mind cannot hold that much together.

 

And more than that; the fact that Aristotle is right and not Plato is very relevant here: abstractions, as such, do not exist. Only concretes exist. We could not deal with a sum of concrete objects constantly without losing our grasp of them. But what do we do conceptually? We substitute a concrete-a visual or auditory concrete-for the unlimited, open-ended number of concretes which that new concrete subsumes.

 

Now observe an interesting issue: a case like Helen Kel­ler. She couldn't use either auditory or visual symbols. She had to be taught tactile symbols. She had to learn some mental condensation, some form of perceptual substitution or perceptual shorthand in order to be able to grasp the perceptual world at all. She had only tactile means. And she learned, and she was able to communicate, even to think and write. But prior to the time of learning this type of physical symbol, she was not able to grasp or deal with anything [conceptually], as far as could be observed. There­fore I wouldn't say the symbol has to be auditory or visual. If a mind is born handicapped in a certain way, there can be a substitute. Assuming a healthy child, the auditory and visual symbols are the easiest and the most productive. You can do more by that method. But some other method has to do if a person is handicapped.

 

The principle here is that in order to deal with a wide range of knowledge, you have to reduce the concretes to a single concrete, a concrete of a different order, a symbolic concrete. But that symbolic concrete has to be perceptual; it cannot be held in some undefined terms. It can be held that way just long enough for you to grasp the concept but not beyond it.

 

Prof. E: If you tried to represent the whole class by means of the image of one of the particular concretes in the class, wouldn't you be forced to the position that every time you wanted to employ the concept you'd have to re-form it?

 

AR: In a way.

 

Prof. E: He suggested, for instance, that you could say, "It's this or anything like it." But you obviously imply: like it in some respects. Because there are many things like it in other respects which wouldn't represent that class. So you'd have to remind yourself of the particular respect. Which would require you to say, "Well, I mean the sort of thing it has in common with those." So you'd have to recall those concretes and re-perform the abstracting process. Whereas, when you use a word, you retain the essence of what's in common without being tied to one concrete and without being required to ignore its particular concreteness in order to use it as a symbol.

 

AR: That's right. That's absolutely true.

 

Prof. D: There are some questions that arise in my mind concerning the denotation of words and the denotation of concepts in this connection. On page 13, one reads that, "The first words a child learns are words denoting visual objects."

 

AR: The first ones, yes.

 

Prof. D: If the essential function of words is to denote concepts, and if the expression "words denote visual ob­jects" states their essential function, it would look as if one could deduce that concepts are visual objects.

 

AR: Well, one could do that, if one dropped the context. But, you see, I do not think that any information can be conveyed by any one sentence out of context. If it could be, we wouldn't need to write a book. Therefore, when you read a particular sentence, you have to take cognizance of the context which has been established.

 

Now here the context has been established that the word denotes a concept which in turn denotes the objects it sub­sumes. There can be no such thing as a concept without the objects to which it refers. And conversely, a sound, if it is to be a word, cannot denote objects directly, without repre­senting a concept. (A word which did that would be a proper name.) But a concept is only a mental unit, a symbol, for a number of concretes of a certain kind. Therefore, when I say words denote visual objects, I do not have to repeat: "Don't forget that the visual objects have been conceptual­ized, and the word is the result of that process and names all those visual objects." Otherwise, I would have to repeat every preceding sentence in every sentence I write.

 

Prof. D: Granted, then, that concepts denote objects in reality and that the concept is a mental unit, I wonder whether it isn't in some kind of indirect sense that words denote objects-indirectly, via the concept-with the direct meaning of the word being the concept, the integration.

 

AR: I don't think we can make that distinction. A word which is not a proper name does refer directly to an indefi­nite number of concrete objects. A concept, in the form of a word, refers to them directly, not indirectly.

 

Prof. D: The word refers to the objects directly so that the objects directly constitute the meaning of the word?

 

AR: That's right.

 

Prof. D: Then suppose Descartes' evil demon waved his wand and those objects were put out of existence, would this mean that the word wouldn't have any meaning?

 

AR: If Descartes' evil demon existed, nothing would have any meaning, and we couldn't have a science of epistemology. We have to deal with reality as it is. If we project a different kind of reality, then nothing we say or do would be applicable.

