Shifting Concepts: The Philosophy and Psychology of Conceptual Variability

Description

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change. Cover Shifting Concepts: The Philosophy and Psychology of Conceptual Variability Copyright Contents List of Contributors Introduction: Shifting Concepts Part I. How Concepts Shift: Variation Across Individuals, Times, and Contexts Part II. To Shift a Concept: Conceptual Revolution, Amelioration, and Perversion References PART I: HOW CONCEPTS SHIFT: VARIATION ACROSS INDIVIDUALS, TIMES, AND CONTEXTS 1 Mapping Thoughts to Words Cross-language Differences, Learning, and Communication 1.1 How Does the World Get Mapped into Words? 1.2 How Do Languages Differ in the Mappings? 1.3 How is Complexity of Mappings Dealt with Within a Language? 1.4 How is Complexity of Mappings Dealt with Across Languages? References 2 How to Make Psychological Generalizations When Concepts Differ A Case Study of Conceptual Development 2.1 Development and Concepts 2.2 Levels of Categorization 2.3 Basic-level Concepts 2.4 Basic-level Categories and Development 2.5 Developmental Changes in Category Levels 2.6 Childhood’s End 2.7 Conclusion References 3 When Does Communication Succeed? The Case of General Terms 3.1 Intersubjective Conceptual Differences 3.2 Pragmatics Hides Differences 3.3 The Nature of Communicative Success 3.4 Structured Contents 3.5 Intensional Similarity References 4 Investigating Differences in People’s Concept Representations 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Individual Differences in Concept Tasks 4.3 Evidence for Idio-prototypes 4.4 Using Similarity to Assess Individual Differences in Concepts 4.5 A Further Study: Connecting the Two Tasks 4.6 Implications 4.7 A More Positive Result 4.8 Conclusions References 5 Colour Categories in Context 5.1 What Makes All These Objects ‘Red’? 5.1.1 Context 5.1.2 Relevant Similarity: Determined by Context 5.1.3 A Note on Relevance 5.2 The Structured Nature of Colour Experience 5.2.1 Similarity Relations in Colour Experience 5.2.2 Structured Similarity and Dissimilarity Relations 5.2.3 Redness Results from a Relevant Similarity Degree to Other Objects and to One Specific Part of Structured Space 5.2.4 Structure: ‘The Point of View of the Whole Rather Than of a Single Part’ 5.3 About Redness 5.3.1 A Context-dependent Colour Space Structure 5.3.2 Context Dependent Sub-spaces of Colour 5.3.3 Cross-cultural Differences and Context 5.3.4 Colour Categories Are Not Set Entities References 6 The Myth of the Common-sense Conception of Colour 6.1 Overview 6.2 The ‘Common Sense’ Conception of Colour in Colour Metaphysics 6.3 Interpersonal Variation in Two Experiments on the Ordinary Conception of Colour 6.4 Intrapersonal Variation in the ‘Common Sense’ Conception of Colour 6.5 Historical Variation in the ‘Common Sense’ Conception of Colour 6.6 A Wider Array of ‘Core Beliefs’ about Colours 6.7 A Genealogy of Some ‘Core Beliefs’ about Colour 6.8 Conclusion: The Myth of the ‘Common Sense’ Conception of Colour References 7 Variation in Natural Kind Concepts 7.1 Introduction 7.2 Two Stories about Meta-metasemantics 7.2.1 Two Examples of Meta-externalism for Kind Terms 7.2.1.1 Reference Magnetism 7.2.1.2 Reference Communitarianism 7.2.2 Against Meta-externalism 7.2.3 Meta-internalism of the Dispositionalist Variety 7.3 What Empirical Data Has Shown So Far 7.4 What Would Need to be Done 7.5 Conclusions References PART II: TO SHIFT A CONCEPT: CONCEPTUAL REVOLUTION, AMELIORATION, AND PERVERSION 8 Conceptual Revolution 8.1 Introduction 8.2 What Would You Say? 8.3 Dispositions and Descriptions 8.4 Revolution, Evolution, Revelation 8.5 Our Fickle Dispositions References 9 The Folk Concept of Race 9.1 Folk Theories and the Stability of Concepts 9.1.1 Folk Theories 9.1.2 The Stability of Concepts 9.2 The Concept of Race 9.2.1 Races: Social or Biological Groups? 9.2.2 Operationalizing Biologicization 9.3 Study 1 9.3.1 Study 1: Participants and Materials 9.3.2 Study 1: Results 9.3.3 Study 1: Discussion 9.4 Study 2 9.4.1 Study 2: Participants and Materials 9.4.2 Study 2: Results 9.4.3 Study 2: Discussion 9.5 Study 3 9.5.1 Study 3: Participants and Materials 9.5.2 Study 3: Results 9.5.3 Study 3: Discussion 9.6 Study 4 9.6.1 Study 4: Participants and Materials 9.6.2 Study 4: Results 9.6.3 Study 4: Discussion 9.7 Race is a Biological Concept 9.7.1 The Biological Hypothesis about the Concept of Race 9.7.2 Disagreement 9.7.3 Folk Theories and the Stability of Concepts 9.8 Conclusion References 10 On the Conceptual Mismatch Argument Descriptions, Disagreement, and Amelioration 10.1 Introduction 10.2 Descriptions and Reference 10.3 The Causal Theory of Reference 10.4 Reference Magnetism and Failures of Reference 10.5 The Case of ‘Race’ 10.6 Semantics and Amelioration 10.6.1 Descriptions, Paradigms, and Amelioration 10.6.2 Natural Properties and Amelioration 10.6.3 Reference Magnetism and Amelioration 10.7 Conclusion References 11 Conceptual Fragmentation and the Use of ‘Race’ in Scientific Theorizing 11.1 Introduction 11.2 Conceptual Fragmentation 11.3 Conceptual Fragmentation of Race 11.4 Should ‘Race’ (or Possibly Race) Be Eliminated from Biological Theorizing? 11.4.1 Metaphysical and Semantic Considerations 11.4.2 Theoretical Utility 11.4.3 Ethical Concerns 11.5 Indiscriminate ‘Race’ Eliminativism or ‘Race’ Pluralism? References 12 How Not to Change the Subject 12.1 Introduction 12.2 Externalism about Content 12.3 Challenges for Semantic Amelioration 12.3.1 Content as Essence 12.3.2 Impracticability 12.4 Epistemic Amelioration within a Two-dimensional Approach 12.5 Semantic Amelioration 12.6 Functions 12.7 Impracticability 12.8 Conclusion References 13 Amelioration vs Perversion 13.1 Introduction 13.2 Meaning Revisions in the Wild 13.2.1 Lessons from the Past and the Present 13.2.2 The Road to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions 13.3 The Limits of Ameliorative Projects 13.4 The Legitimacy of Ameliorative Projects 13.4.1 The Illocutionary Structure of Contexts 13.4.2 Harmful Perlocutionary Effects or Constitutive Norm Erosions? 13.5 Closing Remarks References Index