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{{short description|Mental representation or an abstract object}}
{{Other uses}}
[[File:Generalization process using trees.svg|thumb|right|alt=Diagram|A representation of the concept of a tree. The four upper images of trees can be roughly quantified into an overall generalization of the idea of a tree, pictured in the lower image.]]
A '''concept''' is an [[abstraction|abstract]] [[idea]] that serves as a foundation for more [[abstract and concrete|concrete]] principles, [[thought]]s, and [[belief]]s.<ref>{{Cite book|doi = 10.1007/11524564_4|chapter = What is a Concept?|title = Conceptual Structures: Common Semantics for Sharing Knowledge|series = Lecture Notes in Computer Science|year = 2005|last1 = Goguen|first1 = Joseph|volume = 3596|pages = 52–77|isbn = 978-3-540-27783-5}}</ref>
Concepts play an important role in all aspects of [[cognition]].<ref>Chapter 1 of Laurence and Margolis' book called Concepts: Core Readings. {{ISBN|9780262631938}}</ref><ref>Carey, S. (1991). Knowledge Acquisition: Enrichment or Conceptual Change? In S. Carey and R. Gelman (Eds.), ''The Epigenesis of Mind: Essays on Biology and Cognition'' (pp. 257–291). Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.</ref> As such, concepts are studied within such disciplines as linguistics, psychology, and philosophy, and these disciplines are interested in the logical and psychological structure of concepts, and how they are put together to form thoughts and sentences. The study of concepts has served as an important flagship of an emerging interdisciplinary approach, cognitive science.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://bcs.mit.edu/research/cognitive-science|title=Cognitive Science &#124; Brain and Cognitive Sciences|access-date=2019-07-08|archive-date=2021-06-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210618025411/https://bcs.mit.edu/research/cognitive-science}}</ref>

In [[contemporary philosophy]], three understandings of a concept prevail:<ref name="Stanford Encycl">{{cite encyclopedia|title=Concepts|url=http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/concepts/|encyclopedia=Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy|publisher=Metaphysics Research Lab at Stanford University|access-date=6 November 2012|author=Eric Margolis|author2=Stephen Lawrence}}</ref>
* [[mental representation]]s, such that a concept is an entity that exists in the mind (a mental object)
* [[abilities]] peculiar to cognitive agents (mental states)
* [[Sense and reference#Sense|Fregean senses]], [[abstract objects]] rather than a mental object or a mental state

Concepts are classified into a hierarchy, higher levels of which are termed "superordinate" and lower levels termed "subordinate". Additionally, there is the "basic" or "middle" level at which people will most readily categorize a concept.<ref>Eysenck. M. W., (2012) Fundamentals of Cognition (2nd) Psychology Taylor & Francis.</ref> For example, a basic-level concept would be "chair", with its superordinate, "furniture", and its subordinate, "easy chair".

Concepts may be exact or inexact.<ref>[[Joseph Goguen]] ""The logic of inexact concepts", [[Synthese]] 19 (3/4): 325–373 (1969).</ref> When the mind makes a generalization such as the concept of ''tree'', it extracts similarities from numerous examples; the simplification enables [[Hierarchy (thinking)|higher-level thinking]]. A concept is [[wikt:instantiate#Verb|instantiated (reified)]] by all of its actual or potential instances, whether these are things in the real world or other [[idea]]s.

Concepts are studied as components of human cognition in the [[cognitive science]] disciplines of [[linguistics]], [[psychology]], and [[philosophy]], where an ongoing debate asks whether all cognition must occur through concepts. Concepts are regularly [[Formal system|formalized]] in [[mathematics]], [[computer science]], [[databases]] and [[artificial intelligence]]. Examples of specific high-level conceptual classes in these fields include [[class (set theory)|classes]], [[database schema|schema]] or [[category (mathematics)|categories]]. In informal use, the word ''concept'' can refer to any [[idea]].

== Ontology of concepts ==
A central question in the study of concepts is the question of what they ''are''. Philosophers construe this question as one about the [[ontology]] of concepts—what kind of things they are. The ontology of concepts determines the answer to other questions, such as how to integrate concepts into a wider theory of the mind, what functions are allowed or disallowed by a concept's ontology, etc. There are two main views of the ontology of concepts: (1) Concepts are abstract objects, and (2) concepts are mental representations.<ref name=":1">{{Cite journal|last1=Margolis|first1=Eric|last2=Laurence|first2=Stephen|year=2007|title=The Ontology of Concepts—Abstract Objects or Mental Representations?|journal=Noûs|volume=41|issue=4|pages=561–593|citeseerx=10.1.1.188.9995|doi=10.1111/j.1468-0068.2007.00663.x}}</ref>

