Furnishing the Mind

by Prinz, Jesse J.

• ISBN13: 9780262661850
• ISBN10: 0262661853
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2004-09-01
• Publisher: Bradford Books

Summary

Western philosophy has long been divided between empiricists, who argue that human understanding has its basis in experience, and rationalists, who argue that reason is the source of knowledge. A central issue in the debate is the nature of concepts, the internal representations we use to think about the world. The traditional empiricist thesis that concepts are built up from sensory input has fallen out of favor. Mainstream cognitive science tends to echo the rationalist tradition, with its emphasis on innateness. In Furnishing the Mind, Jesse Prinz attempts to swing the pendulum back toward empiricism. Prinz provides a critical survey of leading theories of concepts, including imagism, definitionism, prototype theory, exemplar theory, the theory theory, and informational atomism. He sets forth a new defense of concept empiricism that draws on philosophy, neuroscience, and psychology and introduces a new version of concept empiricism called proxytype theory. He also provides accounts of abstract concepts, intentionality, narrow content, and concept combination. In an extended discussion of innateness, he covers Noam Chomsky's arguments for the innateness of grammar, developmental psychologists' arguments for innate cognitive domains, and Jerry Fodor's argument for radical concept nativism.

Author Biography

Jesse J. Prinz is Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	ix
Desiderata on a Theory of Concepts	1	(24)
Introduction	1	(2)
Desiderata	3	(13)
Do We Need Language Desiderata?	16	(6)
Preview	22	(3)
Traditional Philosophical Accounts	25	(26)
Imagism	25	(7)
Definitionism	32	(16)
Conclusions	48	(3)
Similarity-Based Accounts	51	(24)
Prototype Theory	51	(12)
Exemplar Theory	63	(9)
Conclusions	72	(3)
Maximal and Minimal Accounts	75	(28)
The Theory Theory	75	(14)
Informational Atomism	89	(11)
Conclusions	100	(3)
Empiricism Reconsidered	103	(36)
Introduction	103	(3)
What Is Concept Empiricism?	106	(16)
Why Empiricism?	122	(15)
Conclusion	137	(2)
Proxytype Theory	139	(26)
From Percepts to Proxytypes	139	(13)
Publicity	152	(9)
Categorization	161	(3)
Conclusion	164	(1)
The Perceptual Basis	165	(24)
The Scope Trial	165	(4)
Countering Counterexamples	169	(18)
Conclusion	187	(2)
Overcoming Concept Nativism	189	(48)
Stances on Nativism	190	(8)
Arguments for Innateness	198	(37)
Conclusion	235	(2)
Intentional Content	237	(26)
Philosophical Theories of Intentionality	237	(4)
Informational Semantics	241	(8)
A Hybrid Theory	249	(11)
Conclusion	260	(3)
Cognitive Content	263	(20)
Narrow Approaches to Cognitive Content	263	(7)
Proxytypes and Cognitive Content	270	(6)
Nominal Content and Real Content	276	(6)
Conclusion	282	(1)
Combining Concepts	283	(30)
Confounded Combinations	283	(3)
Compositionality: How Much Is Enough?	286	(15)
A Three-Stage Model of Concept Combination	301	(11)
Conclusion	312	(1)
Conclusion: Back to Our Senses	313	(4)
Notes	317	(10)
References	327	(20)
Index	347