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Doing without Concepts Edouard Machery (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh)

Doing without Concepts By Edouard Machery (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh)

Summary

In Doing without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that the dominant psychological theories of concept fail to provide a coherent framework to organize our extensive empirical knowledge about concepts. Machery proposes that to develop such a framework, drastic conceptual changes are required.

Doing without Concepts Summary

Doing without Concepts by Edouard Machery (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh)

Over recent years, the psychology of concepts has been rejuvenated by new work on prototypes, inventive ideas on causal cognition, the development of neo-empiricist theories of concepts, and the inputs of the budding neuropsychology of concepts. But our empirical knowledge about concepts has yet to be organized in a coherent framework. In Doing without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that the dominant psychological theories of concepts fail to provide such a framework and that drastic conceptual changes are required to make sense of the research on concepts in psychology and neuropsychology. Machery shows that the class of concepts divides into several distinct kinds that have little in common with one another and that for this very reason, it is a mistake to attempt to encompass all known phenomena within a single theory of concepts. In brief, concepts are not a natural kind. Machery concludes that the theoretical notion of concept should be eliminated from the theoretical apparatus of contemporary psychology and should be replaced with theoretical notions that are more appropriate for fulfilling psychologists' goals. The notion of concept has encouraged psychologists to believe that a single theory of concepts could be developed, leading to useless theoretical controversies between the dominant paradigms of concepts. Keeping this notion would slow down, and maybe prevent, the development of a more adequate classification and would overshadow the theoretical and empirical issues that are raised by this more adequate classification. Anyone interested in cognitive science's emerging view of the mind will find Machery's provocative ideas of interest.

About Edouard Machery (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh)

Edouard Machery, Ph.D., is Associate Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsburgh as well as a resident fellow of the Center for Philosophy of Science (University of Pittsburgh) and a member fo the Center for neural Bassi of Cognition (Carnegie Mellon University and University of Pittsburgh).

Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1 CONCEPTS IN PSYCHOLOGY; CHAPTER 2 CONCEPTS IN PHILOSOPHY; CHAPTER 3 THE HETEROGENEITY HYPOTHESIS; CHAPTER 4 THREE FUNDAMENTAL KINDS OF CONCEPTS: PROTOTYPES, EXEMPLARS, THEORIES; CHAPTER 5 MULTI-PROCESS THEORIES; CHAPTER 6 CATEGORIZATION AND CONCEPT LEARNING; CHAPTER 7 INDUCTION, CONCEPT COMBINATION, NEUROPSYCHOLOGY; CHAPTER 8 CONCEPT ELIMINATIVISM

Additional information

NPB9780195306880
9780195306880
0195306880
Doing without Concepts by Edouard Machery (Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Pittsburgh)
New
Hardback
Oxford University Press Inc
2009-03-19
296
N/A
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