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Single Idea 2472
[filed under theme 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 3. Ontology of Concepts / b. Concepts as abilities
]
Full Idea
It's a paradigmatically Pragmatist idea that having a concept consists in being able to do something.
Clarification
A 'paradigm' is a perfect example
Gist of Idea
For Pragmatists having a concept means being able to do something
Source
Jerry A. Fodor (In a Critical Condition [2000], Ch. 3)
Book Ref
Fodor,Jerry A.: 'In Critical Condition' [MIT 2000], p.29
A Reaction
If you defined a bicycle simply by what you could do with it, you wouldn't explain much. I wonder if pragmatism and functionalism come from the same intellectual stable?
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
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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
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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
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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
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The abilities view cannot explain the productivity of thought, or mental processes
[Margolis/Laurence]
|