Concepts and the Modularity of Thought

• Published in: Dialectica Vol. 64; no. 1; pp. 107 - 130
• Main Author: Weiskopf, Daniel A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford, UK Blackwell Publishing Ltd 01.03.2010; Blackwell
• Subjects: Architecture; Cognition; Concept of mind; Conceptualization; Dialectic; Inference; Metaphysics; Mind; Mind and body. Personal identity; Modularity; Philosophy; Reasoning; Concept; Psychology; Mind;Spirit; Thought

Having concepts is a distinctive sort of cognitive capacity. One thing that conceptual thought requires is obeying the Generality Constraint: concepts ought to be freely recombinable with other concepts to form novel thoughts, independent of what they are concepts of. Having concepts, then, constrai...