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Single Idea 18589

[from 'Doing Without Concepts' by Edouard Machery, in 18. Thought / D. Concepts / 5. Concepts and Language / b. Concepts are linguistic ]

Full Idea

Behaviourists identified concepts with a mere disposition to associate category members with a given name.

Gist of Idea

For behaviourists concepts are dispositions to link category members to names

Source

Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.1)

Book Reference

Machery,Edouard: 'Doing Without Concepts' [OUP 2009], p.78


A Reaction

This is one reason why the word 'disposition' triggers alarm bells in the immediately post-behaviourist generation of philosophers. The proposal is far too linguistic in character.