"Concepts, or predicates, are always universals, which means that no individual can be defined, as an individual, by concepts." (Kelley Ross in his essay on universals)
This brings out a point that דע אלהי אביך ועבדהו [What Kind David said to his son Know the God of your father and serve Him] has to be by a different kind of knowledge.
This may seem like a small point, but it is not. Reason in its most expanded form perceives only universals. Hume made a mistake thinking that it only can perceive contradictions. And he built on this idea his entire book. See the Essay by Bryan Caplan which goes into detail about Hume's misunderstanding. From where did Hume get mixed up? Elementary High School Geometry. Though he never says it, but this is clearly the source of his confusion. He saw Euclid had a few self evident axioms, and could build his vast and complex system on these alone and by the principle of contradiction. Hume concluded that that is all Reason can do. Clearly he was confused. Reason can do much more. It can know universals. But that is the limit.
Knowing an individual even by an infinite number of adjectives- still means one does not know the individual.
It is a different kind of knowing. Different in quality, not different in quantity.
This brings out a point that דע אלהי אביך ועבדהו [What Kind David said to his son Know the God of your father and serve Him] has to be by a different kind of knowledge.
This may seem like a small point, but it is not. Reason in its most expanded form perceives only universals. Hume made a mistake thinking that it only can perceive contradictions. And he built on this idea his entire book. See the Essay by Bryan Caplan which goes into detail about Hume's misunderstanding. From where did Hume get mixed up? Elementary High School Geometry. Though he never says it, but this is clearly the source of his confusion. He saw Euclid had a few self evident axioms, and could build his vast and complex system on these alone and by the principle of contradiction. Hume concluded that that is all Reason can do. Clearly he was confused. Reason can do much more. It can know universals. But that is the limit.
Knowing an individual even by an infinite number of adjectives- still means one does not know the individual.
It is a different kind of knowing. Different in quality, not different in quantity.
