How We Know #3: Concept-Formation

Chapter 3 is devoted to the nature of concepts. Binswanger says there are four main theories -- Realism (e.g. Plato), Moderate Realism (e.g. Aristotle), Nominalism (e.g. Wittgenstein), and Objectivist (Ayn Rand).

"According to Realism, a concept is a term that designates a metaphysical universal: a special kind of non-specific element present in all the members of a class, an element that is grasped directly by some sort of non-sensory "intuition" or "insight"" (p.101).

"Moderate Realists count as realists because they hold that abstraction refers to metaphysical universals; the theory is "moderate" in holding that these universals exist as aspects of perceptual concretes, not as separate entities dwelling in another world. In effect, Moderate Realism shatters the Platonic Form and puts a fragment of it inside each concrete" (p.102).

Binswanger elaborates his version of Objectivist epistemology. 

Binswanger says more about measurement omission than Ayn Rand did. He quotes Rand: "If a child considers a match, a pencil, and a stick, he observes that length is the attribute they have in common, but their specific lengths differ. The difference is one of measurement. In order to form the concept "length," the child's mind retains the attribute and omits the measurements. Or, more precisely, if the process were identified in words, it would consist of the following: Length must exist in some quantity, but may exist in any quantity. I shall identify 'length' as that attribute of any existent possessing it which can be quantitatively related to a unit of length, without specifying the quantity." [ITOE, 11]

Rand seems to say that "omitting measurements" is only omitting specific numbers -- of inches or centimeters or whatnot -- not omitting the attribute length. The match, pencil, and stick each have a length in reality, even if the child knows nothing about authentic measurement. In other words, there is length (metaphysical, ontological) and measured length (epistemological). The former can be simply perceived; the latter requires a special effort. The former doesn't require numbers; the latter does. The former is not a comparison; the latter is a comparison of two lengths, one from a measuring instrument (ruler or tape measure or whatnot).

Binswanger does not say what I just did, but he portrays the child's understanding of length somewhat differently than Rand did. He writes: "In speaking of "measurements" I am referring to the subconscious mechanics of the concept-forming process, not to any consciously performed, explicit, process of measuring. A child beginning to conceptualize things is, of course, incapable of explicit measurement. On the conscious level, he is only aware of similarities and differences. But the objective basis of those similarities and differences is the quantitative variation of a commensurable characteristic" (p.118). He does not claim the child implicitly measures.

Binswanger tries to explain that humans don't really omit measurements. More exactly they recognize that measurements vary. He says that things that are similar differ quantitatively. "Similarity is measurement proximity. "Proximity" is a relative term, depending on a contrast with something that is more distant, which can be called "the foil." Similarity is thus contextual, a matter of relative proximity of measurements in contrast to the relatively distant measurement of a foil. In such a set-up, the bigger difference swamps the smaller difference, making the smaller difference appear as similarity. What is experienced as similarity is, at root, lesser difference" (p. 112).

Here at least the smaller differences among similar things are swamped rather than omitted. 

There are also sections of Chapter 3 on integration and unit-economy.