Journal
BEHAVIORAL AND BRAIN SCIENCES
Volume 34, Issue 3, Pages 113-U17Publisher
CAMBRIDGE UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X10000919
Keywords
bootstrapping; concept; core cognition; developmental discontinuity; innate primitive
Funding
- NICHD NIH HHS [R01 HD038338-06A2, R01 HD038338] Funding Source: Medline
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A theory of conceptual development must specify the innate representational primitives, must characterize the ways in which the initial state differs from the adult state, and must characterize the processes through which one is transformed into the other. The Origin of Concepts (henceforth TOOC) defends three theses. With respect to the initial state, the innate stock of primitives is not limited to sensory, perceptual, or sensorimotor representations; rather, there are also innate conceptual representations. With respect to developmental change, conceptual development consists of episodes of qualitative change, resulting in systems of representation that are more powerful than, and sometimes incommensurable with, those from which they are built. With respect to a learning mechanism that achieves conceptual discontinuity, I offer Quinian bootstrapping. TOOC concludes with a discussion of how an understanding of conceptual development constrains a theory of concepts.
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