It seems to me that the brain only needs a language of symbols when it talks to something else. But the mental word must be held in the brain as a thought pattern, so what is the difference between the 'word' and the actual thought pattern that it represents? If the brain wants to think of, say, a spoon sitting on a table, why can't it use the actual thought patterns for a spoon and a table instead of representations thereof. Ockham thinks that in mental language a mental 'word' represents a pattern of thought invoked by, for example, a spoon. Ockham actually has the less counterintuitive view here since he has no need to admit that there is a term in anyone's mind for joy buzzer before it is invented, whereas a Platonist would have to admit that if there is a Form for it at all, that Form has always existed.Ī fascinating episode as ever, but one which raised a number of questions for me. But I guess that Ockham and others could say that, if you are prepared to say that there is genuinely a well defined type for a given sort of artefact, like joy buzzer, then there could be a term for it in mental language or universal or Platonic Form - whatever the philosopher in question does to explain commonalities or thoughts that are general in scope. Generally speaking the focus in these traditions is on natural kinds, not on artefacts, in part perhaps because of your point about invention but also maybe because the dividing lines between different types of artefacts, e.g. Like, would they need to say that there is a universal of joy buzzer? Or for Platonists, who already in antiquity queried whether there are Platonic Forms of things humans invent (artefacts). Thanks for writing in - that's an interesting question, and one that poses itself not only for Ockham but for his realist opponents. Thank you so much for continuing to provide this extraordinary resource - I gave your first book of podcast transcripts to my sister, which she greatly appreciated as she entered a new career of teaching history. But the answer to my question might come in the next episode's interview, so I can wait with Hiawatha as she weeps for the loss of her kind until then. If you are able to give a brief reply as to how Ockham approached the topic of non-existent but potential objects, that would be awesome beyond the wonderment of Clara Bow - no, that's not true, Clara Bow is Clara Bow. #OCKHAM COMMUNICATIONS SERIES#This is a harder one for me, as Hopper invented something with which we can have no sense experience, something that has no physical, unique existence except as a series of electrical communications - yet we perceive the compiler as having real existence, since it actually acts in the world! Oof. the compiler: I listen to the very interesting podcast "50 Thing That Made The Modern Economy", from BBC Radio 4, and they covered Grace Hopper's extraordinary invention on one of their episodes. How does one have a conception of that which does not, but might yet, exist in the world, according to Ockham? Nothing like it had had prior existance in the world, but then it did exist as a physical object, due to the mental language and physical effort of humans, starting with one person (from what I can tell). the joy buzzer: there was a time when this object did not exist in the world at all, but then it was invented. Anyway, two unrelated items came to mind: If I missed it in the episode, I really am sorry. But after listening to this episode of HoPWAG, I wondered about how Ockham accounted for the mental language of objects that do not materially exist in the world, but might, as in the minds of inventors. Yrjönsuuri, “Supposition and Truth in Ockham’s Mental Language,” Topoi 16 (1997), 15-25.Īs the saying goes, "long time, first time". Spade (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Ockham (Cambridge: 1999): the papers by Panaccio and Chalmers. Spade, “Synonymy and Equivocation in Ockham’s Mental Language,” Jounral of the History of Philosophy 18 (1980), 9-22. Panaccio, Mental Language: From Plato to Ockham, trans. Panaccio, “From Mental Word to Mental Language,” Philosophical Topics 20 (1992), 125-47. Smith (ed.), Historical Foundations of Cognitive Science (Dordrecht: 1990), 53-70. Normore, “Ockham on Mental Language,” in J.C. Lenz, “Why is Thought Linguistic? Ockham’s Two Conceptions of the Intellect,” Vivarium 46 (2008), 302-17. Hagedorn, “Ockham’s Scientia Argument for Mental Language,” Oxford Studies in Medieval Philosophy 3 (2015), 145-68. Brown, “The Puzzle of Names in Ockham’s Theory of Mental Language,” Review of Metaphysics 50 (1996), 79-99.
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