What is a concept? I used to think of it as an idea or a thought, particularly about a class of things. If I had a concept of a ship, I knew there could be a large variety of particular ships that it covered: from tramp steamers to schooners, from sleek motor yachts to aircraft carriers.
But then I discovered Ayn Rand’s writings and found a new level of precision about concepts, particularly the type represented by a single word.
I now think it is possible to go even further. Every one of her identifications about such concepts has turned out to go only so far. Let us review them briefly.
She called a concept a “mental entity”, but knew a concept is not literally an entity and at one point, rather than call it an entity, concluded it was a “mental something.” I quote:
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 <ioe2_158> 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.”
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology Appendix—Concepts as Mental Existents
She also called a concept an abstraction. But there are many types of abstractions: from ideas to designs to theories. They may incorporate concepts in her sense of the word, but most are far wider than her idea of a concept.
She also called it a mental “file folder”. But this is a metaphor. It is not a literal statement of what a concept is.
So let us take her best identification, the one where she offered her definition of a concept. It comes in Chapter 2 of ITOE:
A concept is a mental integration of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted.
What is the problem with a definition which fifty years ago seemed so ground-breaking? The word “unit” is ambiguous.
According to Ayn Rand, a “unit” is an existent, something external to the mind. She defined it this way in Chapter 1:
A unit is an existent regarded as a separate member of a group of two or more similar members. (Two stones are two units; so are two square feet of ground, if regarded as distinct parts of a continuous stretch of ground.)
How do you integrate two existents like two stones by mind power? You can’t. You can only integrate mental representations of such external existents. And she later acknowledged that when she wrote in Chapter 7:
Whether the units with which one deals are percepts or concepts, the range of what man can hold in the focus of his conscious awareness at any given moment, is limited.
What is a percept? It is a mental representation of an external existent, for instance the mental image of a cat. Ayn Rand defined it thus in Chapter 1:
A percept is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism. It is in the form of percepts that man grasps the evidence of his senses and apprehends reality.
And a concept itself is a mental proxy for external existents.
So, if a “unit” can be either an external existent or an internal representation of that existent, the scope for confusing the external and the internal is immense.
Yet the whole purpose of ITOE was to show that concepts refer to real things rather than internal representations. As Ayn Rand said in the Appendix to Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology on the Role of Words:
The meaning [of a concept and its symbol, a word: TM] 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.
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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.
Her most prominent follower, Leonard Peikoff, has ignored this stricture and milked the confusion in her definition down to its final consequences. He claims the meaning of a concept is its internal content. He writes in his essay The Analytic Synthetic Dichotomy:
Since a word is a symbol for a concept, it has no meaning apart from the content of the concept it symbolizes.
This is a collapse of consciousness and existence. The meaning of a concept is the things in reality it refers to, not the content of the concept itself. The contents of a concept are only internal representations of external things.
A knock-on consequence is the belief that a concept is immutable. Despite ample evidence of variation, Dr. Peikoff wrote In Objectivism the Philosophy of Ayn Rand: “a concept, once formed, does not change.”
The evidence against this claim is everywhere, including an instance of Ayn Rand talking about expanding a concept (the concept “animal”) on page 25 of Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology. She also talks about subdividing a concept or corrupting one.
But if you start from the false premise that the meaning of a concept is its content—thus collapsing the internal and external units—how could you change a concept by mind power alone?
You would think it impossible because you would have to change the metaphysical nature of what the concept refers to in order to change the internal representations the concept contains. And of course you can’t.
What is the solution? To get under the whole problem and offer a new view of a concept—to identify what the basis of a concept really is. The identification of that root should not be metaphorical, but literal.
The root of a concept is neither a mental integration of units, nor an abstraction, nor a mental entity.
At root, a concept is the exact opposite of an entity, mental or otherwise. It is a perspective.
A concept is a perspective on a group of external existents, captured in a single word.
Yes, a concept becomes an abstraction, an integration of mental units and also a mental entity. But these facts are secondary to the perspective that gives rise to them.
