Download or read book Doing Without Concepts written by Edouard Machery and published by Oxford University Press on Demand. This book was released on 2009-02-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Doing without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that the dominant psychological theories of concept fail to provide a coherent framework to organize our extensive empirical knowledge about concepts. Machery proposes that to develop such a framework, drastic conceptual changes are required.
Download or read book Doing without Concepts written by Edouard Machery and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2009-02-27 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Over recent years, the psychology of concepts has been rejuvenated by new work on prototypes, inventive ideas on causal cognition, the development of neo-empiricist theories of concepts, and the inputs of the budding neuropsychology of concepts. But our empirical knowledge about concepts has yet to be organized in a coherent framework. In Doing without Concepts, Edouard Machery argues that the dominant psychological theories of concepts fail to provide such a framework and that drastic conceptual changes are required to make sense of the research on concepts in psychology and neuropsychology. Machery shows that the class of concepts divides into several distinct kinds that have little in common with one another and that for this very reason, it is a mistake to attempt to encompass all known phenomena within a single theory of concepts. In brief, concepts are not a natural kind. Machery concludes that the theoretical notion of concept should be eliminated from the theoretical apparatus of contemporary psychology and should be replaced with theoretical notions that are more appropriate for fulfilling psychologists' goals. The notion of concept has encouraged psychologists to believe that a single theory of concepts could be developed, leading to useless theoretical controversies between the dominant paradigms of concepts. Keeping this notion would slow down, and maybe prevent, the development of a more adequate classification and would overshadow the theoretical and empirical issues that are raised by this more adequate classification. Anyone interested in cognitive science's emerging view of the mind will find Machery's provocative ideas of interest.
Download or read book Doing Without Concepts written by and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book The Conceptual Mind written by Eric Margolis and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015-05-08 with total page 741 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New essays by leading philosophers and cognitive scientists that present recent findings and theoretical developments in the study of concepts. The study of concepts has advanced dramatically in recent years, with exciting new findings and theoretical developments. Core concepts have been investigated in greater depth and new lines of inquiry have blossomed, with researchers from an ever broader range of disciplines making important contributions. In this volume, leading philosophers and cognitive scientists offer original essays that present the state-of-the-art in the study of concepts. These essays, all commissioned for this book, do not merely present the usual surveys and overviews; rather, they offer the latest work on concepts by a diverse group of theorists as well as discussions of the ideas that should guide research over the next decade. The book is an essential companion volume to the earlier Concepts: Core Readings, the definitive source for classic texts on the nature of concepts. The essays cover concepts as they relate to animal cognition, the brain, evolution, perception, and language, concepts across cultures, concept acquisition and conceptual change, concepts and normativity, concepts in context, and conceptual individuation. The contributors include such prominent scholars as Susan Carey, Nicola Clayton, Jerry Fodor, Douglas Medin, Joshua Tenenbaum, and Anna Wierzbicka. Contributors Aurore Avarguès-Weber, Eef Ameel, Megan Bang, H. Clark Barrett, Pascal Boyer, Elisabeth Camp, Susan Carey, Daniel Casasanto, Nicola S. Clayton, Dorothy L. Cheney, Vyvyan Evans, Jerry A. Fodor, Silvia Gennari, Tobias Gerstenberg, Martin Giurfa, Noah D. Goodman, J. Kiley Hamlin, James A. Hampton, Mutsumi Imai, Charles W. Kalish, Frank Keil, Jonathan Kominsky, Stephen Laurence, Gary Lupyan, Edouard Machery, Bradford Z. Mahon, Asifa Majid, Barbara C. Malt, Eric Margolis, Douglas Medin, Nancy J. Nersessian, bethany ojalehto, Anna Papafragou, Joshua M. Plotnik, Noburo Saji, Robert M. Seyfarth, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Sandra Waxman, Daniel A. Weiskopf, Anna Wierzbicka
Download or read book Concepts written by and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This creative collection of nonfiction books teaches students about colors, shapes, and numbers through vivid photos and stimulating text. These titles apply knowledge of counting objects, and recognizing primary colors and mathematical shapes to a real world setting for practice across the content areas. This collection includes: Around Home; At the Pond; In the Garden; and The Toy Store. (GRL ranges A-D).
