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Concepts

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Concepts are the ideas we use to think about things, such as the idea of a star, a bird or a bachelor. Philosophers and scientists describe concepts as "the building blocks of thoughts", and they are important for sorting things into groups, making inferences, remembering, learning and deciding.[1] Questions about concepts matter to the philosophy of mind, the philosophy of language, cognitive science and psychology.[2]

An example

When someone says "Polaris is a star", the words "is a star" express the concept of being a star.[3] Different words can express the same concept: according to the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy, "is red" in English and "ist Rot" in German express one concept.[4]

What are concepts?

Thinkers disagree about what kind of thing a concept is. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes three main answers: concepts may be mental representations, abilities, or abstract objects such as what the philosopher Gottlob Frege called "senses".[5] The view that concepts are mental representations is described as the default position in cognitive science.[6] On the abilities view, the concept of a cat might simply be the ability to tell cats from things that are not cats and to draw certain inferences about cats.[7]

Theories of how concepts are built

The classical theory says that a concept is made of simpler parts that give the exact conditions for something to fit it. The usual example is that a bachelor is an unmarried man.[8] People searching for such definitions test them against counterexamples, the method used by Socrates in Plato's dialogues about piety, friendship and courage.[9] According to the IEP, this was the dominant view until the second half of the twentieth century.[10]

The prototype theory says that something fits a concept if it has enough of the typical features. It draws on Ludwig Wittgenstein's idea of "family resemblance" and on experiments by the psychologist Eleanor Rosch.[11] It helps explain why people judge apples to be more typical fruit than plums, and recognise them as fruit more quickly.[12]

Other proposals include the theory theory, which compares concepts to the terms of a scientific theory, and conceptual atomism, defended by Jerry Fodor, which holds that most word-sized concepts have no inner structure at all.[13] The Stanford Encyclopedia says that "the nature of conceptual structure remains unsettled".[14]

Other debates

An old question is whether any concepts are inborn. According to the IEP, empiricist philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume held that primitive (simplest) concepts come directly from sensation.[15] Empiricists hold that there are few if any innate concepts, while nativists hold that many may be innate.[16] Another question is whether animals without language can have concepts; studies of birds that hide food and later find it are cited as evidence that they can.[17] The Stanford Encyclopedia notes that some of the deepest divides in modern philosophy concern the status of conceptual analysis and the nature of philosophy itself, and that concepts are at the centre of these disputes.[18] According to the IEP, there is still "no general consensus" in philosophy or psychology about which theory of concepts is best.[19]

References

  1. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. Concepts are the building blocks of thoughts. Consequently, they are crucial to such psychological processes as categorization, inference, memory, learning, and decision-making.
  2. ↑ Earl, Dennis. "Concepts". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 20 October 2026. the task of identifying the correct general theory of concepts is significant to the philosophy of mind, philosophy of language, cognitive science, and psychology.
  3. ↑ Earl, Dennis. "Concepts". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 20 October 2026. one's utterance of that sentence expresses the proposition that Polaris is a star. But in doing so, one also expresses the concept of being a star
  4. ↑ Earl, Dennis. "Concepts". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 20 October 2026. 'is red' in English and 'ist Rot' in German are distinct predicates that express the same concept.
  5. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The three main options are to identify concepts with mental representations, with abilities, and with abstract objects such as Fregean senses.
  6. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The mental representation view of concepts is the default position in cognitive science
  7. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The concept CAT, for example, might amount to the ability to discriminate cats from non-cats and to draw certain inferences about cats.
  8. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The stock example is the concept BACHELOR, which is traditionally said to have the constituents UNMARRIED and MAN.
  9. ↑ Earl, Dennis. "Concepts". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 20 October 2026. One discovers such analyses by the method most famously used by Socrates in Platonic dialogues like the Euthyphro, Lysis and Laches, which seek to find the nature of piety, friendship, and courage, respectively.
  10. ↑ Earl, Dennis. "Concepts". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 20 October 2026. the classical theory of concepts was in fact the dominant view up to the last half of the Twentieth Century.
  11. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. The prototype theory has its philosophical roots in Wittgenstein's (1953/1958) famous remark that the things covered by a term often share a family resemblance, and it has its psychological roots in Eleanor Rosch's groundbreaking experimental treatment
  12. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. apples are judged to be more typical than plums with respect to the category of fruit
  13. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. A radical alternative to all of the theories we've mentioned so far is conceptual atomism, the view that lexical concepts have no semantic structure (Fodor 1998, Millikan 2000).
  14. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. At present, the nature of conceptual structure remains unsettled.
  15. ↑ Earl, Dennis. "Concepts". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 20 October 2026. Various empiricist philosophers (such as Locke and Hume, for instance) have held that primitive concepts are derived immediately from sensation
  16. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. Empiricists maintain that there are few if any innate concepts and that most cognitive capacities are acquired on the basis of a few relatively simple general-purpose cognitive mechanisms. Nativists, on the other hand, maintain that there may be many innate concepts
  17. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. Experimental data of this kind provide evidence for particular concepts in birds (of food types, locations, and so on)
  18. ↑ "Concepts". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. 17 June 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2026. Some of the deepest divides in contemporary philosophy concern the limits of empirical inquiry, the status of conceptual analysis, and the nature of philosophy itself ... And concepts are right at the center of these disputes.
  19. ↑ Earl, Dennis. "Concepts". Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 20 October 2026. there is no general consensus in either field as to the preferred theory of concepts.
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