Abstract
Concepts are essential constituents of thought: they are the instruments we use to categorize our experience, i.e. to classify things and group them together in homogeneous sets. Here we define concepts as the internal mental information (representations) that allows us, among other things, to master words in natural language. By analyzing the way in which individuals master word meanings we explore a number of hypotheses regarding the nature of concepts. Following Diego Marconi’s research, we differentiate between two kind of abilities that underpin lexical competence—so-called ‘referential’ and ‘inferential competence’—and we suggest that, in order to support these abilities, concepts must also include two corresponding kinds of information, i.e. inferential and referential information. We point out that the most widely used and acknowledged theories of concepts do not make this distinction, instead broadly characterizing the information used for categorization in terms of propositionally described feature lists. However, we show that while feature lists can explain inferential competence, they do not account for referential competence. To address the issue of referential competence we examine Ray Jackendoff’s hypothesis that to account for the possibility of linking perceptual and conceptual information we need to assume the existence of a (visual) representation that encodes the geometric and topological properties of objects and bridges the gap between the percept and the concept. Furthermore, we analyze the extension of this work by Jesse Prinz who introduced the notion of a proxytype, a perceptual representation of a class of objects that incorporates structural and parametric information related to their appearance. However, as we point out, proxytypes can only explain the relationship between perception and concepts with respect to instances that can be perceived through the senses and that belong to the same class by virtue of their physical similarity. We suggest that this notion be extended to include larger conceptual classes. To accomplish this, we further develop Mark Johnson, George Lakoff and Jean Mandler’s idea of a schematic image and argue that conceptual representations include a perceptual schema. Perceptual schemata are non-linguistic, structured experiential gestalts (patterns or maps) that make use of information taken from all sensory modalities, including body perception. They accomplish a quasi-conceptual function: they allow us to recognize and to classify different instances. In this work, we hypothesize that perceptual schemata are an essential component of concepts, but not identical to them. Instead, we suggest that concepts include both perceptual and propositional information with perceptual schemata providing the ‘perceptual core concept’ that grounds related propositional information.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
In this work, concepts (and categories, see Chap. 4) are indicated with small capitals; for word meanings we use inverted commas.
- 3.
Among the most discussed examples of partial semantic competence there is the case of the speaker who confuses aluminum with molybdenum (Putnam 1975: 205ff and 230ff) and elm trees with beech trees (Putnam 1975: 205ff and 230ff, discussed again in Fodor 1994: 33ff) or the case of the person who thought that arthritis might afflict also the thigh, in spite of the fact that arthritis is defined as a disease which afflicts joints only (Burge 1979: 79ff). For an overview on this debate see Dellantonio (2007).
- 4.
This way of presenting Putnam’s thesis takes into account only the social component of his positions (which is centered on the idea of the division of linguistic labor), while it entirely disregards the indexical (essentialist) element that goes with it in Putnam’s view.
- 5.
Jackendoff’s distinction between I-concepts and E-concepts is built on Chomsky’s differentiation between E-language and I-language: see e.g. Chomsky (1986: 19–24).
- 6.
Putnam would probably not agree with an explanation of semantic competence in terms of internal mental entities. For a discussion see e.g. Dellantonio (2007: 62–79).
- 7.
The example of the confusion between elm and beech trees was originally introduced by Putnam (1975: 205ff and 230ff), and then discussed again by Fodor (1994: 33ff). The case of the person who thought that arthritis might afflict also the thigh was introduced by Burge (1979: 79ff). For an overview of this debate see Dellantonio (2007).
- 8.
For an overview of linguistic determinism and its relation to behaviorism see. e.g. Pinker (2007: 44–73).
- 9.
On this see also Carruthers and Boucher (1998: 2).
- 10.
The problem of how the learner narrows down the number of possible hypotheses—which is potentially limitless—is not considered in this work. For a brief overview see, e.g., Tomasello (2001).
- 11.
A wide range hypotheses have been put forward in the literature as to whether language influences thought, with some researchers positing no influence whatsoever (see e.g. Fodor 1994, 1998) and others suggesting radical influence. As is well-known, the latter perspective is represented by the so-called Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (SWH) according to which the semantic or syntactic structure of language determines the speakers’ way of categorizing the world (Sapir [1921] 2004; Whorf [1956] 2012). Views on how exactly this influence or determination might occur are also far from being unanimous. For a short overview, see Baghramian and Carter (2016). We are not interested in taking a position in this debate. Here we just assume a minimum and hardly deniable level of influence of language on categorization due to the fact that language acquisition leads us to classify things on the basis of the principles that rules the use of words in our language.