Download or read book Minds Without Meanings written by Jerry A. Fodor and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2015 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Two prominent thinkers argue for the possibility of a theory of concepts that takes reference to be concepts' sole semantic property.In cognitive science, conceptual content is frequently understood as the “meaning” of a mental representation. This position raises largely empirical questions about what concepts are, what form they take in mental processes, and how they connect to the world they are about. In Minds without Meaning, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn review some of the proposals put forward to answer these questions and find that none of them is remotely defensible.Fodor and Pylyshyn determine that all of these proposals share a commitment to a two-factor theory of conceptual content, which holds that the content of a concept consists of its sense together with its reference. Fodor and Pylyshyn argue instead that there is no conclusive case against the possibility of a theory of concepts that takes reference as their sole semantic property. Such a theory, if correct, would provide for the naturalistic account of content that cognitive science lacks—and badly needs. Fodor and Pylyshyn offer a sketch of how this theory might be developed into an account of perceptual reference that is broadly compatible with empirical findings and with the view that the mental processes effecting perceptual reference are largely preconceptual, modular, and encapsulated.
Download or read book The Origin of Concepts written by Susan Carey and published by Oxford Series in Cognitive Dev. This book was released on 2011 with total page 609 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Carey begins by characterizing the innate starting point for conceptual development, namely systems of core cognition. Representations of core cognition are the output of dedicated input analyzers, as with perceptual representations, but these core representations differ from perceptual representations in having more abstract contents and richer functional roles. Carey argues that the key to understanding cognitive development lies in recognizing conceptual discontinuities in which new representational systems emerge that have more expressive power than core cognition and are also incommensurate with core cognition and other earlier representational systems. Finally, Carey fleshes out Quinian bootstrapping, a learning mechanism that has been repeatedly sketched in the literature on the history and philosophy of science. She demonstrates that Quinian bootstrapping is a major mechanism in the construction of new representational resources over the course of children's cognitive development.
Download or read book Concepts Kinds and Cognitive Development written by Frank C. Keil and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 1992-01-30 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development, Frank C. Keil provides a coherent account of how concepts and word meanings develop in children, adding to our understanding of the representational nature of concepts and word meanings at all ages. Keil argues that it is impossible to adequately understand the nature of conceptual representation without also considering the issue of learning. Weaving together issues in cognitive development, philosophy, and cognitive psychology, he reconciles numerous theories, backed by empirical evidence from nominal kinds studies, natural-kinds studies, and studies of fundamental categorical distinctions. He shows that all this evidence, when put together, leads to a better understanding of semantic and conceptual development. The book opens with an analysis of the problems of modeling qualitative changes in conceptual development, investigating how concepts of natural kinds, nominal kinds, and artifacts evolve. The studies on nominal kinds document a powerful and unambiguous developmental pattern indicating a shift from a reliance on global tabulations of characteristic features to what appears to be a small set of defining ones. The studies on natural kinds document an analogous shift toward a core theory instead of simple definition. Both sets of studies are strongly supported by cross cultural data. While these patterns seem to suggest that the young child organizes concepts according to characteristic features, Keil argues that there is a framework of conceptual categories and causal beliefs that enables even very young children to understand kinds at a deeper, theoretically guided, level. This account suggests a new way of understanding qualitative change and carries strong implications for how concepts are represented at any point in development. A Bradford Book
Download or read book The Coddling of the American Mind written by Greg Lukianoff and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2019-08-20 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: New York Times Bestseller • Finalist for the 2018 National Book Critics Circle Award in Nonfiction • A New York Times Notable Book • Bloomberg Best Book of 2018 “Their distinctive contribution to the higher-education debate is to meet safetyism on its own, psychological turf . . . Lukianoff and Haidt tell us that safetyism undermines the freedom of inquiry and speech that are indispensable to universities.” —Jonathan Marks, Commentary “The remedies the book outlines should be considered on college campuses, among parents of current and future students, and by anyone longing for a more sane society.” —Pittsburgh Post-Gazette Something has been going wrong on many college campuses in the last few years. Speakers are shouted down. Students and professors say they are walking on eggshells and are afraid to speak honestly. Rates of anxiety, depression, and suicide are rising—on campus as well as nationally. How did this happen? First Amendment expert Greg Lukianoff and social psychologist Jonathan Haidt show how the new problems on campus have their origins in three terrible ideas that have become increasingly woven into American childhood and education: What doesn’t kill you makes you weaker; always trust your feelings; and life is a battle between good people and evil people. These three Great Untruths contradict basic psychological principles about well-being and ancient wisdom from many cultures. Embracing these untruths—and the resulting culture of safetyism—interferes with young people’s social, emotional, and intellectual development. It makes it harder for them to become autonomous adults who are able to navigate the bumpy road of life. Lukianoff and Haidt investigate the many social trends that have intersected to promote the spread of these untruths. They explore changes in childhood such as the rise of fearful parenting, the decline of unsupervised, child-directed play, and the new world of social media that has engulfed teenagers in the last decade. They examine changes on campus, including the corporatization of universities and the emergence of new ideas about identity and justice. They situate the conflicts on campus within the context of America’s rapidly rising political polarization and dysfunction. This is a book for anyone who is confused by what is happening on college campuses today, or has children, or is concerned about the growing inability of Americans to live, work, and cooperate across party lines.
