Kant and the Platypus - Revision history

Robert.adlington: /* CT and NC as Zones of Common Competence */

2026-03-22T15:36:18Z

CT and NC as Zones of Common Competence

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 * The common competence is continuously negotiated or contracted because the CT is not an entity - it is a procedure - as the Kantian schema is a procedure.
 * There is a constant oscillation - one the one hand I generalize the object and on the other I particularize the schema.
-* We recognize individuals because we relate them to a type, but we are able to formulate types because we have experience of individuals;
+* We recognize individuals because we relate them to a type, but we are able to formulate types because we have experience of individuals.
 == 4. The Platypus Between Dictionary and Encyclopedia ==

Robert.adlington at 17:01, 20 March 2026

2026-03-20T17:01:17Z

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 **Likewise they must not have thought that each Spaniard was riding an animal of a different species, even though the horses brought by the men of Cortès had diverse coats. They must therefore have got a certain idea of that animal, which at first they called maçatl, which is the word they used not only for deer but for all quadrupeds in general.
 **Later, since they began adopting and adapting the foreign names for the objects brought by the invaders, their Nahuatl language transformed the Spanish caballo into cauayor or kawayo.
 * At the close of their first perceptual process, the Aztecs elaborated what we shall call a Cognitive Type (CT) of the horst. If they had lived in a Kantian universe, we should say that this CT was the schema that allowed them to mediate between the concept and the manifold of the intuition.
 * Apart from the appearance, the Aztecs must have immediately attributed a characteristic of "animality" to the horse, given that the term maçatl was immediately applied, as well as the capacity to instpire terror and the functional characteristic of being "rideable", since it was usually seen with human beings on its back.
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 * Semiosic experience tells us that we have the impression that we retain mental images and above all that we interpret many terms publicly and intersubjectively through visual representations. And so the iconic component of knowledge must be postulated as well as the existence of the CT, if we are the account for what common sense proposes to us.
-Nuclear Content
+=== Nuclear Content ===
 * The CT established an area of consensus and the Aztecs associated a "content" with the expression maçatl. At first this agreement must have taken place as a disordered exchange of experiences, but they gradually interpreted the features of their CT in order to homologate it as much as possible.
 * We shall call this set of interpretants the Nuclear Content (NC), and we shall use the word meaning only as a synonym of content.
@@ Line 97: / Line 96: @@
 *I could identify an aliigator the first time I encountered one because the NC of the word alligator had been communicated to me.
 *By supplying instructions with which to identify a token of the type, the NC orients one toward the formation of a tentative CT.
 Molar Content
 == 4. The Platypus Between Dictionary and Encyclopedia ==

Robert.adlington: /* 3. Cognitive Types and Nuclear Content */

2026-03-16T08:30:49Z

3. Cognitive Types and Nuclear Content

← Older revision		Revision as of 08:30, 16 March 2026
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	* The CT established an area of consensus and the Aztecs associated a "content" with the expression maçatl. At first this agreement must have taken place as a disordered exchange of experiences, but they gradually interpreted the features of their CT in order to homologate it as much as possible.		* The CT established an area of consensus and the Aztecs associated a "content" with the expression maçatl. At first this agreement must have taken place as a disordered exchange of experiences, but they gradually interpreted the features of their CT in order to homologate it as much as possible.
	* We shall call this set of interpretants the Nuclear Content (NC), and we shall use the word meaning only as a synonym of content.		* We shall call this set of interpretants the Nuclear Content (NC), and we shall use the word meaning only as a synonym of content.
	* The CT is private, while the NC is public.		* The CT is private, a phenomenon of perceptual semiosis, while the NC is public, a phenomenon of communicative consensus.
	* The CT is a ~~phenomenon~~ of perceptual ~~semiosis~~, ~~while the other~~ is a ~~phenomenon~~ of ~~communicative consensus~~		* The CT, which cannot be seen and cannot be touched - may be postulated only on the basis of recognition, identification, and felicitous reference; the NC represents the way in which we try intersubjectively to make clear which features go to make up a CT.
	*		* The NC, which we recognize in the form of interpretants, can be seen and touched - and this is not just a metaphor, given that the interpretants of the term horse include a great many horses sculpted in bronze or stone.
			* A CT does not necessarily spring from a perceptual experience; it can be transmitted culturally (in the form of an NC) and lead to the success of a future perceptual experience.
			* An NC is expressed sometimes in words, sometimes with gestures, sometimes through images or diagrams.
			* We postulate a CT as a disposition to produce an NC, and we treat an NC as proof that there is a CT around somewhere.
			*I could identify an aliigator the first time I encountered one because the NC of the word alligator had been communicated to me.
			*By supplying instructions with which to identify a token of the type, the NC orients one toward the formation of a tentative CT.
			Molar Content

