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Full Idea
Having a concept is not recognizing a feature of experience; the mind makes concepts. We then fit our concepts to experience.
Gist of Idea
The mind does not lift concepts from experience; it creates them, and then applies them
Source
Peter Geach (Mental Acts: their content and their objects [1957], §11)
Book Ref
Geach,Peter: 'Mental Acts: Their content and their objects' [RKP 1971], p.40
A Reaction
This seems to imply that we create concepts ex nihilo, which is a rather worse theory than saying that we abstract them from multiple (and multi-level) experiences. That minds create concepts is a truism. How do we do it?
| 19372 | Concepts are ordered, and show eternal possibilities, deriving from God [Leibniz, by Arthur,R] |
| 16912 | Some concepts can be made a priori, which are general thoughts of objects, like quantity or cause [Kant] |
| 24129 | We start with images, then words, and then concepts, to which emotions attach [Nietzsche] |
| 23187 | Whatever their origin, concepts survive by being useful [Nietzsche] |
| 19633 | We use concepts to master our fears; saying 'death' releases us from confronting it [Cioran] |
| 10645 | We reach concepts by clarification, or by definition, or by habitual experience [Price,HH] |
| 8781 | The mind does not lift concepts from experience; it creates them, and then applies them [Geach] |
| 11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
| 12658 | Nobody knows how concepts are acquired [Fodor] |
| 17722 | The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke] |
| 5793 | Concepts and generalisations result from brain 'global mapping' by 'reentry' [Edelman/Tononi, by Searle] |
| 4926 | Concepts arise when the brain maps its own activities [Edelman/Tononi] |