Download or read book The Big Book of Concepts written by Gregory Murphy and published by MIT Press. This book was released on 2004-01-30 with total page 564 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concepts embody our knowledge of the kinds of things there are in the world. Tying our past experiences to our present interactions with the environment, they enable us to recognize and understand new objects and events. Concepts are also relevant to understanding domains such as social situations, personality types, and even artistic styles. Yet like other phenomenologically simple cognitive processes such as walking or understanding speech, concept formation and use are maddeningly complex. Research since the 1970s and the decline of the "classical view" of concepts have greatly illuminated the psychology of concepts. But persistent theoretical disputes have sometimes obscured this progress. The Big Book of Concepts goes beyond those disputes to reveal the advances that have been made, focusing on the major empirical discoveries. By reviewing and evaluating research on diverse topics such as category learning, word meaning, conceptual development in infants and children, and the basic level of categorization, the book develops a much broader range of criteria than is usual for evaluating theories of concepts.
Download or read book Drive written by Daniel H. Pink and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller that gives readers a paradigm-shattering new way to think about motivation from the author of When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing Most people believe that the best way to motivate is with rewards like money—the carrot-and-stick approach. That's a mistake, says Daniel H. Pink (author of To Sell Is Human: The Surprising Truth About Motivating Others). In this provocative and persuasive new book, he asserts that the secret to high performance and satisfaction-at work, at school, and at home—is the deeply human need to direct our own lives, to learn and create new things, and to do better by ourselves and our world. Drawing on four decades of scientific research on human motivation, Pink exposes the mismatch between what science knows and what business does—and how that affects every aspect of life. He examines the three elements of true motivation—autonomy, mastery, and purpose-and offers smart and surprising techniques for putting these into action in a unique book that will change how we think and transform how we live.
Download or read book Beyond Concepts written by Ruth Garrett Millikan and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2017 with total page 249 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ruth Garrett Millikan presents a highly original account of cognition - of how we get to grips with the world in thought. The question at the heart of her book is Kant's 'How is knowledge possible?', but answered from a contemporary naturalist standpoint. The starting assumption is that we are evolved creatures that use cognition as a guide in dealing with the natural world, and that the natural world is roughly as natural science has tried to describe it. Very unlike Kant, then, we must begin with ontology, with a rough understanding of what the world is like prior to cognition, only later developing theories about the nature of cognition within that world and how it manages to reflect the rest of nature. And in trying to get from ontology to cognition we must traverse another non-Kantian domain: questions about the transmission of information both through natural signs and through purposeful signs including, especially, language. Millikan makes a number of innovations. Central to the book is her introduction of the ideas of unitrackers and unicepts, whose job is to recognize the same again as manifested through the jargon of experience. She offers a direct reference theory for common nouns and other extensional terms; a naturalist sketch of conceptual development; a theory of natural information and of language function that shows how properly functioning language carries natural information; a novel description of the semantics/pragmatics distinction; a discussion of perception as translation from natural informational signs; new descriptions of indexicals, demonstratives and intensional contexts; and a new analysis of the reference of incomplete descriptions.
