structure for 'Thought'    |     alphabetical list of themes    |     unexpand these ideas

18. Thought / D. Concepts / 1. Concepts / a. Nature of concepts

[general ideas about concepts]

28 ideas
Concepts are intellectual phantasms [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch]
     Full Idea: A concept is a phantasm of the intellect of a rational animal.
     From: report of Stoic school (fragments/reports [c.200 BCE]) by Pseudo-Plutarch - On the Doctrine of the Philosophers 900c
     A reaction: No doubt they assume that the brutes are devoid of all concepts, but that makes it hard to explain their behaviour.
Concepts are what unite a proposition [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: There must always be some basis for the connexion between the terms of a proposition, and it is to be found in their concepts.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X)
     A reaction: We face the problem that bothered Russell, of the unity of the proposition. We are also led to the question of HOW our concepts connect the parts of a proposition. Do concepts have valencies? Are they incomplete, as Frege suggests?
Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind [Kant]
     Full Idea: Without sensibility no object would be given to us, and without understanding none would be thought. Thoughts without content are empty, intuitions without concepts are blind.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B075/A51)
     A reaction: A famous assertion, which requires quite a lot of deconstruction. See MacDowell 1994 for example. Whatever the solution, it had better allow animals to cope with their world, because that's what they do.
Either experience creates concepts, or concepts make experience possible [Kant]
     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.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B166)
     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.
Reason generates no concepts, but frees them from their link to experience in the understanding [Kant]
     Full Idea: Only from the understanding can pure concepts arise, and reason cannot generate any concept at all, but can only free a concept of the understanding from the unavoidable limitations of possible experience, and extend it beyond empirical boundaries.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Pure Reason [1781], B435/A409)
     A reaction: Presumably Descartes' 'natural light' should cover the understanding as much as the reason. This quotation brings out the empirical aspect of Kant's thought. It suggests that analysis is the main function of reason.
We don't think with concepts - we think the concepts [Hegel]
     Full Idea: There is a saying that, when we have grasped a concept, we still do not know what to think with it. But there is nothing to be thought with a concept save the concept itself.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §03 Rem)
     A reaction: Analytic philosophers should read Hegel on concepts, because he approaches the matter so very differently, and seems to be the root of the continental approach to such things. He seems to me to talk more sense than Frege on the subject.
Active thought about objects produces the universal, which is what is true and essential of it [Hegel]
     Full Idea: When thinking is taken as active with regard to ob-jects, as the thinking-over of something, then the universal - as the product of the activity - contains the value of the matter, what is essential, inner, true.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §21)
     A reaction: I prefer to talk of 'general terms' rather than 'universals'. If 'tiger' is coined for the first one, but must be applicable to subsequent tigers, it has to generalise what they all have in common. Locke's 'nominal' essence, I would say.
Every concept depends on the counter-concepts of what it is not [Hegel, by Bowie]
     Full Idea: Hegel relies on the claim that every concept depends for its determinacy upon its relation to other concepts which it is not (so that even the concept of being depends, for example, upon the concept of nothing).
     From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (Science of Logic [1816]) by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 4 'Questions'
     A reaction: How does he know this? A question I keep asking about continental philosophers. The negation concepts must be entirely non-conscious. Which negation concepts are relevant to the concept 'tree'?
Infinities expand the bounds of the conceivable; we explore concepts to explore conceivability [Cantor, by Friend]
     Full Idea: Cantor (in his exploration of infinities) pushed the bounds of conceivability further than anyone before him. To discover what is conceivable, we have to enquire into the concept.
     From: report of George Cantor (works [1880]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 6.5
     A reaction: This remark comes during a discussion of Husserl's phenomenology. Intuitionists challenge Cantor's claim, and restrict what is conceivable to what is provable. Does possibility depend on conceivability?
Concepts are rough groups of simultaneous sensations [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: Concepts are more or less definite groups of sensations that arrive together.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1885-1886 [1886], 34[086])
     A reaction: I like this because I favour accounts of concepts which root them in experience, and largely growing unthinking out of communcal experience. Nietzsche is very empirical here. Hume would probably agree.
Concepts don’t match one thing, but many things a little bit [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: A concept is an invention that doesn't correspond entirely to anything; but to many things a little bit.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Fragments from 1885-1886 [1886], 34[131])
     A reaction: This seems to cover some concepts quite well, but others not at all. What else does 'square' correspond to?
Early Frege takes the extensions of concepts for granted [Frege, by Dummett]
     Full Idea: In the 'Grundlagen' Frege takes the notion of the extension of a concept for granted as unproblematic.
     From: report of Gottlob Frege (Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) [1884]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.16
     A reaction: This comfortable notion was undermined by Russell's discovery of a concept which couldn't have an extension. Maybe we could defeat the Russell problem (and return to Frege's common sense) by denying that sets are objects.
A universal of which we are aware is called a 'concept' [Russell]
     Full Idea: A universal of which we are aware is called a 'concept'.
     From: Bertrand Russell (Problems of Philosophy [1912], Ch. 5)
     A reaction: I am doubtful about this. Do children, and even animals, have a concept of 'my mother', without ever grasping the generalisation to 'his mother'? Is the word 'this' a non-universal concept?
The Generality Constraint says if you can think a predicate you can apply it to anything [Evans]
