I came late to lecture #3 so missed John’s initial question about whether Rand’s explanation of a child’s grasp of a concept (her example was “length” on page 11 of ITOE) was inconsistent with Peikoff’s insistence that “the word constitutes the completion of the integration stage: it is the form in which the concept exists” (page 70 of OPAR). Clearly, very young children seem to grasp similarities among existents they perceive (drinking bottles in John’s example) and group them together before learning to speak. I agree with Seamus that they are not inconsistent. I suggest the child’s grasp of “drinking thing” by merely pointing is an implicit grasp of the concept of a bottle whereas the use of the word “bottle” when older would be an explicit one. “Implicit” means expressed in an indirect way (eg the child pointing to the parents’ bottle when wanting to drink). Only when older and speaking can the child be more clear about what he wants when he asks mom “can I have the bottle” ie explicit grasp. I believe Peikoff hints at this when he says the word is the “completion” of the integration stage ie that only when the concept is transformed into a (mental) entity by use of a word (Rand’s comment on page 11 of ITOE) is the process complete (explicit). This seems consistent with the observation we often make that we really do not fully understand something until we can write it down and/or express it to someone else clearly.
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