	== 4. The Platypus Between Dictionary and Encyclopedia ==		== 4. The Platypus Between Dictionary and Encyclopedia ==

Robert.adlington: /* 3. Cognitive Types and Nuclear Content */

2026-03-15T11:38:50Z

3. Cognitive Types and Nuclear Content

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 == 3. Cognitive Types and Nuclear Content ==
-* quote
+* We're concerned with the way in which we speak of objects and situations of which:
 == 4. The Platypus Between Dictionary and Encyclopedia ==

Robert.adlington: /* 2. Kant, Peirce, and the Platypus */

2026-03-12T17:02:09Z

2. Kant, Peirce, and the Platypus

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 == 2. Kant, Peirce, and the Platypus ==
-* quote
+* Often, when faced with an unknown phenomenon, we react by approximation: we seek that scrap of content, already present in our encyclopedia, which for better or worse seems to account for the new fact.
 == 3. Cognitive Types and Nuclear Content ==

Robert.adlington: /* 1. On Being */

2026-03-11T20:26:33Z

1. On Being

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 == 1. On Being ==
-* quote
+* It is not the primary act of attention that defines the something, it is the something that arouses the attention, indeed the attention lying in wait is already part (is evidence) of this something.
 == 2. Kant, Peirce, and the Platypus ==

Robert.adlington at 20:04, 11 March 2026

2026-03-11T20:04:44Z

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 Much like encountering novel objects in the world and using a process that cycles between categorization and revision (of the categorization and of the categories being used), in discussion, we negotiate to a common understanding of the terms we are discussing.
 [[Category:Consciousness]]
 [[Category:Books]]

193.16.224.14 at 17:44, 16 February 2025

2025-02-16T17:44:58Z

← Older revision		Revision as of 17:44, 16 February 2025
Line 17:		Line 17:

	Much like encountering novel objects in the world and using a process that cycles between categorization and revision (of the categorization and of the categories being used), in discussion, we negotiate to a common understanding of the terms we are discussing.		Much like encountering novel objects in the world and using a process that cycles between categorization and revision (of the categorization and of the categories being used), in discussion, we negotiate to a common understanding of the terms we are discussing.
			[[Category:Consciousness]]
			[[Category:Books]]

Rob: Created page with "I enjoyed parts of this and other parts were hard-core philosophy arguing over positions in semiotics that I don't hold and am not interested in. The main thrust of Eco's position seems to be that we cannot understand and navigate in the world without categorizing the objects that we encounter but that these categorizations are: * never perfect, * never perfectly understood * personal to each one of us and when we communicate, the words we use are based on our own defin..."

2025-01-21T17:50:14Z

Created page with "I enjoyed parts of this and other parts were hard-core philosophy arguing over positions in semiotics that I don't hold and am not interested in. The main thrust of Eco's position seems to be that we cannot understand and navigate in the world without categorizing the objects that we encounter but that these categorizations are: * never perfect, * never perfectly understood * personal to each one of us and when we communicate, the words we use are based on our own defin..."

New page

I enjoyed parts of this and other parts were hard-core philosophy arguing over positions in semiotics that I don't hold and am not interested in.

The main thrust of Eco's position seems to be that we cannot understand and navigate in the world without categorizing the objects that we encounter but that these categorizations are:
* never perfect,
* never perfectly understood
* personal to each one of us and when we communicate, the words we use are based on our own definitions/categories and are understood by our interlocutor only in terms of her own imperfect and different definitions/categories.

The platypus acts as a good example as when a European encountered one at first, he tried to fit it into multiple different categories, each of which it fit into imperfectly, and a discussion continued over many decades with the categories never satisfactorily being resolved.

There is a lot of discussion of Peirce, who Eco is sympathetic too, even if his attempts to delineate the process from perception to identification are muddled, and Kant, whose schema seems to idealize categorization in ways that do not align with our modern introspection.

The most interesting section for me was around Cognitive Types, which are made up of:
* Nuclear Content - the core set of characteristics that enable us to identify an encountered object as belonging to the type. For example, for horses, they have four legs, a mane and a tail. They can gallop fast and can be ridden with a saddle and reins. As we encounter more instances of the CT, we may refine the nuclear content but after a while it becomes relatively fixed and forms the basis for communicating about this type of object.
* Molar Content - is slowly accreted around the nuclear content with each encounter either in the world or through writing, pictures or other media

Another very valuable idea is the ability to refer to something, to use a word, and how we take many (all) of these references on trust. We can communicate even if we do not understand the words that are being used and through questioning and inference we build understanding.

Much like encountering novel objects in the world and using a process that cycles between categorization and revision (of the categorization and of the categories being used), in discussion, we negotiate to a common understanding of the terms we are discussing.