     Full Idea: If a subject can be credited with the thought that a is F, then he must have the conceptual resources for entertaining the thought that a is G, for every property of being G of which he has conception. This condition I call the 'Generality Constraint'.
     From: Gareth Evans (The Varieties of Reference [1980], p.104), quoted by François Recanati - Mental Files 5.3
     A reaction: Recanati endorses the Constraint in his account of mental files. Apparently if I can entertain the thought of a circle being round, I can also entertain the thought of it being square, so I am not too sure about this one.
The logical attitude tries to turn concepts into functions, when they are really forms or forces [Deleuze/Guattari]
     Full Idea: Logic is reductionist not accidentally, but essentially and necessarily: following the route marked out by Frege and Russell, it wants to turn the concept into a function (...when actually a concept is a form, or a force).
     From: G Deleuze / F Guattari (What is Philosophy? [1991], 2.6)
     A reaction: [Last part on p.144] I'm not sure that I understand 'form or force', but the idea that concepts are mere functions is like describing something as 'transport', without saying whether it is bus/bike/train.. Is a concept a vision, or a tool?
'Sortal' concepts show kinds, use indefinite articles, and require grasping identities [Wright,C]
     Full Idea: A concept is 'sortal' if it exemplifies a kind of object. ..In English predication of a sortal concept needs an indefinite article ('an' elm). ..What really constitutes the distinction is that it involves grasping identity for things which fall under it.
     From: Crispin Wright (Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects [1983], 1.i)
     A reaction: This is a key notion, which underlies the claims of 'sortal essentialism' (see David Wiggins).
A concept is only a sortal if it gives genuine identity [Wright,C]
     Full Idea: Before we can conclude that φ expresses a sortal concept, we need to ensure that 'is the same φ as' generates statements of genuine identity rather than of some other equivalence relation.
     From: Crispin Wright (Frege's Concept of Numbers as Objects [1983], 1.i)
A concept is a way of thinking of things or kinds, whether or not they exist [Lowe]
     Full Idea: The nearest I can get to a quick definition is to say that a concept is a way of thinking of some thing or kind of things, whether or not a really existent thing or kind of things.
     From: E.J. Lowe (What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? [2013], 2)
     A reaction: The focus on 'things' seems rather narrow. Are relations things? He makes concepts sound adverbial, so that there is thinking going on, and then we add 'ways' of doing it. Thinking depends on concepts, not concepts on thinking.
Our experience may be conceptual, but surely not the world itself? [Kusch]
     Full Idea: I am unconvinced by McDowell's arguments in favour of treating the world as itself conceptual. Granted that our experience is conceptual in quality; it still does not follow that the world itself is conceptual.
     From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 9)
     A reaction: I would take Kusch's point to be a given in any discussion of concepts, and McDowell as a non-starter on this one. I am inclined to believe that we do have non-conceptual experiences, but I take them to be epistemologically useless.
Corresponding to every concept there is a class (some of them sets) [George/Velleman]
     Full Idea: Corresponding to every concept there is a class (some classes will be sets, the others proper classes).
     From: A.George / D.J.Velleman (Philosophies of Mathematics [2002], Ch.4)
The main theories of concepts are exemplar, prototype and knowledge [Murphy]
     Full Idea: The three main theories of concepts under consideration are the exemplar, the prototype and the knowledge approaches.
     From: Gregory L. Murphy (The Big Book of Concepts [2004], Ch.13)
Mental files are individual concepts (thought constituents) [Recanati]
     Full Idea: I want mental files (properly speaking) to serve as individual concepts, i.e. thought constituents.
     From: François Recanati (Mental Files [2012], 5.3)
     A reaction: This is why the concept of mental files is so neat - it gives you a theory of reference and a theory of concepts. I love the files approach because it precisely fits my own introspective experiences. Hope I'm not odd in that way.
Concepts can be presented extensionally (as objects) or intensionally (as a characterization) [Friend]
     Full Idea: The extensional presentation of a concept is just a list of the objects falling under the concept. In contrast, an intensional presentation of a concept gives a characterization of the concept, which allows us to pick out which objects fall under it.
     From: Michèle Friend (Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics [2007], 3.4)
     A reaction: Logicians seem to favour the extensional view, because (in the standard view) sets are defined simply by their members, so concepts can be explained using sets. I take this to be a mistake. The intensional view seems obviously prior.
For pragmatists a concept means its consequences [Macbeth]
     Full Idea: In the pragmatist view, the meaning of a concept is exhausted by its consequences.
     From: Danielle Macbeth (Pragmatism and Objective Truth [2007], p.173)
     A reaction: I'm unclear why the concept of a volcanic eruption only concerns its dire consequences, and is supposed to contain nothing of its causes. Pragmatists seem to be all future, and no past. Very American.
Concepts are either representations, or abilities, or Fregean senses [Margolis/Laurence]
     Full Idea: The three main options for the ontological status of concepts are to identify them with mental representations, or with abilities, or with Fregean senses.
     From: E Margolis/S Laurence (Concepts [2009], 1)
Concepts for categorisation and for induction may be quite different [Machery]
     Full Idea: In general, concepts that are used when we categorise and concepts that are used when we reason inductively could have little in common.
     From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.2.1)
     A reaction: In the end he is going to reject concepts altogether, so he would say this. Friends of concepts would be very surprised if the mind were so uneconomical in its activities, given that induction seems to be up to its neck in categorisation.
Concept theories aim at their knowledge, processes, format, acquisition, and location [Machery]
     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.
     From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4)
     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.
We should abandon 'concept', and just use 'prototype', 'exemplar' and 'theory' [Machery]
     Full Idea: The notion of 'concept' ought to be eliminated from the theoretical vocabulary of psychology, and replaced by the notions of prototype, exemplar, and theory.
     From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8)
     A reaction: Machery's main thesis. I think similarly about 'property' in metaphysics. It embraces different ideas, and if we eliminated 'property' (and used predicate, class, fundamental power, complex power) we would do better. Psychologists have dropped 'memory'.