 

Prof. D: But if the objects themselves are the word's meaning, then if you do away with the objects, you would find that the word has become just a meaningless sound.

 

AR: What do you mean, "do away with"? Do you mean that the objects cease to exist, or that they vanish as if they had never existed?

 

Prof. D: Suppose that these cups on this table are all of the cups that exist in the world. Then they constitute the meaning of the word "cup." And now I shut my eyes. While my eyes are shut, somebody waves a magic wand or what­ever and actually destroys the cups. Then the meaning of the word "cup" has been destroyed. So as I shut my eyes the word "cup" will become simply a sound.

 

AR: Now wait. To continue on the terms of your exam­ple, the important question here would be: what happens to your memory under these conditions? If you remember that there were cups, and now somehow they have disappeared, the concept still has meaning-as a memory. The person waving the wand would also have to erase your memory of such existents. If he could do that, then of course the concept and the meaning would disappear.

 

Prof. D: But then suddenly the meaning of "cup" would change from these cups to cups past. And then you have to suppose that past cups are objects in reality.

 

AR: Consider all the people born in the eighteenth cen­tury, let us say-men who couldn't possibly be alive today. When you use the word "man" in reference to them, the concept "man" stands for existing men, even though they do not exist now. The meaning of a concept includes, as I have said repeatedly, not only all the present referents but also all the future ones that anyone might consider, and all the past instances. The meaning remains the same, the nature of the referents remains the same, that which they have in common with present men (and which made you include them in the concept "man") remains the same, even though the particular physical concretes are not there any longer.

Prof. D: Well, I certainly agree to that. But if you equate the meaning of the word with the existents, if you make that theoretic move­

 

AR: The meaning of the word includes all the instances of that existent. Specifically and emphatically not only the presently existing referents, but all the referents of that kind, past, present, and future. If a concept did not do that, it would not be a concept-you could form it today, but you could not use it tomorrow, and you could not use it to think about yesterday.

 

Prof. B: I want to get clearer on the distinction between a concept and what you call a "qualified instance" of a con­cept. How would you classify "stationery supplies" in that regard?

 

AR: That is a qualified instance of a concept; it is used as if it were a concept, but it is a compound concept.

 

Prof. B: What would turn it into a concept?

 

AR: If we had a special word for it.

 

Prof. B: Just as the phrase "Conceptual Common De­nominator" became a concept by reducing it to "CCD"?

 

AR: Yes, that's right.

 

Prof. B: If the phrase "stationery supplies" became, in effect, one unit-if you hyphenated it, so to speak, then it would become a concept?

 

AR: That's right.

 

 

Words and Propositions

 

Prof. F: My question is about the relationship between concepts and propositions. Concepts are logically prior, aren't they?

 

AR: Yes.

 

Prof. F: If every concept is based upon a definition, isn't that definition itself a proposition?

 

AR: Oh yes.

 

Prof. F: Well then, the concept is in this case based on a proposition.

 

AR: No, but the first concepts are not. First-level con­cepts, concepts of perceptual concretes, are held without definitions. And I even mentioned in the book that most people would find it very difficult to define the common­place, easy, first-level concepts for that very reason. They are held first without any definitions, mainly in visual form, or through other sensory images. By the time you accumulate enough of them, you can progress to propositions, to mak­ing use of your concepts, organizing them into sentences which communicate something. And the concepts you form from then on, which are abstractions from abstractions, those you couldn't hold visually; they require formal defini­tions. But by the time you get to them, you are already capable of forming propositions.

 

And observe that that's true even by simple empirical verification: if you see how a child learns to speak, he doesn't start by uttering sentences. He first utters single words, and then after a while, when he has enough of them, he begins to try to communicate in sentences.

 

Prof. F: Most concepts, then, involve definitions which are propositions. But don't definitions, in turn, come down to simple, ostensive­ –

 

AR; At the start, to ostensive definitions, yes.

 

Prof. B: It is still true that every concept is prior to any proposition that contains that concept. You have to have the concept before you can use it in a proposition. You can't utter a proposition with the word "man" unless you have already formed the concept of "man." Putting it that way, doesn't it remove whatever question you had?

 

Prof. F: Yes.