Download or read book Stress Concepts Cognition Emotion and Behavior written by George Fink and published by Academic Press. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stress: Concepts, Cognition, Emotion, and Behavior: Handbook in Stress Series, Volume 1, examines stress and its management in the workplace and is targeted at scientific and clinical researchers in biomedicine, psychology, and some aspects of the social sciences. The audience is appropriate faculty and graduate and undergraduate students interested in stress and its consequences. The format allows access to specific self-contained stress subsections without the need to purchase the whole nine volume Stress handbook series. This makes the publication much more affordable than the previously published four volume Encyclopedia of Stress (Elsevier 2007) in which stress subsections were arranged alphabetically and therefore required purchase of the whole work. This feature will be of special significance for individual scientists and clinicians, as well as laboratories. In this first volume of the series, the primary focus will be on general stress concepts as well as the areas of cognition, emotion, and behavior. Offers chapters with impressive scope, covering topics including the interactions between stress, cognition, emotion and behaviour Features articles carefully selected by eminent stress researchers and prepared by contributors representing outstanding scholarship in the field Includes rich illustrations with explanatory figures and tables Includes boxed call out sections that serve to explain key concepts and methods Allows access to specific self-contained stress subsections without the need to purchase the whole nine volume Stress handbook series
Download or read book A Framework for K 12 Science Education written by National Research Council and published by National Academies Press. This book was released on 2012-02-28 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science, engineering, and technology permeate nearly every facet of modern life and hold the key to solving many of humanity's most pressing current and future challenges. The United States' position in the global economy is declining, in part because U.S. workers lack fundamental knowledge in these fields. To address the critical issues of U.S. competitiveness and to better prepare the workforce, A Framework for K-12 Science Education proposes a new approach to K-12 science education that will capture students' interest and provide them with the necessary foundational knowledge in the field. A Framework for K-12 Science Education outlines a broad set of expectations for students in science and engineering in grades K-12. These expectations will inform the development of new standards for K-12 science education and, subsequently, revisions to curriculum, instruction, assessment, and professional development for educators. This book identifies three dimensions that convey the core ideas and practices around which science and engineering education in these grades should be built. These three dimensions are: crosscutting concepts that unify the study of science through their common application across science and engineering; scientific and engineering practices; and disciplinary core ideas in the physical sciences, life sciences, and earth and space sciences and for engineering, technology, and the applications of science. The overarching goal is for all high school graduates to have sufficient knowledge of science and engineering to engage in public discussions on science-related issues, be careful consumers of scientific and technical information, and enter the careers of their choice. A Framework for K-12 Science Education is the first step in a process that can inform state-level decisions and achieve a research-grounded basis for improving science instruction and learning across the country. The book will guide standards developers, teachers, curriculum designers, assessment developers, state and district science administrators, and educators who teach science in informal environments.
Download or read book How Not to Get Lost in Concepts written by Ramana Maharshi and published by . This book was released on 2011-11 with total page 82 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A mistake made by almost everyone who studies the Direct Path Teachings is that instead of using the teachings as practice instructions they become lost in spiritual concepts. Most of those people never correct that mistake and at the end of their physical life they are still lost in a maze of concepts without having realized the True Self. A journey that never goes beyond thought is not a journey to Self Realization. In this book Seven Sages teach how to avoid getting lost in concepts. The type is Palatino 16 for crisp clear easy reading. This book contains all of the quotes in Chapter (Step) One from the book The Seven Steps to Awakening. How Not to Get Lost in Concepts is book Six in the Self Realization Series. One purpose of the Self Realization Series is to put just one category of quotes into a small book that has the advantage of making it easier to focus, meditate on, grasp and have insight into just one subject at a time. That makes the approach simple, easier and less complicated. The idea is to stay focused on just one subject until you have received everything you need to receive from that one subject. Most people go on to the next subject without ever having learned to apply to their lives the subject they are studying now. The Self Realization series of books are portable practice manuals aimed at helping sincere seekers of Self Realization master one Key to Self Realization at a time. The six titles in the Self Realization Series are: 1.Self Awareness Practice Instructions. 2.The Desire for Liberation. 3.The False self. 4.Inspiration and Encouragement on the Path to Self Realization. 5.Everything is an Illusion. 6.How Not to Get Lost in Concepts.
Download or read book The First 20 Hours written by Josh Kaufman and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-06-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of practicing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct complex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By completing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the methods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard keyboard, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the simple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Figure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcomponents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accurate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chainsaws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.
Download or read book Shifting Concepts written by Teresa Marques and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2020-09-03 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend. This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change.
