Re: [xmca] concepts

[Andy Blunden <ablunden@mira.net>]

Yes Huw, for the purposes of comunication, as you say, I can explain the 
general idea of "activity" to any other English-speaker. But that was 
not my point. Michael asked me to explain "activity" as a response to me 
asking him to explain "information" and "receive" in the context of a 
discussion about concepts and cognition. I asked Michael that question 
because, for me, those terms belong to the cognitivist "constellation" 
which implies that a human being may be understood as a machine. So 
"machine" (or some cognate) would have played the role of "fundamental 
concept".

I think that for science, it is important to know what the concept of 
the subject matter is, even if we can communicate adequately without 
that understanding.

Andy

Huw Lloyd wrote:
> > But as "activity" is the fundamental concept of my
> > philosophy, I can't define it in terms of anything else,
> > just explain it, to give you the general idea.
> >     
>
> Here's my take:  if it's a concept, then it can be derived from other
> concepts within the constellation (paradigm/framework).  Everything is
> related.
>
> e.g. process can be derived from interaction of structure.  System is
> tricky, but do-able.
>
> Huw
>
>   
> > But, a
> > philosophy can only have one concept like that!
> >
> >     


__________________________________________
_____
xmca mailing list
xmca@weber.ucsd.edu
http://dss.ucsd.edu/mailman/listinfo/xmca