 

AR: There is something I would like to add. There is a passage in the book where I said every concept stands for a number of implicit propositions. And even so, chronologi­cally we have to acquire concepts first, and then we begin to learn propositions. Logically implicit in a concept is a prop­osition, only a child couldn't possibly think of it. He doesn't have the means yet to say, "By the word `table' I mean such and such category of existents [with all their characteristics]." But that is implicit in the process. And that is important when you get to Kant-and to the whole analytic-synthetic dichotomy-that every concept represents such an implicit proposition, logically. But that doesn't mean that a child has to learn simultaneously concepts and propositions.

 

Take, for instance, a simple concept of the first, percep­tual level, like "table." Implicit in the use of the word "table," and in the grasping or forming of that concept, is the [definitional] proposition: "By the sound `table,' I mean objects whose distinguishing characteristic is a flat surface and supports." Now, a child doesn't have any of those concepts, but what does he do? Implicitly, he uses the word "table," once he has learned it, in that manner.

 

Prof. B: When you say the proposition is implicit, you mean implicit in the way you use it, that is: the material is available. And doesn't the relevant material include facts such as that the table is flat? That fact is implicit-meaning: you have to grasp that fact perceptually before you can form "table," and isn't that part of the concept?

 

AR: Yes. But here it isn't only a matter of what is involved in the concept, but also in the way the child uses the concept before he can form propositions, or the way an adult uses it in a fully conscious way. Implicit in every concept is "By this sound I mean such and such category of existents."

 

Prof. B: But wouldn't you agree that implicit in every concept are all the propositions stating all the facts he needed to form that concept?

 

AR: That's right.

 

Prof. F: But isn't a proposition by its very nature com­plex, that is, made up of two or more concepts?

 

AR: Oh yes.

 

Prof. F: But then how can you say that every concept expresses a proposition?

 

AR: Implicitly. The material is there but a child cannot yet form it, precisely because he needs to form each concept separately before he can unite them.

 

Prof. E: In other words, you can hold complex informa­tion, sufficiently complex to generate a proposition, in a perceptual form.

 

Prof. F: But if every concept is based upon a complex operation like this, then in the very process of forming a concept you must have gone through this complex experience.

 

AR: Well, of course.

 

Prof. E: But you only identify the elements of what you are doing when you reach the stage of epistemology.

 

AR: I think I've indicated that in the book, when I say the following: a child first has to grasp the concept of entities before he can grasp actions or attributes; yet, to separate entities from each other he has to be aware of attributes. He has to separate tables from chairs, let's say, by seeing that they have different shapes. Now he is aware of attributes, perceptually. He has not yet conceptualized why he thinks tables are different from chairs. He merely ob­serves that, and he says, in effect, "This is table; this is chair." Then when he has learned such abstractions as "shape," and "difference," and a great many others, he can consciously, in conceptual terms, identify the things which at first were observed perceptually.

 

All our knowledge, you see, begins perceptually, and the whole process of concept-formation rests on isolating, one step at a time, objects from an enormous field. We are aware, let's say, of a whole room, but we can't form all the concepts involved at the same time. It has to be done one at a time.

 

Incidentally, what is also very important here is that since reality is not a collection of discrete concretes which have nothing to do with each other, since it is actually an inte­grated, interrelated whole, the same is true of our concep­tual equipment. We cannot begin to use it until we have enough interrelated concepts to permit us, beginning with a small vocabulary, to reach higher and higher distinctions. Observe that all concepts on the first, perceptual level are enormously interrelated. And it would be impossible to say that we have to conceptualize tables first or chairs first. Or inanimate objects in the room before persons. There would be no rule about it.

Everything is interrelated, and for a concept to become fully and consciously clear to a child, to a mind just starting, he needs several other concepts. He is in an accelerating period of transition now. At first he might be able to say just "table" and "Mama." But very quickly his vocabulary

enlarges, because everything is connected in some way or related to everything else in his field of knowledge, and as he clarifies his first concepts, the process of forming others becomes easier. But before he begins to speak he has to acquire a great many of them because they are all interrelated.

 

And the difficulty there is that before he can form propo­sitions, he needs adjectives and verbs-particularly verbs ­and that is a very difficult mental feat, really, to go from nouns, which are fairly easy, to verbs, which stand for actions, and then to qualities (i.e., adjectives).

