A 'concept' is an
abstract idea or a mental symbol, typically associated with a corresponding representation in and
language or
symbology, that denotes all of the objects in a given
category or
class of entities,
interactions,
phenomena, or relationships between them. Concepts are abstract in that they omit the
differences of the things in their
extension, treating them as if they were identical. They are universal in that they apply equally to every thing in their extension. Concepts are also the basic elements of
propositions, much the same way a
word is the basic
semantic element of a
sentence. Unlike
perceptions, which are particular images of individual objects, concepts cannot be visualized. Because they are not, themselves, individual perceptions, concepts are discursive and result from
reason. They can only be thought about, or designated, by means of a
name. Words are not concepts. Words are signs for concepts.
Generally speaking, concepts are (a) acquired dispositions to recognize perceived objects as being of this kind or of that kind, and at the same time (b) to understand what this kind or that kind of object is like, and consequently (c) to perceive a number of perceived particulars as being the same in kind and to discriminate between them and other sensible particulars that are different in kind.
In addition, concepts are acquired dispositions to understand what certain kinds of objects are like both (a) when the objects, though perceptible, are not actually perceived, and (b) also when they are not perceptible at all, as is the case with all the conceptual constructs we employ in physics, mathematics, and metaphysics.
On some accounts, there may be agents (perhaps some animals) which don't think ''about'', but rather ''use'' relatively basic concepts (such as
demonstrative and
perceptual concepts for things in their perceptual field), even though it is generally assumed that they do not think in symbols.. On other accounts, mastery of symbolic thought (in particular, language) is a prerequisite for conceptual thought.
Concepts are
bearers of
meaning, as opposed to
agents of meaning. A single concept can be expressed by any number of
languages. The concept of
DOG can be expressed as ''dog'' in
English, ''Hund'' in
German, as ''chien'' in
French, and ''perro'' in
Spanish. The fact that concepts are in some sense independent of language makes
translation possible - words in various languages have identical meaning, because they express one and the same concept.
The acquisition of concepts is studied in
machine learning as
supervised classification and
unsupervised classification, and in psychology and cognitive science as
concept learning and
category formation. In the philosophy of Kant, any purely
empirical theory dealing with the acquisition of concepts is referred to as a
noogony.
A
term labels or designates concepts. Several partly or fully distinct concepts may share the same term. These different concepts are easily confused by mistakenly being used interchangeably, which is a
fallacy. Also, the concepts of term and concept are often confused, although the two are not the same.
Ockham
William of Ockham, in his final writings, stated that a universal concept is just the act of thinking about several objects at once; metaphysically it is quite singular, and is “universal” only in the sense of being predicable of multiple things.
Locke
John Locke's description of a 'general idea' corresponds to a description of a concept. According to Locke, a general idea is created by abstracting, drawing away, or removing the common characteristic or characteristics from several particular ideas. This common characteristic is that which is similar to all of the different individuals. For example, the abstract general idea or concept that is designated by the word "red" is that characteristic which is common to apples, cherries, and blood. The abstract general idea or concept that is signified by the word "dog" is the collection of those characteristics which are common to Airedales, Collies, and Chihuahuas.
Kant
''A posteriori'' concepts
According to
Immanuel Kant, an empirical or an ''
a posteriori'' concept is a general representation (''Vorstellung'') or non-specific thought of that which is common to several specific perceived objects. (
Logic, I, 1., §1, Note 1)
A concept is a common feature or characteristic. Kant investigated the way that empirical ''a posteriori'' concepts are created.
Kant's description of the making of a concept has been paraphrased as "… to conceive is essentially to think in abstraction what is common to a plurality of possible instances… ." (H.J. Paton, ''Kant's Metaphysics of Experience'', I, 250). In his discussion of Kant, Christopher Janaway wr ote: "… generic concepts are formed by abstraction from more than one species."
