Re: Number/Specificality/Archetypes in Language

 --- Ray Brown <ray.brown@...> a écrit :
> As I've said, it depends how one defines
> "archetype". I was talking in
> Platonic terms. Certainly to Plato, Maleness &
> Elephanthood are 'Forms'
> that have greater reality than any individual
> elephant that shares in
> these archetypal Forms.
>
> [snip]
>
> The only similarity between Plato's ideas & that of
> OOP is that just as we
> can have hierarchies of classes so it is clear that
> there was a hierarchy
> of Forms/Archetypes. But there important
> differences.
>
> In OOP the class definition is an _abstract_
> definition, this applies both
> to superclasses and subclasses. Objects are the
> actual instantiations of
> such classes. In Plato's thinking the Forms are not
> abstract; they not
> only have a transcendent existence, they are more
> real than anything we
> see in the physical material world.
Hmmm... "more real" doesn't mean much to me. To me,
that's all a question of mental representation,
limited by the possibilities of the human brain. Of
course, in Plato's time, people probably considered
things differently. I would say that "maleness" and
"elephanthood" are more primitive concepts than "male
elephant", and they can be combined in order to
produce the concept of a male elephant. But it might
well be that that aren't any things like males,
elephants or male elephants in reality.

Plato's conception should probably be adapted to our
time, but something from it might be re-used,
reorienting it in a different perspective.

> Also an important difference IMO is that Plato's
> Forms are static, but OOP
> classes not only have static attributes but also
> have _methods_, i.e. are
> dynamic. This is important difference between
> old-fashioned 'records' and
> the newer 'objects'. It is also, i think, an
> important difference between
> OOP classes & Platonic Forms.
Well, clearly Plato's concern was not about methods,
but rather about knowledge and reality. But it's easy
to imagine an "elephant.eat" method.

(BTW, I just tested my first function for reversing
the nodes (and also the order of the characters in the
text fields) inside a HTML document, using the DOM
specifications, and I find it great ! Applying such a
function to an elephant would be quite exciting,
although rather cruel).

> >  In the
> >> Platonic sense, nothing _belongs_ to an
> Archetype.
> >> The things of this
> >> world (which to Plato were less than real -
> shadows
> >> of shadows)
> >> 'participate' in or share in an Archetype and,
> >> indeed, will share in more
> >> than one Archetype.
> >
> > So they inherit properties from different
> archetypes ?
>
> Yes, but do not think Plato would see it that way at
> all. Objects inherit
> methods & attributes of the class of which they are
> instantiations. But
> humans, elephants, tables, computers, trees, etc.,
> etc. are not for Plato
> instantiations. But. i admit, it is not entirely
> clear how he saw
> _metekein_ working.
>
If it means "participate", then one perhaps could
compare it to a human being participating to different
clubs or associations, being a subscriber or a
customer for different products, etc. You can be a
conlanger, a vegetarian, a baseball player, a faithful
reader of "Playboy" and an Electricite de France
customer. None of these aspects defines you, you don't
"belong" to any of these entities, and you can share
in many of them at the same time. And Electricite de
France will survive even if you die or revoke your
subscribing (and also the concept of "E.D.F. customer"
will survive). The verb "to be" has very many
different meanings, and this confuses us.

(snip)
>
> Unless, like my grandmother - dead for many a year
> now -you believe no
> Americans ever went near the moon and the whole thin
> was acted out in some
> TV studio or film set   ;)
>
It's not impossible. You can't trust anything any more
nowadays (consider the "proofs" for the presence of
massive destruction weapons in Irak). Desinformation
is the universal rule.

=====
Philippe Caquant


Ceterum censeo *vi* esse oblitterandum (Me).


	

	
		
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