The Role and Main Features of 'Conceptual Scheme' - Literature review Example

ON CONCEPTUAL SCHEMES INTRODUCTION As man finds himself part of a larger community, man soon realizes that his interaction with other men demands that a common framework be stricken in order to be able to lead a harmonious life with others. However, as soon as he recognizes the need to create a common framework, he is also right a way able to identify that he is confounded by the intricate and complex problems of experience, reality and language. As such, he puts it upon himself to explicate the meandering relation between man’s experiences (whether inner or outer), of the world as transmitted through language. CONCEPTUAL SCHEMES The moment that one starts discussing ‘conceptual schemes,’ one knows that one is to be dealing with ‘concepts.’ But what are concepts? Philosophers, since perhaps the time of Ancient Philosophy, have tried to understand what concept is. And one of the more common definitions of the term ‘concept’ is that it is the innate, intrinsic ability of man to formulate ideas inside his mind. It presents the idea that the moment that we try to clarify the term ‘concept’ itself it implies that one is going to look into the deep recesses of man’s thoughts, private thoughts. Because that is what concepts are all about, it is how man appreciates things that he perceives. But then, the problem with this is that it is something internal meaning that whatever maybe presents in one’s thoughts may not necessarily be what it is. Why? For the simple reason that concepts are part of man’s internal world. And as such, under this valuation of concept, it can thus be considered that concepts do not possess any truth-value at all. It can only be considered as right or wrong the moment that concepts are no longer working within boundaries of one’s mind but is now being given an external representation through the utilization of language. Thomas Hobbes in the Leviathan claims, The general use of speech, is to transfer Mentall Discourse into Verbal; or the Trayne our Thoughts, into a Trayneof words; and that for two commodities; whereof one is the Registering of the Consequences of our Thoughts; which being apt to slip out of our memory, and put us to a new labour, may gain be recalled by such words as they were marked by. So the first use of names is to serve for Markes or Notes of remembrance. Another is when many use he same words, to signifie (by their connexion and order,) one to another what conceive, or think of the matter;and also what hey desire, feare, or have any other passion for. And for this use they are called Signes.1 Thus, Hobbes looks at language as mere tool that man utilizes for memory or remembrance as it acts as a sign or mark of past experiences. In this conception, language is subsumed to man’s innate ability of formulating ideas and concepts so much so that under Hobbes one can read the notion that language are not really representative of that which is ‘real’ rather it is an arbitrary construct of men for his memory. This standpoint has been one of the more traditional valuations of the relation between man, his language and the world. But the problem is not only that. As we accede, more or less, to the idea that concepts are intrinsic, innate ability of men to formulate ideas. And, that these ideas are removed from the privacy of thoughts via the creation of language that acts as markers or signs of past experience, a larger question looms – how can our words speak of that which is Real. The Modern Period of the History of Philosophy produced the two most dynamic intellectual movements in the history of humanity - Rationalism and Empiricism. Though both Rationalism and Empiricism have come up with a feasible explanation of the relation between man and his representation of the world and the world itself. Still, both are working from the background of “ knowledge of reality… remaining (sic) within the terms of the story told by common sense… they all reduce on examination to the bare, non-explanatory claim that we represent real things because they affect us and because we have an immanent capacity to represent them.”2 Recognizing the problem between Rationalism and Empiricism, Immanuel Kant tried to bridge the gap by positing the idea of a reality wherein the reality of the world of objects, which is the ground of our experiences, is not turned into ideas itself. Thus, maintaining its objectivity as it is impressed in our minds. While at the same time, of equal weight and importance, is the side by side upholding of the assertion that human beings possess the intrinsic capacity to formulate ideas. This, Kant is able to do by coming up with what he calls synthetic a priori principles, ” which, rarely regarded as rules for the objective use of the Categories… and they are judgements about the ‘possibility of objective experience in very much the same sense in which a posteriori judgements are about what is given in perception.”3 And it is in this light that contemporary philosophical discussion regarding the interrelation of language, meaning, truth and reality is pursued. Willard Van Quine on his article “Two Dogmas of Empiricism,” presented the idea that the two approaches regarding the validation of our knowledge claims regarding Reality are basically conditioned by our belief “in some fundamental cleavage between truths which are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of matters of fact which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. The other dogma is reductionism: the belief that each meaningful statement is equivalent to some logical construct upon terms which refer to immediate experience.”4 And that further articulation of our experiences, its meaning and verification though the use of the two dogmas are found to be inadequate. Both reductionism and analytic-synthetic statements are suffering from inability to encapsulate and made meaningful experiences of human beings as they are. Implying that the effort to reduce experiences into sets of logical statement structures that are coherent or correspondent are only made possible by importing our experiences into these very structures. Thus, signifying that the analysis of truth are basically not resting on the actual experience themselves but are rather anchored on the interchangeability of statements or rules of statements or the rules of language. As such, Quine is exhorting us that if there will be changes in the meaning or paradigms, it is not the actual experience that needs to be relegated in the periphery but it is the rules of semantics, statements itself that needs modification. And it is in this cabal, that we try to understand what is conceptual scheme. Conceptual scheme in a very simplistic manner can be “likened to points of view.”5 It incorporates the common notion regarding concepts but it acknowledges the important role language plays as human being move from thinking to speaking and vice-versa. In fact, some scholars are claiming that the establishment of “conceptual scheme” is