Journal
PHILOSOPHICAL PSYCHOLOGY
Volume 21, Issue 2, Pages 207-230Publisher
ROUTLEDGE JOURNALS, TAYLOR & FRANCIS LTD
DOI: 10.1080/09515080801980179
Keywords
concept formation; infant concepts; innate primitives; perceptual meaning analysis; spatial representations
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This article describes what the earliest concepts are like and presents a theory of the spatial primitives from which they are formed. The earliest concepts tend to be global, like animal and container, and it is hypothesized that they consist of simplified redescriptions of innately salient spatial information. These redescriptions become associated with sensory and other bodily experiences that are not themselves redescribed, but that enrich conceptual thought. The initial conceptual base becomes expanded through subdivision, sometimes aided by language that points up these divisions or suggests new spatial analyses, and by the analogical extension of spatially derived concepts to nonspatial domains. This formulation is contrasted with Fodor's (1998) metaphysical theory of concept formation.
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