- 12.
- 13.
- 14.
For a more radical thesis see also Bermúdez (2003: 150).
- 15.
- 16.
This is true of all the different computational models of word meanings that have been developed in contemporary cognitive research: see e.g. Lappin (2005).
- 17.
The link between referential and inferential information presupposes that the person has a language. We will discuss this more precisely below.
- 18.
These examples of feature lists are taken from Eleanor Rosch and colleagues (Rosch et al. 1976). Some of the features have been left out, while animate has been added to the list describing the features of birds. In fact, it is the knowledge that birds are animals that allows us to distinguish real birds from e.g. toys which resemble birds. This piece of information will be relevant in the next chapter.
- 19.
According to atomistic theories, concepts cannot be thought of as complex entities, made of different kinds of properties or parts that are useful for the identification of tokens. Atomism assumes that there is a direct relationship between type and token, and that the type concept is immediately activated by the perception of the token. This view is based, however, on a strong nativist position which did not meet with the approval of other cognitive approaches to concepts. For an explanation of atomism see e.g. Fodor (1987, 1998, 2003). For an overview of critiques to Fodor’s atomism see e.g. Laurence and Margolis (1999: 59ff) and Dellantonio (2007: 247–282).
- 20.
This theory was first proposed by Medin and Schaffer (1978).
- 21.
Most radical versions of this view maintain that there isn’t any summary representation codifying a whole class of objects (e.g. a summary representation for all birds), while milder versions of this view maintain that categorization relies on both summary representations and specific exemplars: see e.g., Smith and Medin (1981).
- 22.
- 23.
- 24.
Prinz is so anxious to demonstrate his distance from the symbolic tradition that he refuses to call the perceptual representation by the name Barsalou uses—i.e. ‘perceptual symbol system’. Since this term includes the word ‘symbol’, he thinks it might mistakenly suggest a connection with the classical model. He uses the names ‘object models’ or, as we will see ‘proxytypes’ instead.
- 25.
Barsalou’s solution for this problem in primarily meant to answer specific psychological issues related to: the format of the symbols that support conceptualization (they are hypothesized to be perceptual and modal); the nature of these symbols (they are conceived as unconscious neural representations); the way in which perceptual symbol system can carry out functions that are classically assigned uniquely to a-modal and language-like symbols (e.g. categorical inferences, productive thought, type-token mappings, implementation of propositions and analogies). Our approach is rather concerned with more philosophical issues such as the nature and the structure of concepts. Since our aims are more consistent with Prinz’s view, in the following section we will focus primarily on his work, even though in the literature perceptual theories of knowledge are more commonly associated with Barsalou.
- 26.
In fact, Prinz frames this issue in different terms from those we highlight here. His main concern is the necessity for justifying the public nature of concepts: i.e. the fact that they are largely shared by people, even though everyone had different particular perceptual experiences: see Prinz (2002: 152ff).
- 27.
The notion of schematic image has been discussed in several works which provide an overview of the issue of embodiment and grounded cognition from a cognitive point of view (see e.g. Gärdenfors 2007; Gibbs 2005; Spivey et al. 2005; Sinha and Jensen de López 2000). The bibliographical sources to which this notion is traced back are however quite limited and repetitive: in addition to Lakoff and Johnson these studies mention a number of other researchers working in cognitive linguistics, who embrace the same prospective, such as Langacker (mainly Langacker 1987) and Fauconnier (1994).
- 28.
For an overview that—although not very recent—classifies theories on imagery on the basis of the idea of perception they embrace: see e.g. Finke (1985).
- 29.
As we will specify in the next chapter, some of Johnson’s examples concern very general organizing structures like e.g. that of ‘containment’ that can be classified as categorical, while others are more specific and relate to particular abstract concepts (in fact, they explain how we come to understand these abstract concepts: see Chap. 4, Sect. 2 and Chap. 6, Sect. 3.
- 30.
- 31.
It is also plausible to assume—consistently with Carey (2009)—that a perceptual representation would also allow us to make some non-linguistic inferences.
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Dellantonio, S., Pastore, L. (2017). Semantic Competence from the Inside: Conceptual Architecture and Composition. In: Internal Perception. Studies in Applied Philosophy, Epistemology and Rational Ethics, vol 40. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-662-55763-1_3
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