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Single Idea 11104

[filed under theme 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 5. Concepts and Language / b. Concepts are linguistic ]

Full Idea

Concepts are language.

Gist of Idea

Concepts are language

Source

Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 5)

Book Ref

Quine,Willard: 'From a Logical Point of View' [Harper and Row 1963], p.79

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A Reaction

Hm. This seems to mean that animals and pre-linguistic children have no concepts. I just don't believe that.

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The 5 ideas with the same theme [claim that without language there are no concepts]:

4973	As I understand it, a concept is the meaning of a grammatical predicate [Frege]

8651	A concept is a possible predicate of a singular judgement [Frege]

11104

Concepts are language [Quine]

4882	Concepts are things we (unlike dogs) can think about, because we have language [Dennett]

18589

For behaviourists concepts are dispositions to link category members to names [Machery]