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>
> yes it is a difficult question, but it is *the* question. i can be
> patient.
ok. Can concepts be acquired non-linguistically? I think so. Ostensive defn may play a part in concept acquisition and concept formulation. It may get the ball rolling so to speak, when I child is learning a language (contra Chomsky) and coming to acquire a view of the world ( a conceptual scheme) The problem with Chomsky is that concepts like 'internet' have not been around long enough to tell a Darwin story about them. Pigeons can identify trucks by looking at disimiliar photographs. If the pigeon can identify different trucks in different contexts then it must have a concept of truck. The naturalistic approach tries to explain mental content non-mentally. My guess is that most though not all, of our concepts are learned through language.
The process of conceptual formulation and the broader question of which it is part, of why people believe and think what they do is interesting. Kantians like Chomsky believe that concepts are innate, a product of the biological structure of the mind. Innate concepts are imposed on the world in order to make sense of it. In Chomsky's view, the process of learning concepts is so complex that concepts can only be innate. The empiricist tradition believed that the mind is a "tabula rosa", a blank slate in which sense experience is the source of all concepts and all thought and belief. The truth is probably somewhere in between. The problem with the empiricists is that they believed mental content was determined by our _experience_ of the world and not our _representation_ of the objective world.
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>
> > Ideological speech is speech that is (1) not empirically
> verified,<
>
> can the principle of verifiability be verified?
Nope. The principle of verification is too strong and is undesirable as a principle. Besides boring self-referential paradoxes, it rests on an untenable theory/observation and an untenable unobservable/observable distinction. However, ideological claims are empirical claims and as empirical claims they stand or fall as the empirical evidence shows the truth or falsity of the claim. I know of no other way of proceeding. Consider the statement "the URNG provoked the Guatemalen Army into committing genocide against sectors of its own population. The genocide in Guatemala was thus the fault of the URNG and not the military." This political/ideological claim is an empirical claim. The empirical evidence show that it is false. Given that it is false, why is it being disseminated by the intelligentsia and why is it believed when all evidence points to the contrary?
Behavior is partly explained by thoughts, partly explained by beliefs and desires. Thoughts, beliefs and desires are at least in part a representation of the world. My thoughts and concepts are a product of a causal relation between me and the world. Its open to question just how much human behavior is manipulated. Books are written on these subjects. A couple I would recommend are _A Representational Theory of Mind_ by Kim Sterelny and _Realism and Truth_ by Michael Devitt. Both Australians, both Marxians.
Sam Pawlett