[1]
''A priori'' concepts
Kant declared that human minds possess pure or ''
a priori'' concepts. Instead of being abstracted from individual perceptions, like empirical concepts, they originate in the mind itself. He called these concepts
categories, in the sense of the word that means
predicate,
attribute,
characteristic, or
quality. But these pure categories are predicates of things ''in general'', not of a particular thing. According to Kant, there are 12 categories that constitute the understanding of phenomenal objects. Each category is that one predicate which is common to multiple empirical concepts. In order to explain how an ''a priori'' concept can relate to individual phenomena, in a manner analogous to an ''a posteriori'' concept, Kant employed the technical concept of the
schema.
Schopenhauer and Nietzsche
For
Schopenhauer, empirical concepts "...are mere abstractions from what is known through intuitive
perception, and they have arisen from our arbitrarily thinking away or dropping of some
qualities and our retention of others." (''
Parerga and Paralipomena'', Vol. I, "Sketch of a History of the
Ideal and the
Real"). In his ''
On the Will in Nature'', "Physiology and Pathology," Schopenhauer said that a concept is "drawn off from previous images ... by putting off their differences. This concept is then no longer intuitively perceptible, but is denoted and fixed merely by words."
Nietzsche, who was heavily influenced by Schopenhauer, wrote: "Every concept originates through our equating what is unequal. No leaf ever wholly equals another, and the concept 'leaf' is formed through an arbitrary abstraction from these individual differences, through forgetting the distinctions… ."
[2]
John Stuart Mill's conceptions
John Stuart Mill stated that general conceptions are formed through abstraction. A general conception is the common element among the many images of members of a class. "...[W]hen we form a set of phenomena into a class, that is, when we compare them with one another to ascertain in what they agree, some general conception is implied in this mental operation" (''
A System of Logic'', Book IV, Ch. II).
Mill did not believe that concepts exist in the mind before the act of abstraction. "It is not a law of our intellect, that, in comparing things with each other and taking note of their agreement, we merely recognize as realised in the outward world something that we already had in our minds. The conception originally found its way to us as the ''result'' of such a comparison. It was obtained (in metaphysical phrase) by ''abstraction'' from individual things" (''Ibid.'').
William James's truth
A concept may be abstracted from several perceptions, but that is only its origin. In regard to its meaning or its truth,
William James proposed his
Pragmatic Rule. This rule states that the meaning of a concept may always be found in some particular difference in the course of human experience which its being true will make (''
Some Problems of Philosophy'', "Percept and Concept -- The Import of Concepts"). In order to understand the meaning of the concept and to discuss its importance, a concept may be tested by asking, "What sensible difference to anybody will its truth make?" There is only one criterion of a concept's meaning and only one test of its truth. That criterion or test is its consequences for human behavior.
In this way, James bypassed the controversy between
rationalists and
empiricists regarding the origin of concepts. Instead of solving their dispute, he ignored it. The rationalists had asserted that concepts are a revelation of
Reason. Concepts are a glimpse of a different world, one which contains timeless
truths in areas such as
logic,
mathematics,
ethics, and
aesthetics. By pure thought, humans can discover the relations that really exist among the parts of that divine world. On the other hand, the empiricists claimed that concepts were merely a distillation or abstraction from perceptions of the world of experience. Therefore, the significance of concepts depends solely on the perceptions that are its references. James's Pragmatic Rule does not connect the meaning of a concept with its origin. Instead, it relates the meaning to a concept's purpose, that is, its function, use, or result.
Gilles Deleuze's definition of philosophy
According to
Deleuze and
Guattari's ''What Is Philosophy?'' (1991), philosophy is the activity of creating concepts. This creative activity differs from previous definitions of philosophy as simple
reasoning,
communication or
contemplation of
Universals. Concepts are specific to philosophy: science has got "
percepts", and art "
affects". A concept is always ''signed'': thus,
Descartes'
''Cogito'' or
Kant's "
transcendental". It is a
singularity, not an universal, and connects itself with others concepts, on a "
plane of immanence" traced by a particular philosophy. Concepts can jump from one plane of immanence to another, combining with other concepts and therefore engaging in a "becoming-
Other."
