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Single Idea 18588

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

Full Idea

A theory of concepts should determine the knowledge stored in them, and the cognitive processes that use concepts. Ideally it should also characterise their format, their acquisition, and (increasingly) localise them in the brain.

Gist of Idea

Concept theories aim at their knowledge, processes, format, acquisition, and location

Source

Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4)

Book Ref

Machery,Edouard: 'Doing Without Concepts' [OUP 2009], p.77

A Reaction

Machery reveals his dubious scientism in the requirement to localise them in the brain. That strikes me as entirely irrelevant to both philosophy and psychology. I want the format, acquisition and knowledge.

The 51 ideas from 'Doing Without Concepts'

18563 By 'concept' psychologists mean various sorts of representation or structure [Machery]
18557 Psychologists treat concepts as long-term knowledge bodies which lead to judgements [Machery]
18559 Philosophy is empty if it does not in some way depend on matters of fact [Machery]
18558 Concept theorists examine their knowledge, format, processes, acquisition and location [Machery]
18562 Connectionists cannot distinguish concept-memories from their background, or the processes [Machery]
18561 We can identify a set of cognitive capacities which are 'higher order' [Machery]
18560 Psychologist treat concepts as categories [Machery]
18564 Do categories store causal knowledge, or typical properties, or knowledge of individuals? [Machery]
18565 There may be ad hoc categories, such as the things to pack in your suitcase for a trip [Machery]
18566 Concepts should contain working memory, not long-term, because they control behaviour [Machery]
18567 In the philosophy of psychology, concepts are usually introduced as constituents of thoughts [Machery]
18569 In philosophy theories of concepts explain how our propositional attitudes have content [Machery]
18570 There may be several ways to individuate things like concepts [Machery]
18573 For each category of objects (such as 'dog') an individual seems to have several concepts [Machery]
18574 Concepts for categorisation and for induction may be quite different [Machery]
18575 The concepts for a class typically include prototypes, and exemplars, and theories [Machery]
18584 One hybrid theory combines a core definition with a prototype for identification [Machery]
18585 Heterogeneous concepts might have conflicting judgements, where hybrid theories will not [Machery]
18577 The word 'grandmother' may be two concepts, with a prototype and a definition [Machery]
18587 The theory account is sometimes labelled as 'knowledge' or 'explanation' in approach [Machery]
18578 Concepts as definitions was rejected, and concepts as prototypes, exemplars or theories proposed [Machery]
18588 Concept theories aim at their knowledge, processes, format, acquisition, and location [Machery]
18589 For behaviourists concepts are dispositions to link category members to names [Machery]
18590 Classical theory implies variety in processing times, but this does not generally occur [Machery]
18591 Classical theory can't explain facts like typical examples being categorised quicker [Machery]
18592 The concepts OBJECT or AGENT may be innate [Machery]
18583 Many categories don't seem to have a definition [Machery]
18594 Knowing typical properties of things is especially useful in induction [Machery]
18593 The term 'prototype' is used for both typical category members, and the representation [Machery]
18595 Prototype theories are based on computation of similarities with the prototype [Machery]
18596 Prototype theorists don't tell us how we select the appropriate prototype [Machery]
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]
18600 Theory Theory says category concepts are knowledge stores explaining membership [Machery]
18601 Theory Theory says concepts are explanatory knowledge, and concepts form domains [Machery]
18602 A thing is classified if its features are likely to be generated by that category's causal laws [Machery]
18603 Maybe concepts are not the typical properties, but the ideal properties [Machery]
18604 Are quick and slow categorisation the same process, or quite different? [Machery]
18605 It is more efficient to remember the prototype, than repeatedly create it from exemplars [Machery]
18606 The prototype view predicts that typical members are easier to categorise [Machery]
18607 Theory theorists rely on best explanation, rather than on similarities [Machery]
18608 If categorisation is not by similarity, it seems to rely on what properties things might have [Machery]
18609 Psychologists use 'induction' as generalising a property from one category to another [Machery]
18610 'Ampliative' induction infers that all members of a category have a feature found in some of them [Machery]
18611 We should abandon 'concept', and just use 'prototype', 'exemplar' and 'theory' [Machery]
18612 Americans are more inclined to refer causally than the Chinese are [Machery]
18613 Artifacts can be natural kinds, when they are the object of historical enquiry [Machery]
18615 Horizontal arguments say eliminate a term if it fails to pick out a natural kind [Machery]
18616 If a term doesn't pick out a kind, keeping it may block improvements in classification [Machery]
18614 Vertical arguments say eliminate a term if it picks out different natural kinds in different theories [Machery]