in effect, how human beings perform actions that are basically ought to have been thought of first yet in the dynamics of human life. It appears that there is no more solid distinguishing grounds or line between thinking and speech or language. Since human thinks via their language and it is language that acts as parameters by which human intellect may involve itself in reflection of in creation. In this sense, language appears to be the boundaries of each conceptual scheme that we have. Even if Quine claims that conceptual schemes are tools in themselves as we try to understand Reality, it is still working within the boundaries set by the language that we utilize to describe and define human experiences. The nobility of Donaldson’s view regarding ‘conceptual schemes’ as explicated in his work “The Very Idea of Conceptual Schemes” is gives that idea that language is predominantly important in the understanding of conceptual schemes. Schemes working form the context of ‘content’ implies greatly that the utilization of language vis-a vis a conceptual scheme, will yield understanding between individuals who may be sharers of the same meaning on the same symbols and is open to the danger of irresolvable or irreconcilable differences from people who do not use the same meaning for the same symbols. And all of these are made possible again not because there is a question with regards to reality of the world of experiences but rather there is an internal conflict in the language use as humans try to lay down understanding of the world using their own conceptual schemes. This point of view is I think working already from the framework that human beings are capable of having “conceptual scheme.’ It is no longer inquiring the possibility of people not really having any conceptual schemes. They are already assuming that conceptual schemes are part and parcel of our nature and our language failing to see the possibility that the manner by which we understand and talk and speak and react to Reality maybe the result of the conditioning, training that we have. Thus, looking into reality from the spectacles of nature and culture. Beings such, I think that there is really no one, single conceptual scheme that is at play in the world of man. Rather what we have are multiple conceptual schemes that may open itself to the possibility of being untranslatable to another language. This is so for I think that as human beings act and interact with human beings and the physical earth, in lieu of event whether particular or universal, these affects and influences the development of human being. It is indeed true that the language that he uses technically limits man. But that is just it. Time and again man has proven himself to be capable of transcending this limitation. The challenge of being an initiator of action has always been in the shadow of human history. Many do rise up to the challenge but many by far just goes with the flow. And it is in this many that fear of untranslatable language is Real. Thomas Kuhn in his article “Paradigms” stresses the point that what happens in science is but shifting of allegiance from one paradigm to the other with out really any significant changes in the wold itself. It is man’s explanations that changed. The language that he employs that succumbs to deterioration and not the experience. Although, Davidson strongly disagrees with Kuhn as Kuhn opens himself to the possibility of having ‘differing” conceptual schemes in the notion of ‘paradigm shifts.” Still, what is more important is the idea that as human being sty to assimilate knowledge claims they are already familiar with the problem of language as a limitation to the proper understanding and representation of the world. More over, conceptual schemes, as the starting element by which we begin the process of grasping the Reality of the world as it affects us, raises the notion that knowledge comes only from the actual experiences that human being have. But then it is a simplistic view to claim that nobody can know something unless one experiences it. What is more apt is the symbiotic relationship present in our knowledge – both experience and human nature contribute to human knowledge. As such, I think what is being demanded to us to try to veer away from dogmatic, limiting estimation of concepts and conceptual schemes. What is needed right now is not even to look for the common ground that may be point of reference of all human interactions. Rather what is no need by the world of man is the third ground by which differences are not seen as a negative estimation of language, of experiences, of the world of man. Rather the third ground may act as the venue wherein people will learn to work with differences, with cannot be translated of language from one language to the other. This requires more than paradigm shift, it requires human beings empowering themselves to be initiators, creators of a more encompassing language. In the end, conceptual schemes should not be seen as another boundary to human empowerment. Rather it should be one of our tools as we try to re-create a more humane and creative community of human beings. REFERENCE LIST: A. Books Cohen, L. Jonathan. An Essay on Belief and Acceptance. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Davidson, Donald. Essays on Actions & Events. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980. __________”On the Very Idea of Conceptual Scheme.” In Inquiries into Truth and Interpretation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984. __________”Truth and Meaning” In Philosophy of Language. Ed . A.P. Martinich. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996 Foster, Lawrence and Swanson, J.W., eds. Experience and Theory. London: Duckworth, 1970. Gardner, Sebastian. Kant and the Critique of Pure Reason. New York: Routledge, 1991. Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan. Ed. Richard Tuck. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press, 1991. Le Pore, Ernest and McLaughlin, Brian, eds. Actions and Events: Perspectives on the Philosophy of Donald Davidson. Oxford: Basil Blackwell Ltd., 1985. Korner, S. Kant. Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1964. Kuhn, Thomas. “Paradigm.” In Philosophies of Science: From Foundation to Contemporary Issues. Ed. Jennifer Mc Erlean. Belmont: Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2000. Quine, Willard Van. “Two Dogmas of Empiricism.” In Philosophies of Science: From Foundation to Contemporary Issues. Ed. Jennifer Mc Erlean. Belmont: Wadsworth Thomson Learning, 2000. B. Electronic Sources Conceptual Schemes. http://huizen.daxis.nl/henkt/conceptual-scheme- davidson.html, accessed on February 2006. Donald Davidson. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/davidson, accessed on February 2006. Henderson, David K. “Conceptual Schemes After Davidson.” http://cas.memphis.edu/philosophy/dkhndrsn/conceptualschemes.htm, accessed on February 2006. Otchy, Timothy. “Hacking Davidson.” Aporia Vol 15 number 1 – 2005 accessed On February 2006. Read More