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Single Idea 5553

[filed under theme 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / a. Nature of concepts ]

Full Idea

There are only two ways in which a necessary agreement of experience with the concepts of its objects can be thought: either the experience makes these concepts possible or these concepts make the experience possible.

Gist of Idea

Either experience creates concepts, or concepts make experience possible

Source

Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B166)

Book Ref

Kant,Immanuel: 'Critique of Pure Reason', ed/tr. Guyer,P /Wood,A W [CUO 1998], p.264

A Reaction

A nice clear statement of the big question about concepts. The extremes seem to be the 'tabula rasa' versus Fodor's strong 'nativism' (that most concepts are innate). Personally I want to be as empiricist as possible. Kant needs a theory of their origin.

The 28 ideas with the same theme [general ideas about concepts]:

20804 Concepts are intellectual phantasms [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch]
12911 Concepts are what unite a proposition [Leibniz]
17616 Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind [Kant]
5553 Either experience creates concepts, or concepts make experience possible [Kant]
5593 Reason generates no concepts, but frees them from their link to experience in the understanding [Kant]
15607 We don't think with concepts - we think the concepts [Hegel]
15610 Active thought about objects produces the universal, which is what is true and essential of it [Hegel]
20953 Every concept depends on the counter-concepts of what it is not [Hegel, by Bowie]
8715 Infinities expand the bounds of the conceivable; we explore concepts to explore conceivability [Cantor, by Friend]
23189 Concepts are rough groups of simultaneous sensations [Nietzsche]
23192 Concepts don’t match one thing, but many things a little bit [Nietzsche]
9870 Early Frege takes the extensions of concepts for granted [Frege, by Dummett]
5384 A universal of which we are aware is called a 'concept' [Russell]
16366 The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans]
8245 The logical attitude tries to turn concepts into functions, when they are really forms or forces [Deleuze/Guattari]
13865 'Sortal' concepts show kinds, use indefinite articles, and require grasping identities [Wright,C]
13866 A concept is only a sortal if it gives genuine identity [Wright,C]
16535 A concept is a way of thinking of things or kinds, whether or not they exist [Lowe]
10344 Our experience may be conceptual, but surely not the world itself? [Kusch]
10110 Corresponding to every concept there is a class (some of them sets) [George/Velleman]
17980 The main theories of concepts are exemplar, prototype and knowledge [Murphy]
16365 Mental files are individual concepts (thought constituents) [Recanati]
8688 Concepts can be presented extensionally (as objects) or intensionally (as a characterization) [Friend]
19088 For pragmatists a concept means its consequences [Macbeth]
11120 Concepts are either representations, or abilities, or Fregean senses [Margolis/Laurence]
18574 Concepts for categorisation and for induction may be quite different [Machery]
18588 Concept theories aim at their knowledge, processes, format, acquisition, and location [Machery]
18611 We should abandon 'concept', and just use 'prototype', 'exemplar' and 'theory' [Machery]