The Building Blocks of Thought

The human mind is capable of entertaining an astounding range of thoughts. These thoughts are composed of concepts or ideas, which are the building blocks of thoughts. This book is about where all of these concepts come from and the psychological structures that ultimately account for their acquisit...

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Auteurs principaux: Laurence, Stephen, Margolis, Eric
Format: Online
Langue:anglais
Publié: Oxford University Press 2024
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Accès en ligne:https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/92579
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author Laurence, Stephen
Margolis, Eric
author_browse Laurence, Stephen
Margolis, Eric
author_facet Laurence, Stephen
Margolis, Eric
author_sort Laurence, Stephen
collection Directory of Open Access Books
description The human mind is capable of entertaining an astounding range of thoughts. These thoughts are composed of concepts or ideas, which are the building blocks of thoughts. This book is about where all of these concepts come from and the psychological structures that ultimately account for their acquisition. We argue that the debate over the origins of concepts, known as the rationalism-empiricism debate, has been widely misunderstood—not just by its critics but also by researchers who have been active participants in the debate. Part I fundamentally rethinks the foundations of the debate. Part II defends a rationalist view of the origins of concepts according to which many concepts across many conceptual domains are either innate or acquired via rationalist learning mechanisms. Our case is built around seven distinct arguments, which together form a large-scale inference to the best explanation argument for our account. Part III then defends this account against the most important empiricist objections and alternatives. Finally, Part IV argues against an extreme but highly influential rationalist view—Jerry Fodor’s infamous view that it is impossible to learn new concepts and his related radical concept nativism, which holds that essentially all lexical concepts are innate. Throughout the book, our discussion blends philosophical and theoretical reflection with consideration of a broad range of empirical work drawn from many different disciplines studying the mind, providing a thorough update to the rationalism-empiricism debate in philosophy and cognitive science and a major new rationalist account of the origins of concepts.
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spelling doab-20.500.12854ir-1427582024-08-07T04:14:28Z The Building Blocks of Thought Laurence, Stephen Margolis, Eric rationalism, nativism, innativism, empiricism, concepts, concept nativism, concept empiricism, learning, innateness, innate ideas thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDT Topics in philosophy::QDTM Philosophy of mind thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMR Cognition and cognitive psychology thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMC Child, developmental and lifespan psychology The human mind is capable of entertaining an astounding range of thoughts. These thoughts are composed of concepts or ideas, which are the building blocks of thoughts. This book is about where all of these concepts come from and the psychological structures that ultimately account for their acquisition. We argue that the debate over the origins of concepts, known as the rationalism-empiricism debate, has been widely misunderstood—not just by its critics but also by researchers who have been active participants in the debate. Part I fundamentally rethinks the foundations of the debate. Part II defends a rationalist view of the origins of concepts according to which many concepts across many conceptual domains are either innate or acquired via rationalist learning mechanisms. Our case is built around seven distinct arguments, which together form a large-scale inference to the best explanation argument for our account. Part III then defends this account against the most important empiricist objections and alternatives. Finally, Part IV argues against an extreme but highly influential rationalist view—Jerry Fodor’s infamous view that it is impossible to learn new concepts and his related radical concept nativism, which holds that essentially all lexical concepts are innate. Throughout the book, our discussion blends philosophical and theoretical reflection with consideration of a broad range of empirical work drawn from many different disciplines studying the mind, providing a thorough update to the rationalism-empiricism debate in philosophy and cognitive science and a major new rationalist account of the origins of concepts. 2024-08-07T04:14:26Z 2024-08-07T04:14:26Z 2024-08-06T09:55:36Z 2024 book https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/92579 9780192898838 9780192898920 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/142758 eng open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/92579/1/9780192898838.pdf Oxford University Press 10.1093/9780191925375.001.0001 10.1093/9780191925375.001.0001 db4e319f-ca9f-449a-bcf2-37d7c6f885b1 1f837504-813d-4560-9175-bdbb872f12e4 b29d54b5-e38c-4054-8842-75cb3dddf803 9780192898838 9780192898920 692 Oxford University of British Columbia UBC 10.13039/501100005247 open access
spellingShingle rationalism, nativism, innativism, empiricism, concepts, concept nativism, concept empiricism, learning, innateness, innate ideas
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDT Topics in philosophy::QDTM Philosophy of mind
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMR Cognition and cognitive psychology
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMC Child, developmental and lifespan psychology
Laurence, Stephen
Margolis, Eric
The Building Blocks of Thought
title The Building Blocks of Thought
title_full The Building Blocks of Thought
title_fullStr The Building Blocks of Thought
title_full_unstemmed The Building Blocks of Thought
title_short The Building Blocks of Thought
title_sort building blocks of thought
topic rationalism, nativism, innativism, empiricism, concepts, concept nativism, concept empiricism, learning, innateness, innate ideas
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDT Topics in philosophy::QDTM Philosophy of mind
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMR Cognition and cognitive psychology
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMC Child, developmental and lifespan psychology
topic_facet rationalism, nativism, innativism, empiricism, concepts, concept nativism, concept empiricism, learning, innateness, innate ideas
thema EDItEUR::Q Philosophy and Religion::QD Philosophy::QDT Topics in philosophy::QDTM Philosophy of mind
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMR Cognition and cognitive psychology
thema EDItEUR::J Society and Social Sciences::JM Psychology::JMC Child, developmental and lifespan psychology
url https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/92579
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