Talk:Concept/Archive 1

message: ------------
The first sentence (as of July 21, 2008, 9:20pm ET) needs to defend its claim that the latin term for concept "is traced back to 1550-60". Traced by whom? Traced to whom? As far as I know, it goes back further than this. Medieval philosophers and theologians used the term 'conceptio', from 'conceptus', to refer to an intellectual item or product completing the act of understanding. E.g., St Thomas Aquinas, writing in the early 1270s (in his Compendium Theologiae), uses the term 'conceptio' among others often to refer to such an item.
------------
I took away this below, not because its wrong, but because it might be copyrighted by Random House.
The definition below, (from Random House Unabridged Dictionary) is how the word was used up until not too many years ago:
1. a general notion or idea; conception.
2. an idea of something formed by mentally combining all its characteristics or particulars; a construct.
3. a directly conceived or intuited object of thought. 
In Fact, the word "concept" has many meanings, and this article needs a list of alternate meanings or a disambiguation page.
DanielDemaret
-----------------------
I'm not sure about that first sentence.  Does a "concept" have to identify a class or category? For example, I would classify "courage" as a concept.  Any thoughts? Meelar 05:44, 30 May 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Various

message: I would like to suggest that one alternate meaning of concept can be derived from the definition of OBJECT (PHILOSOPHY) which is included in wikipedia. This is a meaning which I like to use.
O1thomas 14:17, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concept as object which exists psychically 

message: I added Kant's definition of a concept to the article because it seems, to me, to provide a very brief, clear, unambiguous meaning. The common attributes of certain objects make up a concept. You have a concept of "dog" when you see several different four-legged, furry, barking things that lick your hand, wag their tails, and fetch a thrown stick. The concept is that which is common to all of the different perceptual representations. It is a general, vague object that is present in the mind. It cannot be perceived. It is conceived. Differences between individual objects, such as color, size, and voice timbre, are abstracted or taken away. 
It follows from Kant's definition that a word is only a sign of a concept. Words are not concepts. Therefore any word that is agreed upon by convention in any language can serve as a sign for a concept. The words "dog," "Hund," "perro," and "chien" all signify the same concept.Lestrade 20:42, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Kant

message: According to William James, a concept is true if it results in a change in human behavior. If it has no effect on the way that humans act, then it is not true. This means that humans could agree, by general convention, that the word "Pamabawa" signifies an individual who controls the world. According to James, if everyone makes sacrifices to Pamabawa, then its concept is true. If everyone ignores Pamabawa, the the concept is false.Lestrade 12:57, 13 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: James's Conceptual Truth

message: To say that a concept is an idea, notion, or entity is to communicate no information. This definition is similar to  those that are given by people who do not understand what they are talking about. How many curious people have been disappointed by such answers to their questions? How many people have stopped thinking about such issues because they have received worthless answers?Lestrade 19:48, 17 December 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Saying Nothing

message: How can philosophy be merely the making of concepts? I make a concept every time that I notice a similarity between two different objects. I see a lemon. I see a banana. They both have the same color. Now I have the concept that I designate by the word "yellow" or "jaune" or "amarillo" or "giallo" or "gelb."   There is more to philosophy than this.Lestrade 21:16, 16 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Deleuze

message: #  There are many more meanings to the word "concept" than are offered here. These should be included here or in a disambiguation page or by referring to a dictionary, such as wikidictionary.
# "Universal...idea" are rarely as universal, if one wants to be exact, as most people that only speak one language think they are. When translating even simple sentences one quickly runs into difficulties. What does "universal" have to do with "concept" apart from implying this fallacy?
# Since the usage of the word Concept by Kant, is strictly speaking a translation from German, then the exact usage implied from that translation should be described. The way I read Kant, the german word "Konzept" is not in my experience, the way most people around me use the english word "concept". DanielDemaret 13:52, 14 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Kant used the German word "Begriff." This word means, in English, "be-gripped." That is, several perceptions are grasped together. The grasping hand is the concept. It binds several different perceptions by uniting them according to what they have in common. Christian Wolff first used the German word "Begriff" to mean "Concept".64.12.116.204 02:10, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Extentions needed?

