MindPapers: 2.7a. Perception-Based Theories of Concepts

Matthen, Mohan (2008). Seeing, doing, and knowing: A précis. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 76 (2):392–399. (Google | More links)

Mazzone, Marco & Lalumera, Elisabetta (2010). Concepts: Stored or created? Minds and Machines 20 (1). (Google)

Abstract: Are concepts stable entities, unchanged from context to context? Or rather are they context-dependent structures, created on the fly? We argue that this does not constitute a genuine dilemma. Our main thesis is that the more a pattern of features is general and shared, the more it qualifies as a concept. Contextualists have not shown that conceptual structures lack a stable, general core, acting as an attractor on idiosyncratic information. What they have done instead is to give a contribution to the comprehension of how conceptual structure organized around such a stable core can produce contextually appropriate representations on demand

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