Concepts  link

ABSTRACT. Concepts are the building blocks of thoughts and crucial to such psychological processes as categorization, inference, memory, learning, and decision-making. But the nature of concepts—the kind of things concepts are—and the constraints that govern a theory of concepts have been the subject of much debate. In this entry, we provide an overview of theories of concepts that is organized around five contentious issues: (1) the ontology of concepts, (2) the structure of concepts, (3) empiricism and nativism about concepts, (4) concepts and natural language, and (5) concepts and conceptual analysis.

Margolis, Eric and Laurence, Stephen, "Concepts", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/concepts/>

This entry was first published in 2005 but is continually revised and updated. The most current version was updated in June 2019. For previous versions, click here.

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