Concepts as Correlates of Lexical Labels

Working from an analysis of the philosophical assumptions of the cognitivist perspective, this book unpacks an argument for considering concepts as correlates of lexical labels - for a maximally productive understanding of the relation between concepts, categories, categorisation, and their theoretical models.

The study of language becomes particularly attractive when it is not practised as an isolated descriptive enterprise, but when it has wide-ranging implications for the study of the human mind. Such is the spirit of this book. While categorisation may be the single most basic cognitive process in organisms, and as an area of inquiry, it is fundamental to Cognitive Science as a whole, at the other end of the spectrum, high-level cognition is organised and permeated by language, giving rise to categories that count and function as concepts. Working from considering the philosophical assumptions of the cognitivist perspective, this study offers an argument for a very productive understanding of the relation between concepts, categories, and their theoretical models.

Autorentext

S awomir Wacewicz is an Assistant Professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Torü, Poland. He holds a PhD in Linguistics. His research interest focuses on the evolution of language, evolution of cognition, and the philosophy of language and mind.

Inhalt

Contents: Cognitive Science Interdisciplinarity Internalism and externalism Concept Category Categorization Mental representation Conceptual atomism Prototype models Exemplar models.