Embodied concepts
In
Cognitive linguistics, abstract concepts are transformations of concrete concepts derived from embodied experience. The mechanism of transformation is structural mapping, in which properties of two or more source domains are selectively mapped onto a blended space (Fauconnier & Turner, 1995; see
conceptual blending). A common class of blends are
metaphors.
This theory contrasts with the rationalist view that concepts are perceptions (or ''recollections'', in
Plato's term) of an independently existing world of ideas, the empiricist view from
Locke (above) that concepts are generalizations of individual experiences. While the perspective is compatible with
Jamesian pragmatism (above), the notion of the transformation of embodied concepts through structural mapping makes a distinct contribution to the problem of abstract concept formation.
Concepts in science
Concepts are extremely useful for the development of science. It would be difficult to imagine science without concepts like:
energy,
force,
acceleration,
chemical substance,
element,
chemical compound,
time,
charge, or
gravity.
Similarly, there are concepts in
biological sciences, for example,
animal,
biome,
chromosome,
death,
egg,
fertile,
gene,
life,
organism,
cell growth,
gymnosperm,
heredity,
hybrid,
life,
living being,
organ,
organism,
ovule,
plant,
prokaryote,
soil,
vascular,
zygote and there are concepts in
social sciences viz.
capital,
commodity,
finance,
geist,
psyche,
society,
wealth community etc.
Concepts help to integrate apparently unrelated
observations and
phenomena into viable hypothesis and theories, the basic ingredients of science. But, somehow this nature of these concepts is rarely emphasized when they are introduced in school. The result is that many students feel confused. Many people have realized this and have introduced a term
concept map that helps students to learn the inter-relationships between various concepts.
Concepts in mathematics
According to
Carl Benjamin Boyer, in the introduction to his ''The History of the Calculus and its Conceptual Development'', concepts in calculus do not refer to perceptions. As long as the concepts are useful and mutually compatible, they are accepted on their own. For example, the concepts of the
derivative and the
integral are not considered to refer to spatial or temporal perceptions of the external world of experience. Neither are they related in any way to mysterious
limits in which quantities are on the verge of nascence or evanescence, that is, coming into or going out of appearance or existence. The abstract concepts are now considered to be totally autonomous, even though they originated from the process of abstracting or taking away qualities from perceptions until only the common, essential attributes remained.
See also
Footnotes
1. Christopher Janaway, ''Self and World in Schopenhauer's Philosophy'', Ch. 3, p. 112, Oxford, 2003, ISBN 0-19-825003-7
2. "On Truth and Lie in an Extra–Moral Sense," ''The Portable Nietzsche'', p. 46
References
★ ''The History of Calculus and its Conceptual Development'',
Carl Benjamin Boyer, Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-60509-4 }
★ ''The Writings of William James'', University of Chicago Press, ISBN 0-226-39188-4
★ ''
Logic'', Immanuel
Kant, Dover Publications, ISBN 0-486-25650-2
★ ''
A System of Logic'', John Stuart Mill, University Press of the Pacific, ISBN 1-4102-0252-6
★ ''
Parerga and Paralipomena'', Arthur Schopenhauer, Volume I, Oxford University Press, ISBN 0-19-824508-4
★ ''What is Philosophy?'', Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari
★ ''Kant's Metaphysic of Experience'', H.J. Paton, London: Allen & Unwin, 1936
★ "Conceptual Integration Networks." Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, 1998. ''Cognitive Science.'' Volume 22, number 2 (April-June 1998), pages 133-187.
★ ''The Portable Nietzsche'', Penguin Books, 1982, ISBN 0-14-015062-5
★ Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis.
"Concepts and Cognitive Science" . In ''Concepts: Core Readings'', MIT Press, pp. 3-81, 1999.
External links
★ E. Margolis and S. Lawrence (2006),
★
Blending and Conceptual Integration
★
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