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Single Idea 16511

[filed under theme 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / f. Theory theory of concepts ]

Full Idea

A 'conception' of horse is a theory of what a horse is, or what it is to be a horse. The conception is in no way the same as the concept. The conception is of the concept.

Gist of Idea

A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept')

Source

David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1)

Book Ref

Wiggins,David: 'Sameness and Substance' [Blackwell 1980], p.79

A Reaction

Wiggins sounds confident about a sharp distinction here, which I doubt, but some such distinction seems to required. I quite like Williams's 'fat' and 'thin' concepts.

The 29 ideas from 'Sameness and Substance'

16492 Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins]
16493 Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins]
16496 Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins]
16495 The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins]
16494 We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins]
17529 Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins]
16497 Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins]
16498 Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins]
16499 A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins]
16502 Identity is primitive [Wiggins]
16503 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins]
16501 In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins]
16505 By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins]
16506 Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins]
17530 The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins]
16510 Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins]
16509 Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins]
16511 A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins]
16512 Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins]
16515 A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins]
16514 Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins]
16517 Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins]
16518 We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins]
16521 A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins]
16522 It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins]
16523 Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins]
16524 Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins]
16525 Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins]
16526 Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins]