| | Neil, you wrote,
"I reread Prof. Matson's essay and got a different impression from it. Actually, he seems to understand Rand well. What you point out are differences between Rand and Matson. Prof. Matson explain why he differs from Rand and his discussion of why Rand's view of concepts has the potential to lead to subjectivism or solipsism struck me as quite interesting. He does in fact say why he rejects the notion of concepts."
Perhaps, I was being a bit too flippant and unfair to Matson, for he does give a plausible rendering of Rand's views in the initial part of his essay, wherein he acknowledges a meaningful distinction between the referents of words and concepts, but he nevertheless winds up dismissing that distinction and accepting the use of "word" as an apparent substitute for "concept," evidently on the grounds that words and concepts have the same referents.
When Rand says that it is not words but concepts that man defines, I think that what she may have in mind is that one can (at least initially) employ a word to symbolize whatever concept one chooses. In that respect, the definition of a word cannot be true or false, because it constitutes an arbitrary designation. But the definition of a concept can be true or false, because it must conform to certain epistemological criteria. It must specify the concept's genus and differentia.
- Bill
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