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Full Idea
The exemplar accounts of conceptual combination are demonstrably wrong, because the meaning of a phrase has to be composed from the meaning of its parts (plus broader knowledge), and it cannot be composed as a function of exemplars.
Gist of Idea
Conceptual combination must be compositional, and can't be built up from exemplars
Source
Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13)
Book Ref
Murphy,Gregory L.: 'The Big Book of Concepts' [MIT 2004], p.487
A Reaction
This sounds quite persuasive, and I begin to see that my favoured essentialism fits the prototype view of concepts best, though this mustn't be interpreted too crudely. We change our prototypes with experience. 'Bird' is a tricky case.
| 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] |
| 17981 | Children using knowing and essentialist categories doesn't fit the exemplar view [Murphy] |
| 17982 | Exemplar theory struggles with hierarchical classification and with induction [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] |