Radical concept nativism

Radical concept nativism is the thesis that virtually all lexical concepts are innate. Notoriously endorsed by Jerry Fodor, radical concept nativism has had few supporters. However, it has proven difficult to say exactly what's wrong with Fodor's argument. We show that previous responses are inadequate on a number of grounds. Chief among these is that they typically do not achieve sufficient distance from Fodor's dialectic, and, as a result, they do not illuminate the central question of how new primitive concepts are acquired. To achieve a fully satisfactory response to Fodor's argument, one has to juxtapose questions about conceptual content with questions about cognitive development. To this end, we formulate a general schema for thinking about how concepts are acquired and then present a detailed illustration.     

The placebo concept

Throughout the medical, psychological, and psychiatric literature, the terminology used to characterize placebos is misleading, imprecise, and conducive to conceptual confusion in research on their effects. To remedy this situation, the present paper does the following: (1) It fills the conceptual lacunae left by the defective traditional locutions; (2) It proposes a lucid and precise new vocabulary to supplant the traditional obscure language in which the results of placebo research are couched; and (3) It illustrates the important conceptual refinement accruing from using the new expressions by thoroughly recasting A.K. Shapiro's influential definition of ‘placebo.’     

A shadow concept

The author focuses on the signifi cance of preconscious thinking, and its relationship to what we think of as unconscious fantasies. He reopens Freud's forgotten struggle with preconscious thinking, while he explores preconscious thinking as the basis for thinking about psychoanalytic treatment. This includes our goals in bringing an idea to the analysand's attention, and the role of transitional space where thoughts and feelings can be played with.     

Beard's concept of neurasthenia and Freud's concept of the actual neuroses

Beard's concept of neurasthenia and Freud's concept of the actual neuroses are described and evaluated critically. Despite differences in the content of their theories, especially in the role of sexual factors and sexual mechanisms, there are important formal and logical similarities. Both Beard and Freud incorrectly identified the causes of the neuroses being studied; both used inadequate methods of assessing the strengths of the causal factors; and the central theoretical concepts of both were equally vacuous. Freud adopted the same method of study as did Beard, but does not seem to have been influenced directly by him.     

Children's concept of word

The development of the concept of word as a unit of speech is a metalinguistic insight that usually corresponds to the acquisition of literacy skills. Further, as a fundamental aspect of language structure, it converges as well with skills involved in bilingualism. A framework that describes the structure of metalinguistic awareness is applied to this task in order to relate the development of word concept to literacy and bilingualism. Children between 4 and 6 years old who are prereaders or early readers, and bilingual or monolingual, are given three tests of word concept. The results show that concept of word emerges gradually and is evident to some extent even in the 4-year-olds. Further, literacy and bilingualism are shown to promote specific aspects of its developmentThe research reported in this paper was unded by grant No. A2559 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada. I am indebted to Sandra Owston, who assisted in conducting the study.     

Bribery: the concept

The aim of this paper is to clarify the concept of bribery, and to do this in a way that reveals its underlying normative features. Bribery, like lying is not a value neutral concept. It has a negative connotation and is regarded by most as generally, although not necessarily universally, wrong. At the very least, those who resort to bribery bear a burden of justification for what they do. This is no small point, as no such burden must be borne for the vast majority of human activities, such as engaging in conversation or taking a walk, which normally do not. As Sissela Bok says of lying, we might say that a negative moral weight attaches to every act of bribery; it may be possible to counter this negative weight in some instances, but not without an argument (the provision of good reasons).¹ Why should a negative moral weight be attached to every act of bribery? It might be thought that, even if most instances of bribery are morally objectionable, the concept of bribery itself is morally neutral.² However, enticing people to violate what they take to be their positional duties does seem to call for some sort of moral justification. This seems to be so even in extreme cases, for example, when bribing a Nazi guard to allow concentration camp prisoners to escape. The ready availability of a moral justification in such circumstances does not eliminate the need for one.     

The concept of measurement-precision

The science of metrology characterizes the concept of precision in exceptionally loose and open terms. That is because the details of the concept must be filled in—what I call narrowing of the concept—in ways that are sensitive to the details of a particular measurement or measurement system and its use. Since these details can never be filled in completely, the concept of the actual precision of an instrument system must always retain some of the openness of its general characterization. The idea that there is something that counts as the actual precision of a measurement system must therefore always remain an idealization, a conclusion that would appear to hold very broadly for terms and the concepts they express.     

The concept of attitude

Current conceptions of attitude do not adequately distinguish between attitudes and factual beliefs on the one hand, or between attitudes and preferences on the other. To hold an attitude is to ascribe an objective moral property to the attitude‐object; however, the conception of such properties rests on an incoherent theory of relations as constitutive of their terms, and the belief in them has only pseudo‐cognitive content. Moralism, or the maintaining of attitudes, is a special technique for disguising and promoting interests. Attitudes serve as rationalizations for concealed or unconscious impulses and are themselves defended by further rationalizations. These considerations call into question some common techniques of attitude‐assessment. Some apparent exceptions, namely ‘aesthetic attitudes’ and ‘authentic values’, reveal themselves to be either (a) factual beliefs about aesthetic properties or about human motivation respectively, (b) preferences, or (c) moral attitudes as defined. Moralism is not essential to socialization and is inimical to the ‘social feelings’.     

The concept of validity

This article advances a simple conception of test validity: A test is valid for measuring an attribute if (a) the attribute exists and (b) variations in the attribute causally produce variation in the measurement outcomes. This conception is shown to diverge from current validity theory in several respects. In particular, the emphasis in the proposed conception is on ontology, reference, and causality, whereas current validity theory focuses on epistemology, meaning, and correlation. It is argued that the proposed conception is not only simpler but also theoretically superior to the position taken in the existing literature. Further, it has clear theoretical and practical implications for validation research. Most important, validation research must not be directed at the relation between the measured attribute and other attributes but at the processes that convey the effect of the measured attribute on the test scores.     

The concept of intelligence

Rosch's theory of concepts, applied to the concept of intelligence, suggests that one's intelligence is just the degree to which one resembles a prototypically intelligent person. Because no single characteristics defines the prototype, there can be no adequate process-based definition of intelligence. In principle, a combination of many empirically derived measures into a single index—as in a Binet test—would be appropriate. In practice, many of the relevant characteristics are simply impossible to measure.