COGS 17 HOMEWORK 2 HOW TO

The ontology of concepts determines the answer to other questions, such as how to integrate concepts into a wider theory of the mind, what functions are allowed or disallowed by a concept's ontology, etc.

Philosophers construe this question as one about the ontology of concepts-what kind of things they are. In informal use the word concept often just means any idea.Ī central question in the study of concepts is the question of what they are. Examples of specific high-level conceptual classes in these fields include classes, schema or categories. Concepts are regularly formalized in mathematics, computer science, databases and artificial intelligence. When the mind makes a generalization such as the concept of tree, it extracts similarities from numerous examples the simplification enables higher-level thinking.Ī concept is instantiated (reified) by all of its actual or potential instances, whether these are things in the real world or other ideas.Ĭoncepts are studied as components of human cognition in the cognitive science disciplines of linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, where an ongoing debate asks whether all cognition must occur through concepts. The four upper images of trees can be roughly quantified into an overall generalization of the idea of a tree, pictured in the lower image. For example, a basic-level concept would be 'chair', with its superordinate, 'furniture', and its subordinate, 'easy chair'.Ī representation of the concept of a tree. Additionally, there is the 'basic' or 'middle' level at which people will most readily categorize a concept. Concepts as Fregean senses, where concepts are abstract objects, as opposed to mental objects and mental statesĬoncepts are classified into a hierarchy, higher levels of which are termed 'superordinate' and lower levels termed 'subordinate'.Concepts as abilities, where concepts are abilities peculiar to cognitive agents (mental states).Concepts as mental representations, where concepts are entities that exist in the mind (mental objects).In contemporary philosophy, there are at least three prevailing ways to understand what a concept is: The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach called cognitive science. As such, concepts are studied by several disciplines, such as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences.

They play an important role in all aspects of cognition. They are understood to be the fundamental building blocks underlying principles, thoughts and beliefs. For other uses, see Concept (disambiguation).Ĭoncepts are defined as abstract ideas.

Cogs 17 homework 2