Concepts, Rules and Innateness

Abstract

Professor Körner formulated a theory of ostensive concepts in his book, Conceptual Thinking, which remains a good summary of his views. When I was only a student of philosophy, I met Professor Körner at Brown University and questioned him about the matter of ostensive rules which he used to explicate the notion of ostensive concepts. At the time, he asked me what theory I would propose in place of his. I have thought about that now and then through the years, and I should now like to consider an answer, albeit, one that Thomas Reid published in 1764 in An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles of Common Sense. This answer is in terms of innate conceptual principles. I claim no originality either for the objections to the sort of theory Professor Körner defends or the solution, which is due to Reid, but I think that the objections are fundamental issues in cognitive psychology and the philosophy of language. As a result, the issue seems to me to be of importance, and I should like to use this occasion to provoke Professor Körner to reply. In fact, I think that the proposal I shall make may well be a consistent modification of his theory rather than a systematic alternative to it. Whether we agree or disagree, his reflections will, I believe, be of interest to many philosophers beside myself.