Quote:
Originally Posted by Back In The Saddle
Hmmm, so I get that two is an abstract mathematical concept. I get that "2" is a numeral, that represents the abstract concept of two.
But "two" is, in my tiny little mind, "two" is the English language written representation of either "2" or two. Or both. Which makes it, in a word, a word.
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Hey, that's good!
The
word 'two' is the English word that refers to the
number two, which is an abstract object. The
concept is the meaning of the word, and is also distinct from the object. (To see why, imagine that there had never been any humans at all, and so no languages -- the number two would still exist, so it must be distinct from any concept.)
We can talk about the object -- the number -- in different languages, referring to it as 'deux' or 'zwei' or 'dos', etc. But it's one and the same object, no matter which word we use. The unity of the object explains why all of the different words can share the same meaning.
Is that enough semantics for one day?
