more from this thinker
|
more from this text
Single Idea 10731
[filed under theme 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / b. Concepts as abilities
]
Full Idea
For abstractionists, concepts are essentially capacities for recognizing recurrent features of the world.
Gist of Idea
For abstractionists, concepts are capacities to recognise recurrent features of the world
Source
Peter Geach (Abstraction Reconsidered [1983], p.163)
Book Ref
'Knowledge and Mind', ed/tr. Ginet,C/Shoemaker,S [OUP 1983], p.163
A Reaction
Recognition certainly strikes me as central to thought (and revelatory of memory, since we continually recognise what we cannot actually recall). Geach dislikes this view, but I see it as crucial to an evolutionary view of thought.
The
18 ideas
with the same theme
[concepts as abilities to believe, decide and reason]:
|
14792
|
A 'conception', the rational implication of a word, lies in its bearing upon the conduct of life
[Peirce]
|
|
18975
|
We return to experience with concepts, where they show us differences
[James]
|
|
12576
|
Possessing a concept is knowing how to go on
[Wittgenstein, by Peacocke]
|
|
4157
|
Concepts direct our interests and investigations, and express those interests
[Wittgenstein]
|
|
12606
|
Man learns the concept of the past by remembering
[Wittgenstein]
|
|
10731
|
For abstractionists, concepts are capacities to recognise recurrent features of the world
[Geach]
|
|
7613
|
Concepts are (at least in part) abilities and not occurrences
[Putnam]
|
|
12575
|
Concepts have a 'Generality Constraint', that we must know how predicates apply to them
[Evans, by Peacocke]
|
|
12614
|
I prefer psychological atomism - that concepts are independent of epistemic capacities
[Fodor]
|
|
2471
|
Are concepts best seen as capacities?
[Fodor]
|
|
2472
|
For Pragmatists having a concept means being able to do something
[Fodor]
|
|
2438
|
In the information view, concepts are potentials for making distinctions
[Fodor]
|
|
12626
|
Cartesians put concept individuation before concept possession
[Fodor]
|
|
12577
|
Possessing a concept is being able to make judgements which use it
[Peacocke]
|
|
12578
|
A concept is just what it is to possess that concept
[Peacocke]
|
|
12587
|
Employing a concept isn't decided by introspection, but by making judgements using it
[Peacocke]
|
|
11123
|
Maybe the concept CAT is just the ability to discriminate and infer about cats
[Margolis/Laurence]
|
|
11125
|
The abilities view cannot explain the productivity of thought, or mental processes
[Margolis/Laurence]
|