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Originally Posted by Joe Durnavich
As a relevant aside, the discussion between Ken and I centers on whether there is a distinct entity, mental or otherwise, that would constitute “our model of flying objects.”
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Actually, the existence of the model of fllying objects is far easier to establish, both philosophically and scientifically, than the existence of any such "objects" themselves. That's
Len Moran's point here, and I agree. I find it quite odd that your position is basically, we all know the objects exists, but do the models? No, we don't all know any such thing, the models are all we ever get to "know". That's simply clear from examining the mental process we are using.
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Gilbert Ryle says such thinking is a category mistake. He draws an analogy to a university to illustrate:"...A foreigner visiting Oxford or Cambridge for the first time is shown a number of colleges, libraries, playing fields, museums, scientific departments and administrative offices. He then asks 'But where is the University?..."
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If Gilbert Ryle believes that the statement "there are different categories of things" should come as a surprise to anyone, he is quite mistaken. What is lacking from this excerpt is any actual useful or meaningful evidence that what we are talking about, models, is somehow a "category mistake" to talk about. Similar logic would claim that "libraries" and "fields" from his quote represent similar category mistakes-- where's the mistake?
The relevant question here is, does it make sense to group together buildings that contain books into a concept of "library", and does it make sense to group certain conceptual constructions together into the concept of "model". The answer, in both cases, is "yes of course, it would be very silly to object to doing that."