Re: built-in rules

[Harry Binswanger hb@xxxxxxxx]

Hey, I said I *didn't* want to initiate a philosophical discussion. But,
okay. I'll join in.
I introduced into the discussion the term "ontological," which means, in
this context, coming from the side of things in reality (as opposed to
coming from the side of the human brain or human consciousness). Flash,
however, doesn't get my point, which was not that the meaning (semantics)
of words or gestures comes from things but that the basic "deep grammar"
syntax does--or more precisely, it comes from our awareness of the
structure of things.
That is, we have nouns and noun phrases, I argue, because there are
entities in reality, and we see them--not because there is a
"make-noun-phrases" gene. We have verbs and verb phrases because we see
that things act. Etc.
Someone made reference to Aristotle's categories, and I agree with them.
Although this is a little controversial, I think Aristotle regarded his
categories to be ontological--i.e., there *are* entities, attributes,
actions, relationships, etc. Our grammar merely reflects this.
In fact, Aristotle *discovered* these distinctions and permanently
influenced our language. Before Aristotle, at least in Greek, there was no
linguistic distinction between calling a hot rock "the hot" or "the rock."
This led to the "problem of change" in pre-Aristotelian philosophy: when
the hot rock cools, how can it be that "the hot" becomes "the non-hot"?
To us, post-Arisotle, it is clear that there is a difference between "heat"
and "hot." We automatically understand that that *the rock* (an entity, or
"ousia") can be either hot or cool, but that *heat* never becomes
*coolness*. This is rather an amazing thing, but the pre-Aristotelian
Greeks didn't even have concepts like "heat," "size," or "length," only
"the hot," "the big" and the "the long." Thus, they puzzled, "How can the
small become the big?"
Aristotle gave us the distinction between the entity and the attribute, the
action, the relationship, etc. Post-Aristotle, we can always make up a term
for the abstract aspect even where none existed--e.g., "hotness,"
"talkativeness," or "X-ness."
Before Aristotle, Plato took a step in this direction (though he got it
partly wrong). In the Theatetus, he introduces the term translated
"quality," in attempt to solve the problem of change:
"Perhaps this word 'quality' strikes you as queer and uncouth and you don't
understand it as a general expression; so let me give particular instances.
The agent does not become hotness or whiteness, but hot or white ..."
But Plato made the abstracted aspect, such as hotness," into a kind of
entity (a Form) in another dimension. Aristotle, correctly, charged him
with reification--making into a thing something which is only the product
of human abstraction from things.

Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx