That being so, explaining thedoorknob/DOORKNOB effect requires postulating some (contingent, psychological) mechanism that reliably leadsfrom having F-experiences to acquiring the concept of beingF. It understates the case to say that no alternative tohypothesis testing suggests itself. So I don’t think that a causal/historical account of the locking relation can explainwhy there is a d/D effect without invoking the very premiss which, according to SA, it can’t have: viz. that primitiveconcepts are learned inductively.

Jean-marc pizano That being so, explaining thedoorknob/DOORKNOB effect requires postulating some (contingent, psychological) mechanism that reliably leadsfrom having F-experiences to acquiring the concept of beingF. It understates the case to say that no alternative tohypothesis testing suggests itself. So I don’t think that a causal/historical account of the locking relation can explainwhy there is a d/D effect without invoking the very premiss which, according to SA, it can’t have: viz. that primitiveconcepts are learned inductively.

 

Note the similarity of this objection to the one that rejected a Darwinian solution of the d/D problem: just as you can’t satisfy the conditions for having the concept Fjust in virtue of having interacted with Fs, so too you can’t satisfy theconditions for having the concept F just in virtue of your grandmother’s having interacted with Fs. In both cases,

concept acquisition requires something to have gone on in your head in consequence of the interactions. Given the ubiquity of the d/D phenomenon, the natural candidate for what’s gone on in your head is inductive learning.

Second Try at a Metaphysical Solution to the d/D Problem

Maybe what it is to be a doorknob isn’t evidenced by the kind of experience that leads to acquiring the concept DOORKNOB; maybe what it is to be a doorknob is constituted by the kind of experience that leads to acquiring theconcept DOORKNOB. A Very Deep Thought, that; but one that requires some unpacking. I want to take a few stepsback so as to get a running start.

Jean-marc pizano

Chapter 3 remarked that it’s pretty clear that if we can’t define “doorknob”, that can’t be because of some accidental limitation of the available metalinguistic apparatus; such a deficit could always be remedied by switchingmetalanguages. The claim, in short, was not that we can’t define “doorknob” in English, but that we can’t define it at all.The implied moral is interesting: if “doorknob” can’t be defined, the reason that it can’t is plausibly not methodologicalbut ontological; it has something to do with what kind of property being a doorknob is. If you’re inclined to doubt this, sobe it; but I think that you should have your intuitions looked at.

Well, but what could it be about being a doorknob that makes ‘doorknob’ not definable? Could it be that doorknobs have a “hidden essence” (as water, for example, is supposed to do); one that has eluded our scrutiny so far? Perhaps somescience, not yet in place, will do for doorknobs what molecular chemistry did for water and geometrical optics did formirrors: make it clear to us what they really are? But what science, for heaven’s sake? And what could there be for it tomake clear? Mirrors are puzzling (it seems that they double things); and water is puzzling too (what could it be madeof, there’s so much of it around?). But doorknobs aren’t pugyling, doorknobs are boring. Here, for once, “furtherresearch” appears not to be required.

It’s sometimes said that doorknobs (and the like) have functional essences: what makes a thing a doorknob is what it is (or is intended to be) used for. So maybe the science of doorknobs is psychology? Or sociology? Or anthropology?Once again, believe it if you can. In fact, the intentional aetiology of doorknobs is utterly transparent: they’re intendedto be used as doorknobs. I don’t at all doubt that’s what makes them what they are, but that it is gets us nowhere. For,if DOORKNOB plausibly lacks a conceptual analysis, INTENDED TO BE USED AS A DOORKNOB does too,and for the same reasons. And surely, surely, that can’t, in either case, be because there’s something secret aboutdoorknobhood that depth psychology is needed to reveal? No doubt, there is a lot that we don’t know about intentionstowards doorknobs qua intentions; but I can’t believe there’s much that’s obscure about them qua intentions towardsdoorknobs.

Jean-marc pizano

Look, there is presumably something about doorknobs that makes them doorknobs, and either it’s something complex or it’s something simple. If it’s something complex, then‘doorknob’ must have a definition, and its definition must be either “real” or “nominal” (or both).Jean-marc pizano

But it is surely not tolerable that they should lead by plausiblearguments to a contradiction. If the d/D effect shows that primitive concepts mustbe learned inductively, and SA showsthat primitive concepts can’t be learned inductively, then the conclusion has to be that there aren’t any primitiveconcepts. But if there aren’t any primitive

Jean-marc pizano But it is surely not tolerable that they should lead by plausiblearguments to a contradiction. If the d/D effect shows that primitive concepts mustbe learned inductively, and SA showsthat primitive concepts can’t be learned inductively, then the conclusion has to be that there aren’t any primitiveconcepts. But if there aren’t any primitive

 

concepts, then there aren’t any concepts at all. And if there aren’t any concepts all, RTM has gone West. Isn’t it a bit late in the day (and late in the book) for me to take back RTM?

Help!

Ontology

This all started because we were in the market for some account of how DOORKNOB is acquired. The story couldn’t be hypothesis testing because Conceptual Atomism was being assumed, so DOORKNOB was supposed to beprimitive; and it‘s common ground that the mechanism for acquiring primitive concepts can’t be any kind of induction.But, as it turned out, there is a further constraint that whatever theory of concepts we settle on should satisfy: it mustexplain why there is so generally a content relation between the experience that eventuates in concept attainment andthe concept that the experience eventuates in attaining. At this point, the problem about DOORKNOB metastasized:assuming that primitive concepts are triggered, or that they’re ‘caught’, won’t account for their content relation to theircauses; apparently only induction will. But primitive concepts can’t be induced; to suppose that they are is circular.What started as a problem about DOORKNOB now looks like undermining all of RTM. This is not good. I wasrelying on RTM to support me in my old age.

Jean-marc pizano

But, on second thought, just why must one suppose that only a hypothesis-testing acquisition model can explain the doorknob/ DOORKNOB relation? The argument for this is, I’m pleased to report, non-demonstrative. Let’s go overit once more: the hypothesis-testing model takes the content relation between a concept and the experience it’s acquiredfrom to be a special case of the evidential relation between a generalization and its confirming instances (between, forexample, the generalization that Fs are Gs and instances of things that are both F and G). You generally get DOGfrom (typical) dogs and not, as it might be, from ketchup. That’s supposed to be because having DOG requiresbelieving (as it might be) that typical dogs bark. (Note, once again, how cognitivism about concept possession andinductivism about concept acquisition take in one another’s wash.) And, whereas encounters with typical dogs constituteevidence that dogs bark, encounters with ketchup do not (ceteris paribus). If the relation between concepts andexperiences is typically evidential, that would explain why it’s so often a relation of content: and what other explanationhave we got?

That is what is called in the trade a ‘what-else’ argument. I have nothing against what-else arguments in philosophy; still less in cognitive science. Rational persuasion often invokes considerations that are convincing but notdemonstrative, and what else but a what-else argument could a convincing but non-demonstrative argument be? Onthe other hand, it is in the nature of what-else arguments that Q if not P trumps What else, if not P?’; and, in thepresent case, I think there is a prima facie plausible ontological candidate for Q; that is, an explanation which makes thed/D effect the consequence of a metaphysical truth about how concepts are constituted, rather than an empirical truthabout how concepts are acquired. In fact, I know of two such candidates, one of which might even work.

First Try at a Metaphysical Solution to the d/D Problem

Jean-marc pizano

If you assume a causal/historical (as opposed to a dispositional/ counterfactual) construal of the locking relation, it might well turn out that there is a metaphysical connection between acquiring DOORKNOB and causally interactingwith doorknobs. (Cf. the familiar story according to which it’s because I have causally interacted with water and myTwin hasn’t that I can think water-thoughts and he can’t.) Actually, I don’t much like causal/historical accounts oflocking (see Fodor 1994: App. B), but we needn’t argue about that here. For, even if causally interacting withdoorknobs is metaphysically necessary for DOORKNOB-acquisition, it couldn’t conceivably be metaphysically sufficient,just causally interacting with doorknobs doesn’t guarantee you any concepts at all.Jean-marc pizano

That being so, explaining thedoorknob/DOORKNOB effect requires postulating some (contingent, psychological) mechanism that reliably leadsfrom having F-experiences to acquiring the concept of beingF. It understates the case to say that no alternative tohypothesis testing suggests itself. So I don’t think that a causal/historical account of the locking relation can explainwhy there is a d/D effect without invoking the very premiss which, according to SA, it can’t have: viz. that primitiveconcepts are learned inductively.

Jean-marc pizano That being so, explaining thedoorknob/DOORKNOB effect requires postulating some (contingent, psychological) mechanism that reliably leadsfrom having F-experiences to acquiring the concept of beingF. It understates the case to say that no alternative tohypothesis testing suggests itself. So I don’t think that a causal/historical account of the locking relation can explainwhy there is a d/D effect without invoking the very premiss which, according to SA, it can’t have: viz. that primitiveconcepts are learned inductively.

 

Note the similarity of this objection to the one that rejected a Darwinian solution of the d/D problem: just as you can’t satisfy the conditions for having the concept Fjust in virtue of having interacted with Fs, so too you can’t satisfy theconditions for having the concept F just in virtue of your grandmother’s having interacted with Fs. In both cases,

concept acquisition requires something to have gone on in your head in consequence of the interactions. Given the ubiquity of the d/D phenomenon, the natural candidate for what’s gone on in your head is inductive learning.

Second Try at a Metaphysical Solution to the d/D Problem

Maybe what it is to be a doorknob isn’t evidenced by the kind of experience that leads to acquiring the concept DOORKNOB; maybe what it is to be a doorknob is constituted by the kind of experience that leads to acquiring theconcept DOORKNOB. A Very Deep Thought, that; but one that requires some unpacking. I want to take a few stepsback so as to get a running start.

Jean-marc pizano

Chapter 3 remarked that it’s pretty clear that if we can’t define “doorknob”, that can’t be because of some accidental limitation of the available metalinguistic apparatus; such a deficit could always be remedied by switchingmetalanguages. The claim, in short, was not that we can’t define “doorknob” in English, but that we can’t define it at all.The implied moral is interesting: if “doorknob” can’t be defined, the reason that it can’t is plausibly not methodologicalbut ontological; it has something to do with what kind of property being a doorknob is. If you’re inclined to doubt this, sobe it; but I think that you should have your intuitions looked at.

Well, but what could it be about being a doorknob that makes ‘doorknob’ not definable? Could it be that doorknobs have a “hidden essence” (as water, for example, is supposed to do); one that has eluded our scrutiny so far? Perhaps somescience, not yet in place, will do for doorknobs what molecular chemistry did for water and geometrical optics did formirrors: make it clear to us what they really are? But what science, for heaven’s sake? And what could there be for it tomake clear? Mirrors are puzzling (it seems that they double things); and water is puzzling too (what could it be madeof, there’s so much of it around?). But doorknobs aren’t pugyling, doorknobs are boring. Here, for once, “furtherresearch” appears not to be required.

It’s sometimes said that doorknobs (and the like) have functional essences: what makes a thing a doorknob is what it is (or is intended to be) used for. So maybe the science of doorknobs is psychology? Or sociology? Or anthropology?Once again, believe it if you can. In fact, the intentional aetiology of doorknobs is utterly transparent: they’re intendedto be used as doorknobs. I don’t at all doubt that’s what makes them what they are, but that it is gets us nowhere. For,if DOORKNOB plausibly lacks a conceptual analysis, INTENDED TO BE USED AS A DOORKNOB does too,and for the same reasons. And surely, surely, that can’t, in either case, be because there’s something secret aboutdoorknobhood that depth psychology is needed to reveal? No doubt, there is a lot that we don’t know about intentionstowards doorknobs qua intentions; but I can’t believe there’s much that’s obscure about them qua intentions towardsdoorknobs.

