What does concept mean

New Word List Word List. Save This Word! We could talk until we're blue in the face about this quiz on words for the color "blue," but we think you should take the quiz and find out if you're a whiz at these colorful terms. Words related to concept approach , conception , image , notion , perception , theory , thought , view , abstraction , apprehension , brainchild , conceit , conceptualization , consideration , hypothesis , impression , intellection , slant , supposition , twist.

How to use concept in a sentence However, Johnson noted that further research has shown that the same concept works equally well on natural gas and ammonia.

Microsoft hails success of its undersea data center experiment—and says it could have implications on dry land, too David Meyer September 15, Fortune. How Naive is Elizabeth Warren? What Is Privilege? The concept of inertia; the concept of free will. A unifying idea or theme, especially for a product or service. Origin of concept. Late Latin conceptus from Latin past participle of concipere to conceive conceive. Concept Sentence Examples. The whole concept is ridiculous.

Related articles. Also Mentioned In. At the very least, this work suggests that philosophers should be cautious about moving from their own intuitions to claims about the proper analysis of a concept. Suppose, for example, that East Asian culture offers a different concept of justification than the one that is embedded in Western commonsense thought assuming for sake of argument that there is a single concept of justification in each culture.

In addition, suppose that East Asians employ different inferential practices than our own and that their practices do a fair job of conforming to their concept of justification and that ours do a fair job of conforming to our own. On what basis, then, are we to compare and evaluate these differing practices? Does it really make sense to say that ours are superior on the ground that they conform better to our concept of justification?

The critique of traditional philosophical analysis has also generated proposals for various types of normative, revisionary projects. Instead of asking which cases are or are not covered by a concept, they ask how a concept should be modified or what new concept should be adopted in its place, given the practical context in which the concept is used—for example, given the goal of promoting social equality Haslanger , Cappelen Much is at stake in the debate between conceptual analysts and naturalists, and it is likely to be a central topic in the theory of concepts for the foreseeable future.

The ontology of concepts 1. The structure of concepts 2. Empiricism and nativism about concepts 3. Concepts and natural language 4. Concepts and conceptual analysis 5. The ontology of concepts We begin with the issue of the ontological status of a concept. Concepts as mental representations The first of these views maintains that concepts are psychological entities, taking as its starting point the representational theory of the mind RTM.

Just this proposal is made by Margolis and Laurence , Mental representations that are concepts could even be typed by the corresponding possession condition of the sort I favour. This seems to me an entirely legitimate notion of a kind of mental representation; but it is not quite the notion of a concept. It can, for instance, be true that there are concepts human beings may never acquire, because of their intellectual limitations, or because the sun will expand to eradicate human life before humans reach a stage at which they can acquire these concepts.

If concepts are individuated by their possession conditions, on the other hand, there is no problem about the existence of concepts that will never be acquired.

They are simply concepts whose possession conditions will never be satisfied by any thinkers. Peacocke, , p.

The structure of concepts Just as thoughts are composed of concepts, many concepts are themselves complex entities that are composed of other concepts or more basic representational components.

Empiricism and nativism about concepts One of the oldest questions about concepts concerns whether there are any innate concepts and, if so, how much of the conceptual system is innate. Thus David Hume ends his Enquiry with the famous remark: When we run over libraries, persuaded of these principles, what havoc must we make?

If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?

Commit it then to the flames: For it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion. Concepts and natural language We turn now to the issue of how concepts and thoughts relate to language. In a well known passage, Donald Davidson summarizes his position as follows: We have the idea of belief only from the role of belief in the interpretation of language, for as a private attitude it is not intelligible except as an adjustment to the public norm provided by language.

It follows that a creature must be a member of a speech community if it is to have the concept of belief. And given the dependence of other attitudes on belief, we can say more generally that only a creature that can interpret speech can have the concept of a thought.

Can a creature have a belief if it does not have the concept of belief? It seems to me it cannot, and for this reason. Someone cannot have a belief unless he understands the possibility of being mistaken, and this requires grasping the contrast between truth and error—true belief and false belief. But this contrast, I have argued, can emerge only in the context of interpretation, which alone forces us to the idea of an objective, public truth.

Davidson , p. Concepts and conceptual analysis 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 see, e. Bibliography Adams, F. Modality and Abstract Concepts. Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Andrews, K. Ariew, A. Hardcastle ed. Armstrong, D. Atran, S. Ayer, A. Baker, M. Baillargeon, R.

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