Weaving a web: concept acquisition and inferential role
Theories of concepts and concept acquisition are mutually constraining. How we envisage concept acquisition depends both on what we take concepts to be and what skills we can employ to acquire them. I argue that Ned Block’s cognitivist approach to concept acquisition is not compatible with his visio...
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| Format: | article |
| Status: | Published version |
| Publication Date: | 2012 |
| Country: | Brasil |
| Institution: | Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS) |
| Repository: | Veritas (Porto Alegre. Online) |
| Language: | Portuguese |
| OAI Identifier: | oai:ojs.revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br:article/12001 |
| Online Access: | https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/veritas/article/view/12001 |
| Access Level: | Open access |
| Keyword: | Theory of Concepts. Acquisition of Concepts. Cognitivism. Semantic Conception. Teoria dos Conceitos. Aquisição de conceitos. Cognitivismo. Concepção semântica. |
| Summary: | Theories of concepts and concept acquisition are mutually constraining. How we envisage concept acquisition depends both on what we take concepts to be and what skills we can employ to acquire them. I argue that Ned Block’s cognitivist approach to concept acquisition is not compatible with his vision of conceptual role semantics. If concepts are defined by their conceptual roles, then the acquisition of new concepts will change the conceptual roles of concepts employed in any form of hypothesis formation and confirmation learning. This breaks the evidentiary link between the concepts acquired and the evidence used to justify its subsequent applications. As a consequence, conceptual role semantics cannot avail itself of cognitivist approaches to concept acquisition. Despite this, they may nevertheless explain the apparent rational nature of much concept acquisition. |
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