S

Concepts and proto-conceptsin cognitive science

Ron ChrisleySackler Centre for Consciousness ScienceCentre for Research in Cognitive Science

School of InformaticsUniversity of Sussex

SweCog Summer School in Cognitive ScienceMarston Hill, August 9th-13th 2010

Overview 1

➢ The concept: The workhorse of orthodox cognitive science

➢ Concepts are constituents of mental content that are:➢ Articulable➢ Recombinable➢ Rational➢ Deployable

➢ Because of these features, concepts present the objective world as the objective world

➢ Often thought to be required for any intentional explanation of cognitive phenomena

2 SweCog Summer School 2010

Overview 2

➢ However, there seem to be mental phenomena not adequately characterized in terms of concepts:1. the fineness of grain of experience2. the incorrigibility of illusion3. non-circularity requirements on a theory of perception4. the graded nature of development and evolution5. commonalities in perception for those who do not share

the same concepts6. the minds of animals and infants7. the context-sensitivity and situatedness of some cognitive

processes8. the phenomenology of non-objectual thought3 SweCog Summer School 2010

Overview 3

➢ Proposal: Employ a notion of non-conceptual content that does not suffer from these limitations

➢ Non-conceptual constituents of content can be called proto-concepts

➢ Challenges for non-conceptual content:➢ Specification➢ Relation between conceptual and non-conceptual

content (McDowell)➢ Conceptual objections (McDowell)➢ Empirical objections (e.g., Clark)

4 SweCog Summer School 2010

The limits ofconceptual explanation

➢ However, there seem to be mental phenomena not adequately characterized in terms of concepts:1. the fineness of grain of perceptual experience2. the incorrigibility of illusion3. non-circularity requirements on a theory of perception4. the graded nature of development and evolution5. commonalities in perception for those who do not share

the same concepts6. the minds of animals and infants7. the context-sensitivity and situatedness of some cognitive

processes8. the phenomenology of non-objectual thought

➢ Probably won’t have time to discuss all of these15 SweCog Summer School 2010

Alternative specifications

➢  Therefore, an alternative means of content specification is needed➢ A point not fully appreciated in literature➢ Has restricted non-conceptual content research to

theoretical, general discussions, rather than explanatory applications of particular non-conceptual contents

➢ Alternatives have been proposed by➢ Peacocke (scenarios)➢ Bermudez (augmented success semantics)➢ Chrisley (various, including enactive depictions)

➢ Gives purpose to the debate16 SweCog Summer School 2010

Thank you.

Comments welcome:ronc@sussex.ac.uk

17 SweCog Summer School 2010