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Full Idea
In the exemplar view of concepts, the idea that people have a representation that somehow encompasses an entire concept is rejected. ...Instead a person's concept of dogs is the set of dogs that the person remembers.
Gist of Idea
The exemplar view of concepts says 'dogs' is the set of dogs I remember
Source
Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch. 3)
Book Ref
Murphy,Gregory L.: 'The Big Book of Concepts' [MIT 2004], p.49
A Reaction
[The theory was introduced by Medin and Schaffer 1978] I think I have finally met a plausible theory of concepts. When I think 'dog' I conjure up a fuzz of dogs that exhibit the range I have encountered (e.g. tiny to very big). Individuals come first!
Related Ideas
Idea 17976 Prototypes are unified representations of the entire category (rather than of members) [Murphy]
Idea 17981 Children using knowing and essentialist categories doesn't fit the exemplar view [Murphy]
| 10409 | Research suggests that concepts rely on typical examples [Swoyer] |
| 17974 | The most popular theories of concepts are based on prototypes or exemplars [Murphy] |
| 17977 | The exemplar view of concepts says 'dogs' is the set of dogs I remember [Murphy] |
| 17982 | Exemplar theory struggles with hierarchical classification and with induction [Murphy] |
| 17981 | Children using knowing and essentialist categories doesn't fit the exemplar view [Murphy] |
| 17984 | Conceptual combination must be compositional, and can't be built up from exemplars [Murphy] |
| 17987 | The concept of birds from exemplars must also be used in inductions about birds [Murphy] |
| 18597 | Concepts as exemplars are based on the knowledge of properties of each particular [Machery] |
| 18598 | Exemplar theories need to explain how the relevant properties are selected from a multitude of them [Machery] |
| 18599 | In practice, known examples take priority over the rest of the set of exemplars [Machery] |