Concepts, Philosophical Issues

Philosophers' and Psychologists' Theories of Concepts

The term concept is used in philosophy and in psychology, and philosophers, such as Georges Rey, Eric Margolis, and Jerry Fodor, commonly assume that psychologists' theories of concepts aim at solving the issues they themselves are interested in. In addition, they commonly hold that as solutions to the issues of interest in philosophy, psychological theories of concepts are defective. For instance, in 2003, Fodor concludes his review of Gregory Murphy's book, The Big Book of Concepts, as follows:

[Page 172]Philosophical theories of concepts are also sometimes criticized for being unable to explain what psychological theories of concepts are meant to explain—namely, how we categorize, make inductions, and so on.

The lack of progress in the resolution of the controversy between philosophers and psychologists suggests an alternative picture of the relation between philosophers' and psychologists' theories of concepts: These theories are not meant to solve the same issues and are thus not competing. In support of this alternative picture, one can note that philosophers and psychologists disagree about what phenomena a theory of concepts should explain. A meticulous examination of the psychological and the philosophical theories of concepts also shows that their explananda differ.

It is thus important to distinguish clearly the issues philosophers and psychologists are trying to solve:

• 1.
  The philosophical issue: How are we able to have propositional attitudes (beliefs, desires, etc.) about the objects of our attitudes? For example, in virtue of what can we have beliefs about dogs as such or about triangles as such?
• 2.
  The psychological issue: Why do people categorize, draw inductions, make analogies, combine concepts, and so on, the way they do? For instance, why are inductive judgments sensitive to similarity?

Philosophers attempt to solve the philosophical issue by providing sufficient (or necessary and sufficient) conditions for having propositional attitudes about the objects of our propositional attitudes. Psychologists attempt to solve the psychological issue by determining the properties of the bodies of information about categories, substances, events, and so forth, that people rely on when they categorize, make inductions, draw analogies, understand words, and so on.

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