10
votes
Accepted
What does Nietzsche refer to with the "backworldsmen"?
I answer with the authority of being a native German speaker and having graduated in philosophy ;)
Back-world is a bad translation here. Presumably, the translator has mistaken the term "...
- 13.5k
9
votes
What is meant by abstract concepts and concrete concepts? Aren't the former tautologous and latter contradictory?
No, you are confusing yourself. You can have an idea about a real object, such as your laptop. You can also have an idea about something that is not real, such as justice. Both are ideas, but one is a ...
- 13.3k
7
votes
Do distinctions and concepts exist?
Concepts are relations between two or more phenomena. Distinctions are discrete concepts whose function is to classify. Concepts and language are very closely related. I discuss this in my post on the ...
- 1,231
7
votes
Do distinctions and concepts exist?
What you are asking about is the place of abstract objects in our universe.
There are basically three approaches to abstract objects:
Nominalism holds that abstractions are invented by us. This is ...
- 10.5k
6
votes
Can concepts exist without animals or human beings?
To answer your question one has to discriminate between a
concept and its referent, i.e. the object to which the concept refers.
One one hand, concepts live in the mind of people and some animal ...
- 24.3k
5
votes
Is topology of cultural ideas and concepts studied in modern philosophy?
Peirce was one of the first to invoke topology in his metaphysics. The notion of continuum and continuity is central to his account of the basic philosophical categories, and he was even led to study ...
- 42.5k
5
votes
Can concepts exist without animals or human beings?
Concepts are generally defined as things that exists in the mind. In order to talk about existence of a concept, it must have been created/imagined. Concepts are created by living beings. Abstract ...
- 1,674
4
votes
Is entropy a circular reasoning concept?
The 2nd law of thermodynamics is an assertion. It is a statement that someone made that they believe to be true. It is also an assertion that is backed by an enormous body of evidence so vast that ...
- 17.5k
4
votes
How does Kant derive the categories of the understanding from the logical forms of judgment in the Critique of Pure Reason?
The missing piece for you seems to be the fact that Kant builds on the idea of "architectonic" borrowed from Aristotle, as he mentions in the paragraph following the first OP quote:"Borrowing a term ...
- 42.5k
3
votes
How could mathematics and logic exist without us, if they are concepts created by us independent of reality?
Take inverse square laws. You can see them as mathematical or relying on logic, but they are geometrical and relational and just a part of the beingness of things. The ratios involved come from the ...
- 20.5k
3
votes
Accepted
What does Kierkegaard mean by recollection, repetition and remembrance?
Repetition is a key concept for Kierkegaard, and he often uses it to depict a (generally vain) attempt to recapture an previous experience, typically one of aesthetic transcendence. As far as I know, ...
- 27.1k
3
votes
Can more than 2 things be in direct opposition?
In Boolean Logic, the answer is no. For any statement (A) in a set of possible statements (or propositions), there is exactly one unique opposite statement (¬A).
There can be multiple distinct ...
- 27.1k
3
votes
Could there be such a thing as a universal logical language?
If such a universal logical language exists, it would be subject to some very peculiar limitations which were developed by Alfred Tarski. His undefinability theorem puts some very interesting ...
- 17.5k
3
votes
How do medieval theories of reference account for *entia rationis* (objects of thought)?
Ens rationis = a being of reason is a “thing dependent for its existence upon reason or thought.“ The term being of reason contrasts to the term real being (ens in re extra animam). But of course ...
- 24.3k
3
votes
Accepted
Concept Formation
Hint
You can consider the "classical" theory of concept, from Plato to Frege.
See "On Concept and Object" (originally published as "Ueber Begriff und Gegenstand" (1892)) : the application of a ...
- 36.1k
3
votes
Who has used Poetry for Philosophy?
AE (George Russell) was an Irish poet, not so well-known as Yeats
Here is the last verse of one of his poems
We must rise or we must fall:
Love can know no middle way:
If the great life do not ...
- 1,433
3
votes
Is a paradox a concept?
Nice question.
Your textbox opens with what was going to be the first line of my answer!
Take Russell's barber paradox about the town in which the barber is the "one who shaves all those, and those ...
- 35.4k
3
votes
Accepted
draw a distinction between a class (abstract) and the set of all members (concrete)
In logic and various other areas the terms type and token are used.
From the WP article type-token distinction:
The type–token distinction is the difference between naming a class (type) of objects ...
- 3,515
3
votes
Accepted
Is there a resource cataloguing unique and fundamental concepts cross-culturally?
Short Answer
The most likely source to help you will be FrameNet which organizes words into linguistic frames, a human-codified attempt to construct a web of meaning.
Long Answer
In philosophy, there'...
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3
votes
Can concrete objects have multiple occurrences?
There is nothing unusual about abstract objects in this sense. Consider the sentence "John always puts John first." In this sentence, "John" is a word, not to be confused with John ...
- 7,500
2
votes
What is the difference between an 'idea' and a 'concept'?
I agree with those who say the idea/concept distinction is not one that can be pinned down outside of a particular discourse (or even book).
To give one example usage, Auxier and Herstein discuss the ...
- 146
2
votes
What is the difference between an 'idea' and a 'concept'?
To answer the first question, I would offer these definitions.
-An idea is simply a thought with some merit or significance or value.
-A concept is an idea, or system of ideas, that's sufficiently ...
2
votes
Would Frege say "blue" is a concept or object?
The "foundations" of Frege's analysis of language are in his articles :
Funktion und Begriff (1891)
Über Sinn und Bedeutung (1892)
Über Begriff und Gegenstand (1892).
Relevant for your ...
- 36.1k
2
votes
Distinction between concrete vs. abstract in software
Welcome to the fun of software engineering jargon! At work and play, I have run into the problem of shared terms a lot when it comes to designing software systems. Sorry if I don't answer your ...
2
votes
Are Concepts Colorless?
It's been said that "colorless green ideas sleep furiously" but this is nonsensical - possibly poetic.
Are Concepts Colorless?
Yes, concepts have no color. It would be a category mistake to ...
- 2,401
2
votes
Accepted
Did Wittgenstein consider the possibility of a private language with public content?
The SEP article does a good job of pulling together various places in Philosophical Investigations over which the private language argument sprawls (including the rule-following paradox, and the ...
- 42.5k
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