Jean-marc pizano

Look, there is presumably something about doorknobs that makes them doorknobs, and either it’s something complex or it’s something simple. If it’s something complex, then‘doorknob’ must have a definition, and its definition must be either “real” or “nominal” (or both).Jean-marc pizano

But it is surely not tolerable that they should lead by plausiblearguments to a contradiction. If the d/D effect shows that primitive concepts mustbe learned inductively, and SA showsthat primitive concepts can’t be learned inductively, then the conclusion has to be that there aren’t any primitiveconcepts. But if there aren’t any primitive

Jean-marc pizano But it is surely not tolerable that they should lead by plausiblearguments to a contradiction. If the d/D effect shows that primitive concepts mustbe learned inductively, and SA showsthat primitive concepts can’t be learned inductively, then the conclusion has to be that there aren’t any primitiveconcepts. But if there aren’t any primitive

 

concepts, then there aren’t any concepts at all. And if there aren’t any concepts all, RTM has gone West. Isn’t it a bit late in the day (and late in the book) for me to take back RTM?

Help!

Ontology

This all started because we were in the market for some account of how DOORKNOB is acquired. The story couldn’t be hypothesis testing because Conceptual Atomism was being assumed, so DOORKNOB was supposed to beprimitive; and it‘s common ground that the mechanism for acquiring primitive concepts can’t be any kind of induction.But, as it turned out, there is a further constraint that whatever theory of concepts we settle on should satisfy: it mustexplain why there is so generally a content relation between the experience that eventuates in concept attainment andthe concept that the experience eventuates in attaining. At this point, the problem about DOORKNOB metastasized:assuming that primitive concepts are triggered, or that they’re ‘caught’, won’t account for their content relation to theircauses; apparently only induction will. But primitive concepts can’t be induced; to suppose that they are is circular.What started as a problem about DOORKNOB now looks like undermining all of RTM. This is not good. I wasrelying on RTM to support me in my old age.

Jean-marc pizano

But, on second thought, just why must one suppose that only a hypothesis-testing acquisition model can explain the doorknob/ DOORKNOB relation? The argument for this is, I’m pleased to report, non-demonstrative. Let’s go overit once more: the hypothesis-testing model takes the content relation between a concept and the experience it’s acquiredfrom to be a special case of the evidential relation between a generalization and its confirming instances (between, forexample, the generalization that Fs are Gs and instances of things that are both F and G). You generally get DOGfrom (typical) dogs and not, as it might be, from ketchup. That’s supposed to be because having DOG requiresbelieving (as it might be) that typical dogs bark. (Note, once again, how cognitivism about concept possession andinductivism about concept acquisition take in one another’s wash.) And, whereas encounters with typical dogs constituteevidence that dogs bark, encounters with ketchup do not (ceteris paribus). If the relation between concepts andexperiences is typically evidential, that would explain why it’s so often a relation of content: and what other explanationhave we got?

That is what is called in the trade a ‘what-else’ argument. I have nothing against what-else arguments in philosophy; still less in cognitive science. Rational persuasion often invokes considerations that are convincing but notdemonstrative, and what else but a what-else argument could a convincing but non-demonstrative argument be? Onthe other hand, it is in the nature of what-else arguments that Q if not P trumps What else, if not P?’; and, in thepresent case, I think there is a prima facie plausible ontological candidate for Q; that is, an explanation which makes thed/D effect the consequence of a metaphysical truth about how concepts are constituted, rather than an empirical truthabout how concepts are acquired. In fact, I know of two such candidates, one of which might even work.

First Try at a Metaphysical Solution to the d/D Problem

Jean-marc pizano

If you assume a causal/historical (as opposed to a dispositional/ counterfactual) construal of the locking relation, it might well turn out that there is a metaphysical connection between acquiring DOORKNOB and causally interactingwith doorknobs. (Cf. the familiar story according to which it’s because I have causally interacted with water and myTwin hasn’t that I can think water-thoughts and he can’t.) Actually, I don’t much like causal/historical accounts oflocking (see Fodor 1994: App. B), but we needn’t argue about that here. For, even if causally interacting withdoorknobs is metaphysically necessary for DOORKNOB-acquisition, it couldn’t conceivably be metaphysically sufficient,just causally interacting with doorknobs doesn’t guarantee you any concepts at all.Jean-marc pizano

That being so, explaining thedoorknob/DOORKNOB effect requires postulating some (contingent, psychological) mechanism that reliably leadsfrom having F-experiences to acquiring the concept of beingF. It understates the case to say that no alternative tohypothesis testing suggests itself. So I don’t think that a causal/historical account of the locking relation can explainwhy there is a d/D effect without invoking the very premiss which, according to SA, it can’t have: viz. that primitiveconcepts are learned inductively.