message: A comma separated list of 54 wikilinks is not exactly beautiful prose. Seeing as there is already a link to List of concepts in science I think we can trim this down considerably. --Nscheffey(T/C)</Sup> 02:16, 27 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: List of scientific concepts

message: It may be that:
 Concept : what <I>would</I> take shape in mind
 Content : what <I>could</I> take shape in mind
 Context : what <I>helps</I> take shape in mind
--ishiakkum 10:11, 13 August 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Er, huh?  Sorry, but to be blunt, I don't think that makes any sense.  You'll have to clarify that. -- Bilbo1507 04:30, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Concept, content, and context 

message: it is stated in the article that "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." This is certainly not quite correct. because 1. if concepts are in some sense independent of language: then how is the concept of halal/haram (in islam) expressed in english (not translated). better examples are concepts appearing as axioms of things like religion. 2. what seems to be independent of language is: "the naming of objects" like dog which is not a concept but only an object. can someone please explain me the sentence in the article. kalash 3oct2006
:::A word is a sign that is used to designate a concept for the purpose of communication. Different languages use different words. English uses "tree," French uses "arbre," German uses "Baum," and Spanish uses "árbol." These words are only agreed-upon conventions that are a sign for the concept of a wooden thing that grows in the ground and has roots, leaves, and branches.Lestrade 01:39, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: you are telling me the different names for the same object. "tree" does not determine a concept. it is only an object. from mathematical point of view, object is not the same as a concept. please look the examples i gave above. in philosophy too there is (as far as i know) no claim that "concepts are in some sense independent of language". by the way, a word is simply defined as "for any fixed set of presentation (i.e. letters of a language), a word is the name for an object constructed from the letters". different words may refer to the same object. irreducible words can be defined so that the asignment becomes unique. kalash3oct2006
No, I am telling you the different names for the same concept. A concept is the one common collection of properties that belong to several experienced objects. (I see many different shapes that all have fur, wagging tails, black noses, and four legs. I abstract their differences and, as a result, have the concept "dog".) A concept is general and abstract. In order to communicate with each other about a concept, we use a word that serves as a sign for it. Different languages use different words to designate a concept. As a result, concepts are independent of language because a concept is not a word.Lestrade 13:26, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  1. a dog is not a concept, it is an object that is common among different societies. on the other hand the concept of halal/haram does not exist in, for example, england. it can be explained in english though. but there is no fixed common THING available that can be uniquely asigned to the concept of halal. my point is that dog is not a concept. 2. for a trivial reason, there is no statement to the effect that "the concept x in the society y speaking the language z, has a (one-to-one) correspondence in the society y' speaking the language z'." i just don't see why you are implicitly assuming this and then try to explain to me the rest which is an obvious matter. 3. i agree with and dare to make the following statement: "for a fixed society y speaking the language z, a given concept x is independent of the way it is expressed." Moreover, "a translation of the concept x into the society y' speaking the language z' is merely a word for word substitution." kalash3oct2006
The disagreement in this section comes from the fact that the most text used for communication is ambiguous (=undefined). For example, The text "a dog is not a concept, it is an object" says nothing if the terms "concept" and "object" mean different things for the two authors. And because they don't say
what they mean (it is not easy and practical in todays writtings to define every term we use), misunderstanding is a natural result. Kaseluris, Nikos (talk) 09:57, 25 August 2008 (UTC)

text: kalash3 is not distinguishing between perception and concept. An object is a perception. We directly experience the perception and assume that the perception is of some external thing. But we never directly know the external thing of which we are thinking. We only know the perception. A concept is a quality or qualities that we think are common to several perceptions. We take several perceptions and abstract all of their differences until we are left with common characteristics. These comprise the concept. We shouldn't talk about an object, because an object is only something that we assume. We should talk about concrete perceptions and abstract concepts. We directly know our perceptions. We generate our concepts through mental abstraction.Lestrade (talk) 14:21, 13 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  what FACT?? 

message: If the author wishes to remove the material, why not let them? Banno 06:17, 22 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Routt 

message: The following paragraph had been added to the very top of the article. I moved it here:
:A Concept is  a memory of a contextual relationship.A concept can demonstrate a small relationship such as the relative difference between big and small, or more complex relationships like the understanding of how a potato becomes the frenchfry you are eating via the whole process. The whole process Together from seed to mouth can be fixed into a single concept. A concept could be much bigger still taking into account all potatoes made into french fries in the world,thier distribution process,the consequences of consumers eating french fries, and the future possibilities of The frenchfry. We can also fix concepts that are smaller yet to an unknown limit, such as the concept of a single frenchfry in your hand. names are given to some of our concepts, but at present there are few in our lexicon. One worded example of a concept is "ecosystem". I summize that because there are so few concepts in our lexicon that worded Conceptualisations are relatively as new as our written languages, however, I infer that conceptualizing is neither new or exclusive to Human-kind because The ability to sence,compare, and rememder comprise a concept. 
:source: James Leon Zumwalt, Software developer Narssarssuaq 12:47, 23 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Removed text from article 

