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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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autor: Sarnecki, John
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Estado:Versión publicada
Fecha de publicación:2012
País:Brasil
Institución:Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS)
Repositorio:Veritas (Porto Alegre. Online)
Idioma:portugués
OAI Identifier:oai:ojs.revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br:article/12001
Acceso en línea:https://revistaseletronicas.pucrs.br/veritas/article/view/12001
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Theory of Concepts. Acquisition of Concepts. Cognitivism. Semantic Conception.
Teoria dos Conceitos. Aquisição de conceitos. Cognitivismo. Concepção semântica.
Descripción
Sumario: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.