Here are some questions:
How does the mind meet the world? Are concepts mental words? Are they mental pictures? Stereotypes? Clusters of features? What are concepts made of? Where do we keep them? Are concepts innate or acquired? What is their role in communication? Different culture means different concepts? Do concepts play any role in perception? Do animals have concepts?
Our main goal in this course is to offer a principled understanding of these questions and to consider critically tentative answers to them. We do have a capacity to conceptualize, and this capacity is fundamental in human communication and human existence generally. This course is a basic exploration of this capacity; it combines philosophical instruments and more empirical cognitive scientific research - especially from linguistics and psychology.
By the end of this course, students should be familiar with the main options of thinking about concepts, and should be able to reflect critically on these options. They should also have read a few of the important papers in the field, and should be aware of some basic empirical findings relevant to the study of concepts.
PS: How do you find the image above? Answer: you don’t. Here is why.
March 5, 2008 at 11:48 pm
Maybe I could define (but not actually find) it (the image above): it’s pure fantasy
March 18, 2008 at 10:14 am
Well, I must confess I did not notice right from the beginning the wrong position of the beak. We take so much for granted (which is not altogether bad, I would say).