By Wolven
There are many ways to define concepts. Some concepts need to have their pieces and parts numbered and listed. Other concepts need to be looked at in comparison with an archetype. Some concepts need to have their enumerating examples chosen based upon a long list, from which a majority, or cluster, must be extracted. There are very many ways to define concepts, indeed, but the false assumption, in dealing with them, may be that only one of these methods is correct.
i've been thinking, a lot, about concepts like Justice. i've realised a lot of things about Justice. It has been said, before, that you cannot say what Justice is, except to say what it is not. Let us take a case-by-case basis. Killing thousands, because thousands were, previously, killed. That is not Justice. That is Vengeance. There are so many concepts that we try to express in words that we, then, close up in definitions, and that's fine; but we don't continually agree on the definitions of said words. Concepts and words need each other, true, but while a concept needs words to be expressed, those words cannot always fully explicate it. Look at the word "Just": fair; right; pertaining to Justice; exactly; only; merely; no more than. It seems odd that we have moved from Justice, to "merely". i guess you could say "It's a word. It changes." And this is, indeed, true, though, in this case, the word may not have "changed," or "grown," so much as it was used to express something new. Words and their definitions act as static locks and catches for dynamic concepts. More on that later. All i'm saying is that, personally, i prefer Justice, to "nothing more than." Defining a word and defining a concept are slightly different tasks. For example: calling something a "War on Terrorism" is all well and good, in concept form, but the actual worded definition of terrorism is "The act of causing terror." A tactic cannot have war waged against it, therefore one cannot have a "war on terrorism," any more than one can have a "war on drugs." But i digress. Justice, as a word, can be defined, and redefined, point for point, but one must realise that you aren't defining the concept of Justice, and that some concepts cannot be defined.
Certain concepts are shifting, changing things that evoke a certain Feeling, more-so than a cognitive understanding. To say that a concept has parts, would require us to enumerate those parts. With some things, like squares, numbers, apples, &c., this enumeration is possible. With things like Justice, however, defining it removes it from being a concept to being, merely, a word. Words can be defined, explicitly, but Justice eludes definition. You know Justice, when you feel it. You know Truth, Integrity, Love, Honesty, because of the feel you get, from them. And you know the un-truths, the disingenuous, because you're repulsed. Or, rather, these things repulse almost all of you. There are, perhaps, those of you reading this who enjoy and revel in the pain and disingenuity. There are some, in the world, that would qualify that as "evil." i consider it a choice. But i'm still talking to you. i want to get an understanding of all points of view. Justice should be understood, even by those who hate it.
To clarify, i feel like i'm the one in this world who still wants to understand and spread understanding of these concepts. i want them to be understood for their vagueness, their ambiguity, and their broad abstractions. They are the Dynamics: The Ideas behind the words, that flow and move with human understanding. The words are Static. The definitions stay the same, for as long as we understand certain concepts, certain ways. But there is a point, where the changes in human understanding can move away from what was laid down as the original Truth of the concept. The more and more we force something to "evolve," the more it loses certain aspects, in favour of the ones we think it needs to survive. At that point we must choose whether we are ok with the continuance of this change. Are we all right with our static representation of "Just," meaning "only," in light of the remainder of the concept? Perhaps it holds a poignancy, in its belittlement. As with all of our words, perhaps it is a reflection of the current state of the human race.
Words used to mean one thing; one scene, one Idea, and only that one. Whenever it were to change, be that tomorrow or yesterday, it would be represented by a different word. The word included so much detail and understanding, that there was no need to ask "when," or �where;� that was all included within the word. Today, our words are broad and vague, trying to hold the roles of concepts. When the words we use to define and understand our Ideas no longer do their jobs, what are we to do? Add more words? Sure, but why new definitions for old concepts? Why not new for new? If we have a new concept to express, don't clutter up the old defining words. Make new words.
There is this wild assumption that, if one concept does something, all other concepts have to do it, as well. Why? Since when has Justice been like four? Or like a Triangle? Explain to me how Beauty can be classified like Fruit. These are all concepts we have. Every over-arching category we hold, that holds within it sub-categories, and adjectives, and nouns, to represent it, is a concept. Our reality is made up of concepts and ideas. But that doesn't mean they have to be thought about and understood in the same way. Philosophers have been arguing for years, as to whether concepts are based on Necessary and Sufficient Conditions, choosing from some unknown quantity of attributes, a paradigmatic prototype-- meaning the main exemplifying idea, against which all other examples are held--, or whether they just cannot be broken down, into parts, at all. Why can't the answer be "yes"? Why do all concepts have to fit within one of these categories?
The concept of a square has certain necessary and sufficient conditions: it must have four equal sides, four angles, each angle 90 degrees, thusly having all interior angles add up to 360 degrees. The concept of an apple has certain properties, yes, and certain things that people attribute to basic, apple-ness, but if an apple is not red, it is still an apple. If it is not sweet, it is still an apple. If it is without a certain number of seeds, it is still an apple. This concept requires only taking the number of qualities that fit, from a large list, and applying them to the thing in question. If none of the qualities were to fit, then it is not an apple. If, however, it has several, then maybe you should make a pie out of it, and call it a day. Concepts like Fruit, Apple, Pear, can be called cluster concepts. If we wanted to go with the concept of Female, you work from a Paradigm, or Prototypical Concept. Female can be said to have certain necessary and sufficient conditions, but there can be said to be many genetic differences, that make this model impractical. And now that we've, seemingly, cleared these up, where are we to put our lonely Justice?
Justice has no necessary and sufficient conditions. Justice, in our nation, is said to be doled out by a jury of our peers, however, one jury�s verdict is by no means the same as a jury consisting of people of different backgrounds. Juries, within themselves, can deliberate for days on end, due to one single piece of evidence. These people all have different ideas as to what is right, but, in the end, they compromise and come to a verdict, or, unable to resolve their differences, they declare a hung jury. There is no paradigmatic model from which we can draw Justice, nor is there a collection of ideas from which we may pull those, most fitting to our situation. There are many examples illustrating this, down through the ages.
In the bible, there are accounts of great kings and judges, doling out wise and supposedly just decisions, left and right. In the tyme of Plato, there were men pondering and speculating on Justice, for years on end. There were given examples of what was not Justice, and which decisions were just. But, when Socrates asked a group of judges in the street to show him Justice, without an example-- to give him the paradigm of Justice-- none of them could do it. Orthodox religions tend to lay down strict tenets for what is right, wrong, and just. In this, perhaps, Justice does have necessary and sufficient conditions. But show me any two religions that agree upon all of those conditions.
With Justice, we have no concrete attributations, for the concept, and we have no prototype; we must not divide it. If Justice is unable to be broken down into component parts, then we mustn't try. We, should perhaps, instead, consider the Holistic view. Holism states that a concept is indivisible, and is known only through vagaries and broad generalisations, until we bring it into words, and define those. This differs from the prototypical view in that it is never said that there is a comparison made. Holism says that we have these concepts that we know. It makes no claims as to �how,� but does say that the words we use to express-- not define-- these concepts can be manipulated howsoever we may.
In one of their papers, Armstrong, Glietman, and Glietman stated that the prototype view does not work, overall. They used examples of whole even numbers, to counter Elanor Rosch�s examples of fruit. In Rosch�s examples, people were asked to rate a thing�s fruit-ness, based on a prototype, and they did. A, G, and G did this with even numbers, showing that people would rate a number ending in 4, but containing series of 3s, 5s, 9s, and 7s as a worse even number than, simply, 2. Their comment was that, regardless of the intermediate digits, it still ended in an even number, thusly making it an even number. They posited that this brought down the prototype view, and it did... in relation to numbers. However, in relation to fruit, it continued working, quite nicely.
There does not exist solely one method of defining concepts. For the most part, people tend to get caught up in the view that, since they believe something, it must be correct. Many things, which were here long before humans, cannot be defined, in human terms, yet people still attempt to classify them, and call them the anomalies. If, in closing, i may remind us all of what Robert M. Pirsig had to say of the platypus:
"The platypus isn�t doing anything paradoxical at all. It isn�t having any problems. Platypi have been laying eggs and suckling their young for millions of years before there were any zoologists to come along and declare it illegal. The real mystery, the real enigma, is how mature, objective, trained scientific observers can blame their own goof on a poor innocent platypus." (Lila, Robert M. Pirisg, Copyright 1991, New York: Bantam, 117).
In human classifications, a platypus is seen as both a mammal and a reptile, with certain qualities that we attribute to both of these categories. In realistic classifications, a platypus is neither a mammal nor a reptile, nor is a raven a bird. These names are all merely labels humans attach to these things in an effort to understand them. A platypus is a platypus-- if we feel compelled to name it-- and it always has been. It was what it was, long before we were around to describe, observe, and attempt to explain it, through labeling. i would like to suggest that, perhaps, with the way we view concepts, we have created, for ourselves, another platypus.