Concept Formation and Concept Grounding

Recently Carrie S. Jenkins formulated an epistemology of mathematics, or rather arithmetic, respecting apriorism, empiricism, and realism. Central is an idea of concept grounding. The adequacy of this idea has been questioned e.g. concerning the grounding of the mathematically central concept of set (or class), and of composite concepts. In this paper we present a view of concept formation in mathematics, based on ideas from Carnap, leading to modifications of Jenkins’s epistemology that may solve some problematic issues with her ideas. But we also present some further problems with her view, concerning the role of proof for mathematical knowledge.     

Concept Appraisal

This paper reports the first empirical investigation of the hypothesis that epistemic appraisals form part of the structure of concepts. To date, studies of concepts have focused on the way concepts encode properties of objects and the way those features are used in categorization and in other cognitive tasks. Philosophical considerations show the importance of also considering how a thinker assesses the epistemic value of beliefs and other cognitive resources and, in particular, concepts. We demonstrate that there are multiple, reliably judged, dimensions of epistemic appraisal of concepts. Four of these dimensions are accounted for by a common underlying factor capturing how well people believe they understand a concept. Further studies show how dimensions of concept appraisal relate to other aspects of concepts. First, they relate directly to the hierarchical organization of concepts, reflecting the increase in specificity from superordinate to basic and subordinate levels. Second, they predict inductive choices in category-based induction. Our results suggest that epistemic appraisals of concepts form a psychologically important yet previously overlooked aspect of the structure of concepts. These findings will be important in understanding why individuals sometimes abandon and replace certain concepts; why social groups do so, for example, during a “scientific revolution”; and how we can facilitate such changes when we engage in deliberate “conceptual engineering” for epistemic, social, and political purposes.     

Concept Cartesianism,Concept Pragmatism,and Frege Cases

This paper concerns the dialectal role of Frege Cases in the debate between Concept Cartesians and Concept Pragmatists. I take as a starting point Christopher Peacocke’s argument that, unlike Cartesianism, his ‘Fregean’ Pragmatism can account for facts about the rationality and epistemic status of certain judgments. I argue that since this argument presupposes that the rationality of thoughts turn on their content, it is thus question-begging against Cartesians, who claim that issues about rationality turn on the form, not the content, of thoughts. I then consider Jerry Fodor’s argument that ‘modes of presentation’ are not identical with Fregean senses, and argue that explanatory considerations should leads us to reject his ‘syntactic’ treatment of Frege cases. Rejecting the Cartesian treatment of Frege cases, however, is not tantamount to accepting Peacocke’s claim that reasons and rationality are central to the individuation of concepts. For I argue that we can steer a middle course between Fodor’s Cartesianism and Peacocke’s Pragmatism, and adopt a form of Pragmatism that is constrained by Fregean considerations, but at the same time denies that concepts are constitutively tied to reasons and rationality.

The Concept of Acquiescence

Suppose a police car gives chase to some violent criminals, putting innocent bystanders at risk. The criminals have not threatened the police in any way; so we would not normally say that the police have been coerced into chasing. Nor are the police merely responding to natural circumstances, so they are not acting under necessity, in the usual sense. The case is different from one in which an ambulance speeds to hospital, putting innocent bystanders at risk, because the reason for the police speeding has to do with the unreasonable behaviour of others. Yet that unreasonable behaviour does not constitute threatening behaviour. How then should we describe what happened?     

The Concept of Trying

It is widely held that whenever someone φs, that person tries to do φ. I examine arguments by B. O'Shaughnessy and J. Hornsby, and considerations by P. Grice in support of that thesis. I argue that none of them are convincing. The remainder of the paper defends an analysis of the concept of trying along the lines opposed by Grice et al. By speaking of someone's trying to φ the speaker leaves the room for failure or the possibility of failure. This account of the function of the word 'try' makes it clear what is wrong with the claim that whenever someone φs, that person tries to do φ. For that claim amounts to saying that every action is either a failure or a possible failure – which clearly one can't say of any action that one has already acknowledged to be successful. Furthermore, whether an action is possibly a failure depends on how much one knows about it. Hence the question whether in itself an action does or does not involve trying is as misguided as the question whether it's intrinsically unexpected. It may be correct for some to describe it as 'an attempt to φ', but incorrect for others.     

