{"id":2743,"date":"2012-04-15T13:29:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-15T17:29:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=2743"},"modified":"2012-12-30T01:25:58","modified_gmt":"2012-12-30T06:25:58","slug":"is-it-maps-all-the-way-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2012\/04\/is-it-maps-all-the-way-down.html","title":{"rendered":"Is it Maps All the Way Down?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/p>\n

Yesterday, I went to the Dominican House of Studies for a symposium on Creation and Modern Science, and one of the speakers was Edward Feser<\/a>, author of The Last <\/em>Superstition<\/em><\/a> (the book that got me started exploring\u00a0Aquinas and hanging out with the DC Dominicans<\/a>). \u00a0His lecture was on the immaterial nature of thought, and there\u2019s one facet of it I\u2019d like to highlight here.<\/p>\n

Feser was talking about the distinction between concepts <\/em>and phantasms<\/em>. \u00a0As briefly as possible (i.e. blame me, not Feser, if I\u2019m oversimplifying):<\/p>\n

A phantasm<\/em><\/strong> is an instantiation of a concept. \u00a0It\u2019s a particular triangle, or a specific group of trees. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t have to be a picture of something that exists \u2014 you can have a phantasm<\/em> of a unicorn.<\/p>\n

A concept<\/em><\/strong> is clear and distinct. \u00a0A concept of a triangle isn\u2019t isoceles, equilateral, or scalene because you\u2019re not picturing any specific triangle \u2014 you\u2019re just understanding what the nature of a triangle is<\/em>.<\/p>\n

One good example Feser gave: you can have a concept<\/em> of a chiliagon (a figure with 1000) sides, and that concept will be clearly distinct from a circle, or a figure with 1001 sides. \u00a0But your phantasm<\/em> of a chiliagon will \u2018look\u2019 the same as a figure with 999 sides or a circle. \u00a0Your phantasms<\/em> aren\u2019t granular or clear enough to hit these details, but your concepts<\/em> encompass all scales.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019ve been thinking a lot about map-territory problems lately, so I was really interested in this thread of his argument. \u00a0What I wanted to know was how we could be sure we were differentiating correctly between phantasms<\/em> and concepts<\/em> in the first place. \u00a0If I tell you that I have a clear and distinct idea of a circle: that it\u2019s a set of points at a fixed distance from one point, it certainly doesn\u2019t sound like I\u2019ve got a tangled-up-in-specificity-and-concreteness phantasm<\/em>.<\/p>\n

But several years of chemistry classes have taught me to be suspicious when I think I\u2019ve finally drilled down to Truth. \u00a0You see, in the first chem class I took, we learned about the orbitals electrons occupied in atoms. \u00a0We learned about electrons as mini-moons, orbiting the nucleus. \u00a0When we took AP Chem, our teacher told us, \u201cLook, we lied to you about how orbitals worked, so you could have a reasonable approximation. \u00a0Now we\u2019re going to teach you the VSEPR model<\/a>.\u201d \u00a0I immediately started wondering how many years of chem you had to take before your conceptual models of atoms stabilized, and your professors weren\u2019t constantly telling you that everything you\u2019d learned up to that point had been a noble lie.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

But how good is my supposed concept<\/em> of a circle in the first place? \u00a0Just stating that definition is enough to logically entail plenty of properties of circles, however, my clear and distinct idea isn\u2019t good enough to make me instantly remember and understand that the perpendicular bisector of any chord in a circle passes through the center of the circle. \u00a0It doesn\u2019t feel like I have a firm grasp of what a circle is<\/em>, just that I have an approximation of it, or a partial listing of its properties, or that I\u2019ve got a clear and distinct idea of one facet of the whole.<\/p>\n

I posed this problem to Feser and he told me that my question had already presupposed that I had a sufficiently clear and distinct idea of a circle to know that I was ignorant of some of its properties. \u00a0To be able to start approximating it in the first place, I needed a concept<\/em> that I could test phantasms<\/em> against. \u00a0This sounded satisfying, but I\u2019d be interested in your takes.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, I went to the Dominican House of Studies for a symposium on Creation and Modern Science, and one of the speakers was Edward Feser, author of The Last Superstition (the book that got me started exploring\u00a0Aquinas and hanging out with the DC Dominicans). \u00a0His lecture was on the immaterial nature of thought, and there\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[68],"tags":[149,34,140],"class_list":["post-2743","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-epistemologyphilosophy","tag-map-and-territory","tag-math","tag-neo-platonism"],"yoast_head":"\nIs it Maps All the Way Down?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Yesterday, I went to the Dominican House of Studies for a symposium on Creation and Modern Science, and one of the speakers was Edward Feser, author of\" 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