message: I don't know how people here feel about Objectivism, but perhaps a short section on Ayn Rand's meaning of "concept" could be included, as her definition also exlains how the concept is formed in a summarized manner.  It could possibly go as follows:
Rand considered concepts to be "...mental integration[s] of two or more units possessing the same distinguishing characteristic(s), with their particular measurements omitted." (Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, Ch. 2, "Concept-formation"), with the distinguishing characteristic being a particular category of measurements within a commensurable characteristic, which Rand calls a "Conceptual Common Denominator" (ibid.), and Measurement-Omission being "...measurements exist, but are not specified"(ibid.).
Rand considered concepts as implicit until they are defined, as in the units of the concepts are differentiated from every other existent, and are integrated by a commensurable characteristic, which means that definition for Rand was the final step of concept-formation.  She wrote that words, with the exception of proper nouns, are only perceptual concertes that represent concepts, and could have no meaning besides the meaning of the concept.(ibid., Ch. 5, "Definitions")Rodfitts 06:28, 31 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Ayn Rand's Theory of Concepts

message: Gordon Pask defined a concept as "A procedure for bringing about a relation." (Conversation, Cognition and Learning 1975). He developed his Conversation Theory to describe how analogies ("the value of a conversation is analogy and any analogy has a generalisation") are produced by the differences of shared concepts. In his Interaction of Actors Theory he extended his definition of concept into all media making it panpsychic. He was a celebrated cybernetician. Does anyone have a view on where would it fit in this article?--Nick Green (talk) 15:21, 17 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Pask's work on Concepts

message: A number of sections of this article make no sense whatsoever, and even more have no decipherable sources.
*Conceptual structure
**Has something that looks like a reference copied from another reference, and refers to opinions of people.
*One possible and likely structure
**No references, one person's name, not very understandable.
*The dual nature of concepts
**Weaselly, probably devoid of content, although it does have one malformatted link to a Wikipedia page, which I'm now going to fix.
*The first concept
**No references or content, as noted by an anon.
*One is two and three
**No references or content, as noted by an anon.
IS A UNIT OF KNOWLEDGE  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.242.173.77 (talk) 01:19, 22 November 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Nonsense 

message: One of the article’s lead sentences is: “Philosophers  generally agree that a concept is an idea formed from inference.” This sentence has two major problems. (1) Obviously, we want to know exactly who are all of these philosophers and where in their works have they written such a definition; (2) Is it true that a concept is an idea formed from inference? Problem (2) results from the fact that many people would not know the difference between a concept and an idea, especially an idea that is not formed from inference. Also, conclusions, not concepts, are formed from inference through the use of reasoning. This is an exercise in logic. Concepts, on the other hand, are not inferred. Conception, concept formation, or conceiving is not a logical process. Concepts are formed by the brain’s activity when it perceives several different perceptions or other concepts that are experienced as having a common element. This common element is imaginatively formed or conceived and is therefore a concept or conception.Lestrade (talk) 17:32, 14 April 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Inferring a concept?

message: *Armstrong, S. L., Gleitman, L. R., & Gleitman, H. (1999). what some concepts might not be. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, Concepts (pp. 225-261). Massachusetts: MIT press.
*Carey, S. (1999). knowledge acquisition: enrichment or conceptual change? In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp. 459-489). Massachusetts: MIT press.
*Fodor, J. A., Garrett, M. F., Walker, E. C., & Parkes, C. H. (1999). against definitions. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp. 491-513). Massachusetts: MIT press.
*Fodor, J., & LePore, E. (1996). the pet fish and the red Herring: why concept still can't be prototypes. cognition, 253-270.
*Hume, D. (1739). book one part one: of the understanding of ideas, their origin, composition, connexion, abstraction etc. In D. Hume, a treatise of human nature. England.
*Murphy, G. (2004). Chapter 2. In G. Murphy, a big book of concepts (pp. 11 - 41). Massachusetts: MIT press.
*Murphy, G., & Medin, D. (1999). the role of theories in conceptual coherence. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp. 425-459). Massachusetts: MIT press.
*Prinz, J. J. (2002). Desiderata on a Theory of Concepts. In J. J. Prinz, Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and their Perceptual Basis (pp. 1-23). Massechusettes: MIT press.
*Putnam, H. (1999). is semantics possible? In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp. 177-189). Massachusetts: MIT press.
*Quine, W. (1999). two dogmas of empiricism. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp. 153-171). Massachusetts: MIT press.
*Rey, G. (1999). Concepts and Stereotypes. In E. Margolis, & S. Laurence (Eds.), Concepts: Core Readings (pp. 279-301). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
*Rosch, E. (1977). Classification of real-world objects: Origins and representations in cognition. In P. Johnson-Laird, & P. Wason, Thinking: Readings in Cognitive Science (pp. 212-223). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
*Rosch, E. (1999). Principles of Categorization. In E. Margolis, & S. Laurence (Eds.), Concepts: Core Readings (pp. 189-206). Cambridge, Massechusetts: MIT Press.
*Wittgenstein, L. (1999). philosophical investigations: sections 65-78. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp. 171-175). Massachusetts: MIT press.
With-silver-luck (talk) 22:57, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Your outline sounds promising. My only hesitation is with some of the sources (I don't know all of them). Wittgenstein, Quine and Hume, for example, sound like they would be used as primary sources. Remember that Wikipedia is a tertiary source, so you need to summary secondary sources. That is, you need to summarize what scholars have said are the most important definitions, not summarize the actual philosophy yourself, otherwise you will be doing original research. Does that make sense? Wadewitz (talk) 18:00, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  I think then that I am definitely confused as to the difference in the case of philosophy. Isn't the primary source in this case my experience of mental language (concepts) or someone else's description of this, rather than the original theories/definitions given by philosophers on the subject - do  I have to find people who summarise these theories and then cite them? With-silver-luck (talk) 19:31, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  Perhaps let's check with a philosopher and see what they think about the primary/secondary. I think if your article were about the arguments of a philosopher then this would be an issue but because you are talking about their ideas about concepts I am not sure. I'll ask around to see what I can find out for you. Clevwiki (talk) 19:38, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  In the case of philosophy, primary sources are the original theories, so, yes, you have to find summaries of them. Think of it this way. You cannot pick and choose which theories to put in the article yourself because you are not an expert. You must find peer-reviewed articles that explain the important definitions and use those. You cannot decide which theories are important. Does that make sense? Wadewitz (talk) 22:09, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes. Can I find an article that says which theories are important and then summarize and cite the original sources from there or is a cliffnotes summary style-thing really preferable to returning to the original? With-silver-luck (talk) 04:20, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it is required, because returning to the original is original research, as you would be interpreting it yourself. Just don't use Cliff Notes, use reputable sources! Wadewitz (talk) 20:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Bibiliography

