Psychology Dictionary of Arguments

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Concept: a concept is a term for an entity with certain properties. The properties of an object correspond to the features of the concept. These concept features are necessary in contrast to the properties of an individual object, which are always contingent.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

Ruth Millikan on Concepts - Dictionary of Arguments

I 253
Def Concept/Millikan: a concept denotes a set of intensions that regulate the repetition of an inner concept.
Definition Concept/new/Millikan: (further definition): a concept is the ability to identify a thing.
N.B.: then concepts show other dimensions beyond beliefs and intensions.
>Identification
, >Intension, >Belief.
I 255
Concept of higher level/Millikan: a concept of higher level is no ability to identify an object, but correspondingly a higher ability: e.g. to recognize a rotated figure as the same figure. Thus, mental names for forms can be created.
>Description level.
I 256
For example, the ability to recognize people by their faces.
>Recognition.
I 272
Concept/property/predicate/Millikan: the relation between a concept and world lies between the head and the world and cannot be internalized.
Cf. >Reference.
I 273
Therefore, there is not even a one-to-one relationship between concepts and properties. Two concepts could correspond to one property and one concept (if it has ambiguous Fregean sense) can correspond to two properties.
Even if we know of a concept that a property corresponds to it, this is never a priori knowledge.
Properties/a priori/knowledge/Millikan: there is also no a priori knowledge about the incompatibility or compatibility or identity of properties. At most there is natural necessity (natural necessity).
"Competition" between properties/MillikanVsStrawson: competition is just another type of "natural necessity" besides causality and identity. It is not a "logical competition".
Logic/Concept/Necessity/Millikan: also "logical possibility" and "logical necessity" between concepts are ultimately natural necessities between concepts.
Logic/Millikan: one should better consider logic as an empirical science.
For example, "S cannot be at the same time P and not P" is either meaningless, because "S" and "P" have no meaning, or something like true because it is a statement about the nature of the world.
I 315
Concept/Millikan: Concepts are abilities. Their adequacy is not destroyed by the appearance of a contradiction.
I 323
Concept/Knowledge/Millikan: Concepts are abilities, but in an important respect unlike other abilities: e.g. the ability to start a car is so that we immediately know whether we succeed or not, when applying concepts we do not know immediately whether we succeed.
Success/Validity/Concept/Millikan: to know the validity of our concepts, they must be able to occur more than once in the same judgment. This is sufficient to be as secure as we can that the concept is really from something real.
>Knowledge, >Judgment.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Millikan I
R. G. Millikan
Language, Thought, and Other Biological Categories: New Foundations for Realism Cambridge 1987

Millikan II
Ruth Millikan
"Varieties of Purposive Behavior", in: Anthropomorphism, Anecdotes, and Animals, R. W. Mitchell, N. S. Thomspon and H. L. Miles (Eds.) Albany 1997, pp. 189-1967
In
Der Geist der Tiere, D Perler/M. Wild, Frankfurt/M. 2005


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