 

Prof. D: You say that one's mind is able to encompass only so many units-five or six. What then happens when we are discussing something, as we are now? I am talking in sentences, and there are a lot of concepts that must be evoked in order for you to understand what I am saying. Now, as I go from word to word, does a concept come into being and then go out of existence? And if so, how do you understand the first part of my sentence when I am at the end? How do you keep so many things in mind?

 

AR: What's the problem here? How much we can hold at one time?

 

Prof. D: I present it as a kind of dilemma.

 

AR: As a dilemma?!

 

Prof. D: I am speaking in sentences, and each sentence contains various words which are denoting concepts. This means that as I speak now, in order for you to understand what I am saying, each word has to evoke a particular concept. And that concept will either continue to exist in time or it will cease to exist, say, when the next word comes. Now, in the latter case, I wonder how anyone understands a sentence, because the first part of the sentence with all its concepts is long over and gone at the end. On the other hand, if all these concepts continue to exist, one after the other, so that they are all there together finally at the end, I would have so many entities present in my mind I couldn't hold them.

 

AR: Isn't the issue here an equivocation on "the existence of a concept"? In your example, you are assuming that the concept exists only for the specific split second when it is invoked. You are assuming that a concept does not exist prior to the moment of your uttering it and stops existing the moment you go to the next word, which empiri­cally is not true. If we talk of the existence of a concept, we have to say that it exists in a man's mind so long as he is able to bring it into his full conscious attention.

 

Certainly your entire vocabulary is not constantly in the focus of your conscious attention. But it is available to you the moment you need it. It is certainly clear that when you are uttering a sentence, you are using concepts which do exist in our minds, and we are able to recognize and hold them for the length of your sentence-particularly if the sentence is grammatical.

 

You know that we do communicate, and that we are able to follow an argument, and that you cannot tell us every­thing at once. That is what we have words for, first, then words organized in sentences, then paragraphs, and then sequences and volumes. We have to focus gradually and in installments, if you are presenting a very complex issue.

 

Therefore there is no dilemma at all about the fact that we are able to read a book and understand what it's about. Or that we are able to hear an entire speech or a single sen­tence. How can it be a dilemma, when we know that it's a fact? It can be a dilemma only on the basis of our arbitrarily rewriting reality.

 

Prof. D: Well I didn't mean that the fact was a dilemma, but if I have presented a certain theory concerning the fact, I could very well be in a dilemma if my theory had some defect in it.

 

AR: That's right.

 

Prof. D: So what I am attempting to do is to see how in terms of the Objectivist theory of concepts one would ex­plain the fact that we do, of course, understand the sen­tence. Now, you said that as I utter my sentence, these existents called "concepts" do not cease to exist the moment the word is uttered and gone, but that they are held through­out the sentence. But then I was wondering whether one wouldn't be confronted with an overloading of one's capac­ity to consider items.

 

Suppose I utter the following sentence: "A child is not and does not have to be aware of all these complexities when he forms the concept `table.' " Well, there are twenty­one concepts I'm holding in my mind by the time I get to the end of the sentence-twenty-one mental entities are present in my mind. And that would seem to be a kind of overloading of my capacity to view things.

 

AR: The answer to how we are able to understand a whole sentence, let alone a whole book, lies in the nature of concepts. Which part of their nature? Automatization. When a concept automatically stands in your mind for a certain kind of concrete, when you don't have to take the time to remind yourself what you mean by the word "table," by the word "child," etc., it's that speed of lightning-like integra­tion of the referents of your concepts to your words that permits you to understand a sentence.

 

Prof. B: Isn't this question really about the theory of propositions, not of concepts? There are twenty-one con­cepts, but the first five of them, say, are integrated into one clause, and the various clauses are integrated into one prop­osition, and that's how we hold it.

 

AR: Yes.

 

Prof. E: If you just strung out twenty-one words at random from the dictionary, you couldn't hold them all.

 

AR: Yes.

 

Prof. A: Or if you read that same sentence backward, you wouldn't be able to hold them either.

 

AR: That's right.

 

Prof. A: So there's something going on, when you read the sentence forward, that enables you to grasp it.

 

Prof. E: The proposition, in effect, becomes a unit itself.

 

AR: Yes.