Concept Shift and the Development of the Concept of Class in Children

The authors compared parent-related perceptions by hospitalized adolescents (i.e., who were admitted to a specialized psychiatric unit; n = 50) and delinquent adolescents (i.e., who were placed at a juvenile treatment institution; n = 51) with adolescents from the general population (n = 51). All adolescents completed a broad set of measures of attachment, perceived parenting, and separation–individuation. Contrary to initial expectations, hospitalized adolescents scored higher than controls on indices of excessive autonomy. Ambivalence regarding issues of interpersonal closeness and distance was found among delinquent adolescents. In addition, hospitalized and delinquent adolescents were found to be struggling, each in their specific way, with attachment-related experiences of trauma. Finally, delinquent adolescents also showed a stage-appropriate form of potentially adaptive narcissism. These findings add to the growing consensus in the literature that associations between adolescent psychopathology and parent-related perceptions are typically complex and somewhat counterintuitive.     

马克思的Wesen概念

Ontologie是关于Sein的理论,但是,由于对Sein的追问,一定要追问到Sein的本质(Wesen)或根据(Grund),因此Ontologie也就成了一种有关Wesen的理论了。国内哲学界在讨论马克思的Ontologie时,未注意到Wesen概念的极端重要性。本文探讨马克思的Wesen概念,阐明马克思对Sein、Existenz同Wesen关系的理解,并展现马克思对此概念的使用以及同黑格尔、亚里士多德和海德格尔哲学的关联。     

真的概念

弗雷格的语义学蕴涵了两个不可调和的推论:其一认为语句的意义先于命题,命题先于真,这种观点发展成为最少量论;其二认为真先于命题,因而也先于语句的意义,这种观点发展成为成真条件论.结合维特根斯坦的意义即用法的观点,得出的结论是:意义理论的核心概念并不是真,而是一个陈述得到证明的观念,意义理论并不必须采取成真条件论的形式.作为最少量论和成真条件论共同基础的奎因式语义转换原则是包含矛盾的.结合了语义转换原则和塔斯基真的定义的最少量论者必定排除戴维森式成真条件论.     

勒维纳斯的形而上学概念

在西方哲学史上,作为形而上学的核心部门,存在论甚至可以作为形而上学的同义词来使用。勒维纳斯以其思想的强力把两者分离开来,成为当代西方思想的一个异乎寻常事件。但这一异乎寻常事件之最异乎寻常者在于,西方思想很长时间以来都没有意识到其异乎寻常,而只在德里达那里获得了反响(即使德里达不是第一个对勒维纳斯思想进行研究的,但其《暴力与形而上学》无疑是第一篇真正有分量的研究著作)。本文的目的主要在于通过勒维纳斯对以海德格尔为靶子的存在论哲学的批判来澄清其赋予形而上学一词的特殊意义。一存在论,亚里士多德把它规定为对作为…     

The Concept of Situations

The concept of situations has a long past, but the conceptualization of situations only has a short history. This article provides a survey of the concept of situations. Based upon Milgram’s [Human Relations 18 (1965), 57] vision toward ‘a compelling theory of situations,’ the authors examine the concept of situations in three specific literatures: definitions of situations, taxonomies of situations, and interrelationships among persons, situations, and behaviors. To further integrate the literature, the authors propose that the essence of a situation is its affordance of human goals, and that situations are largely characterized by two specific principles of goal processes (what happened, is happening, or might happen to people’s goals) and goal contents (the specific goals afforded in the situation).     

巴门尼德残篇中的Aletheia

本文分析了巴门尼德残篇中出现的Aletheia这个概念,认为通常在与“意见”相对立的“真理”的意义上理解Aletheia是不合适的。这个概念与“是”、“是者”直接相关,甚至可以作为“是者是”这个命题的主词。在巴门尼德的残篇中Aletheia显示了它的独特性,既是女神话语的一种绝对担保,又在一种典型的古希腊式的论辩气氛中维持着自身的自满自足,为其后的思想开辟出一条新的道路。文章借用海德格尔的视野论述了Aletheia这个问题在思想上显示出来的重要性,并试图将“是者是”这个命题所道出的“同一性”摆置到其源出的位置上去。     

The Concept of Miracle

The concept of miracle has often been regarded as irreconcilable with the concept of natural law. But this contradiction applies only to an understanding of a miracle as a break of natural law. Such a violation would destroy the assertion of natural law, because its universal claim does not permit exceptions. However, the idea of miracle need not be conceived in this way, though it has often been done since medieval times. Augustine thought of miracles simply as unusual events that contradict our accustomed views of the course of nature but not nature itself. According to that definition of miracle, no contradiction of natural laws need be assumed. It is sufficient to regard unusual occurrences as "signs" of God's special activity in creation.     

孔子的"仁"

孔子的“仁”属于一个伦理学范畴,也是一个政治学范畴,还是一个修身学的范畴,“仁”具有“爱一切人”的含义,这与孔子的出身和所处的社会地位有关。     

论概念空间

人类的认识结果往往是以概念的形式加以确定和传播,因此,概念本身就成为我们讨论人类认识的主要对象,哲学的反思正是我们对概念本身的研究活动.