Jean-marc pizano That being so, explaining thedoorknob/DOORKNOB effect requires postulating some (contingent, psychological) mechanism that reliably leadsfrom having F-experiences to acquiring the concept of beingF. It understates the case to say that no alternative tohypothesis testing suggests itself. So I don’t think that a causal/historical account of the locking relation can explainwhy there is a d/D effect without invoking the very premiss which, according to SA, it can’t have: viz. that primitiveconcepts are learned inductively.

 

Note the similarity of this objection to the one that rejected a Darwinian solution of the d/D problem: just as you can’t satisfy the conditions for having the concept Fjust in virtue of having interacted with Fs, so too you can’t satisfy theconditions for having the concept F just in virtue of your grandmother’s having interacted with Fs. In both cases,

concept acquisition requires something to have gone on in your head in consequence of the interactions. Given the ubiquity of the d/D phenomenon, the natural candidate for what’s gone on in your head is inductive learning.

Second Try at a Metaphysical Solution to the d/D Problem

Maybe what it is to be a doorknob isn’t evidenced by the kind of experience that leads to acquiring the concept DOORKNOB; maybe what it is to be a doorknob is constituted by the kind of experience that leads to acquiring theconcept DOORKNOB. A Very Deep Thought, that; but one that requires some unpacking. I want to take a few stepsback so as to get a running start.

Jean-marc pizano

Chapter 3 remarked that it’s pretty clear that if we can’t define “doorknob”, that can’t be because of some accidental limitation of the available metalinguistic apparatus; such a deficit could always be remedied by switchingmetalanguages. The claim, in short, was not that we can’t define “doorknob” in English, but that we can’t define it at all.The implied moral is interesting: if “doorknob” can’t be defined, the reason that it can’t is plausibly not methodologicalbut ontological; it has something to do with what kind of property being a doorknob is. If you’re inclined to doubt this, sobe it; but I think that you should have your intuitions looked at.

Well, but what could it be about being a doorknob that makes ‘doorknob’ not definable? Could it be that doorknobs have a “hidden essence” (as water, for example, is supposed to do); one that has eluded our scrutiny so far? Perhaps somescience, not yet in place, will do for doorknobs what molecular chemistry did for water and geometrical optics did formirrors: make it clear to us what they really are? But what science, for heaven’s sake? And what could there be for it tomake clear? Mirrors are puzzling (it seems that they double things); and water is puzzling too (what could it be madeof, there’s so much of it around?). But doorknobs aren’t pugyling, doorknobs are boring. Here, for once, “furtherresearch” appears not to be required.

It’s sometimes said that doorknobs (and the like) have functional essences: what makes a thing a doorknob is what it is (or is intended to be) used for. So maybe the science of doorknobs is psychology? Or sociology? Or anthropology?Once again, believe it if you can. In fact, the intentional aetiology of doorknobs is utterly transparent: they’re intendedto be used as doorknobs. I don’t at all doubt that’s what makes them what they are, but that it is gets us nowhere. For,if DOORKNOB plausibly lacks a conceptual analysis, INTENDED TO BE USED AS A DOORKNOB does too,and for the same reasons. And surely, surely, that can’t, in either case, be because there’s something secret aboutdoorknobhood that depth psychology is needed to reveal? No doubt, there is a lot that we don’t know about intentionstowards doorknobs qua intentions; but I can’t believe there’s much that’s obscure about them qua intentions towardsdoorknobs.

Jean-marc pizano

Look, there is presumably something about doorknobs that makes them doorknobs, and either it’s something complex or it’s something simple. If it’s something complex, then‘doorknob’ must have a definition, and its definition must be either “real” or “nominal” (or both).Jean-marc pizano