Any abstraction, integration or mental entity is shaped by a given perspective and will change as the perspective changes.
Objectivity comes about when a conceptual perspective is directed by a respect for the facts and in particular a respect for the relationships between existents.
The reason a word can have several meanings is that it is possible to vary a perspective.
Here is an example that illustrates all the above.
Is it possible to have the perspective that animals are only four-legged creatures with fur? Yes, that is the perspective of many younger children. They don’t regard fish and birds as animals.
Only at a certain age can they integrate percepts of fish and birds with those of four-legged creatures and thus widen their concept “animal”. What changed? The facts of reality? No, the child’s perspective.
Was the child’s first perspective on animals invalid? No. It was just narrow. A narrow perspective produces a narrow abstraction.
Check over the child’s abstraction. What did he abstract, i.e., isolate in his first shot at forming the concept “animal”? Four-legged creatures like cats, dogs and rabbits. The range of his abstraction was governed by his limited perspective.
So also was his mental integration. He only integrated data about cats, dogs and rabbits because that was all his perspective could fit together.
And, as a result, the mental entity—the metaphorical file folder—he summarizes by the word “animal” contains only mental units (percepts and narrower concepts) that pertain to four-legged creatures with fur, but not to fish or birds.
When he develops his perspective he will abstract more, integrate more and include more types of units in his mental entity.
Where does objectivity fit in? As his conceptual ability grows, i.e., his ability to recognize similarities and differences matures, it becomes objectively valuable to include fish and birds with the other creatures in his perspective of animals. Why? Because, once his ability to think has broadened, their similarities actually outweigh their differences.
Changing a concept means changing a perspective. The form of the new abstraction follows from that.
And then, as a final consequence, the meaning of a word changes.
People who worry that changing a concept means changing the metaphysical nature of the existents that concept refers to don’t understand what a concept is. When a person changes his perspective, he does not interfere with the nature of what he perceives. He focuses on a different range of existents.
This is simply a reflection of an axiom: consciousness perceives the metaphysically given. It has no power to alter its nature.
Changing a concept means changing a perspective.
ARE CONCEPTS METAPHYSICAL OR EPISTEMOLOGICAL?
A concept is wholly epistemological. It begins with the ability to regard existents as units. It then becomes a specific perspective on a group of selected existents. These are the units the concept refers to, called, naturally enough by Ayn Rand, the concept’s referents. They are always external.
However, the mind can hold internal representations of those referents in the form of percepts and narrower concepts. These are also called “units”. But they are epistemological units, not metaphysical ones. Epistemological units are the only type that can be integrated. You confuse the two types at your peril.
THE PROBLEM WITH THE TERM “ENTITY’
It is a mistake to overuse a term out of metaphysics to describe something from epistemology, even if it is used metaphorically. The term “entity” applied to a concept easily leads to the idea that a concept is beyond the mind’s power to change.
When you stick to an epistemological term like “perspective”, there is no problem with seeing how it can be changed.
A concept is not so much an entity or even an existent as a perspective on entities and existents.
A WAY OF LOOKING AT THINGS
A conceptual perspective is a way of regarding things, a selective focus. Ayn Rand knew this:
This is the key, the entrance to the conceptual level of man’s consciousness. The ability to regard entities as units is man’s distinctive method of cognition, which other living species are unable to follow.
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology 1. Cognition and Measurement
But a conceptual perspective is not confined to the ability to regard entities as units. Conceptual ability is the ability to regard existents as units, then either hold your perspective on them or change it to capture reality better. If you want a concrete image of the latter, think of the child widening his perspective to include the units “fish” and “birds” in the concept “animal”.
A CONCEPT IS A VARIABLE
If you talk about a variable integration or a variable entity it sounds weird. But a variable perspective is comprehensible. Most people can vary their perspective.
SUMMARY
A concept is a perspective on a group of external existents, captured in a single word.
Copyright © Tom Minchin 2017