message: *Opening paragraph
**Better definition (source tbd) which includes 'mental language'
**Historical/Philosophical Background
*Under Definitions
**Classical Theory
**Prototype Theory
**Theory-Theory
**No Definition?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by With-silver-luck (talk • contribs) 21:37, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: This looks like it will be a very good addition and the new sources look good. Wadewitz (talk) 20:42, 31 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Proposed Outline

message: *Margolis, Eric and Laurence, Stephen, "Concepts", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2012 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2012/entries/concepts/>. 
*Brown, R. (1978). A New Paradigm of Reference. In G. Miller, & E. Lenneberg, Psychology and Biology of Language and Thought (pp. 151-167). New York: Academic Press.
*Murphy's "The Big Book of Concepts"
With-silver-luck (talk) 04:17, 24 October 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for all your work on finding new sources. Your list of proposed changes seems to be the right amount to be manageable. Your original list of references might work well as a suggested readings for those who are interested.Clevwiki (talk) 23:12, 2 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: New/additional Source List

message: I have just about finished the plans I had for the article (I decided not to add a section about concepts not having structure - these cover the major points, I'm not sure its necessary- though it would be nice to have a section on conceptual atomism). I would still ideally like to add criticism sections for the prototype and theorytheory sections (but it is most important to have it for classic because that was the most longstanding understanding and it was revolutionary to say anything else). I would suggest for further improvement to clean up the "issues" section, and maybe add a section about ontology with the stuff I deleted above. I just don't have the knowledge base for that kind of remodel. My stuff probably could also do with a few more wikilinks.
It's been fun wikipedia. See you soon. 
With-silver-luck (talk) 08:31, 7 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: Finished my editing process (maybe) and call for improvement further

message: Much of the article uses "The big book of concepts" by GL Murphy. The referencing to this book has no page numbers, so it makes it difficult to check what it says. I can see nowhere where Murphy says "a dog can still be a dog with only four legs" or anything like it. What, indeed, does it mean? Myrvin (talk) 19:57, 21 November 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't have the murphy book with me any more (rented from library as an attempt at finding secondary sources as suggested above)but you're right, it was a typo and should have read "three legs" I have changed it to reflect the correct information. With-silver-luck (talk) 04:03, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Referencing Murphy 

message: I have changed the introduction because it was simply much too biased to cognitive science/mental representation. Wikipedia should not propagate one thinking, but should be a balanced introduction different points of view. The article even quoted Stanford Encyclopedia as if there was one modern and correct way of thinking concepts. I have changed the introduction only, but it further changes if the article should give an all-round introduction to the philosophy of concept.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bjerke (talk • contribs) 07:36, 2 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: I restored the old intro from November. Bhny (talk) 23:01, 30 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text:  User:Gregbard reverted my restoration Bhny (talk) 02:08, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It's true. I made some other modifications too, so please make further edits preserving the format, as they are consistent with the philosophy Manual of style. Greg Bard (talk) 02:22, 31 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title: The introduction was much too biased