=== Concepts as mental representations ===
{{See also|Direct and indirect realism}}

==== The psychological view of concepts ====
{{Main article|Mental representation}}
Within the framework of the [[representational theory of mind]], the structural position of concepts can be understood as follows: Concepts serve as the building blocks of what are called ''mental representations'' (colloquially understood as ''ideas in the mind''). Mental representations, in turn, are the building blocks of what are called ''[[propositional attitude]]s'' (colloquially understood as the stances or perspectives we take towards ideas, be it "believing", "doubting", "wondering", "accepting", etc.). And these propositional attitudes, in turn, are the building blocks of our understanding of thoughts that populate everyday life, as well as folk psychology. In this way, we have an analysis that ties our common everyday understanding of thoughts down to the scientific and philosophical understanding of concepts.<ref>[[Jerry Fodor]], ''Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong''</ref>

==== The physicalist view of concepts ====
{{See also|Physicalism}}In a [[physicalism|physicalist]] [[philosophy of mind|theory of mind]], a concept is a mental representation, which the brain uses to denote a class of things in the world. This is to say that it is literally a symbol or group of symbols together made from the physical material of the brain.<ref name="Origin of Concepts">{{cite book|title=The Origin of Concepts|last=Carey|first=Susan|publisher=Oxford University Press|year=2009|isbn=978-0-19-536763-8}}</ref><ref name="Big Book">{{cite book|title=The Big Book of Concepts|last=Murphy|first=Gregory|publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|year=2002|isbn=978-0-262-13409-5}}</ref> Concepts are mental representations that allow us to draw appropriate inferences about the type of entities we encounter in our everyday lives.<ref name="Big Book"/> Concepts do not encompass all mental representations, but are merely a subset of them.<ref name="Origin of Concepts"/> The use of concepts is necessary to cognitive processes such as [[categorization]], [[memory]], [[decision making]], [[learning]], and [[inference]].<ref>McCarthy, Gabby (2018) "Introduction to Metaphysics". pg. 35</ref>

Concepts are thought to be stored in long term [[Cerebral cortex|cortical]] memory,<ref>Eysenck. M. W., (2012) Fundamentals of Cognition (2nd) Psychology Taylor & Francis</ref> in contrast to [[episodic memory]] of the particular objects and events which they abstract, which are stored in [[hippocampus]]. Evidence for this separation comes from hippocampal damaged patients such as [[patient HM]]. The [[Abstraction principle (law)|abstraction]] from the day's hippocampal events and objects into cortical concepts is often considered to be the computation underlying (some stages of) sleep and dreaming. Many people (beginning with Aristotle) report memories of dreams which appear to mix the day's events with analogous or related historical concepts and memories, and suggest that they were being sorted or organized into more abstract concepts. ("Sort" is itself another word for concept, and "sorting" thus means to organize into concepts.)

=== Concepts as abstract objects ===
{{See also|Abstract and concrete|Abstract object theory}}

The semantic view of concepts suggests that concepts are [[Abstract and concrete|abstract]] objects. In this view, concepts are abstract objects of a category out of a human's mind rather than some mental representations.<ref name=":1"/>

There is debate as to the relationship between concepts and [[natural language]].<ref name="Stanford Encycl"/> However, it is necessary at least to begin by understanding that the concept "dog" is philosophically distinct from the things in the world grouped by this concept—or the reference class or [[Extension (semantics)|extension]].<ref name="Origin of Concepts"/> Concepts that can be equated to a single word are called "lexical concepts".<ref name="Stanford Encycl"/>

The study of concepts and conceptual structure falls into the disciplines of [[linguistics]], [[philosophy]], [[psychology]], and [[cognitive science]].<ref name="Big Book"/>  In the simplest terms, a concept is a name or label that regards or treats an [[abstraction]] as if it had concrete or material existence, such as a person, a place, or a thing.  The use of such concepts spans all fields of human endeavor, from [[science]] <ref>“Central to development of equations of balance is the concept of a <i>control volume</i>, an arbitrary volume within three-dimensional space identified for analysis.”- p.221, “Introduction to chemical engineering thermodynamics”, Fifth edition, 1996, J.M. Smith, H.C. VanNess, M.M. Abbott</ref> to Law ([[Legal person]]).  Popular demand ([[life]]) waits not for academia’s final say.

Popular usage claims concepts may represent a natural object that exists in the real world like a tree, an animal, a stone, etc. It may also name an artificial (man-made) object like a chair, computer, house, etc. Abstract ideas and knowledge domains such as freedom, equality, science, happiness, etc., are also symbolized by concepts. A concept is merely a symbol, a representation of the abstraction. The word is not to be mistaken for the thing. For example, the word "moon" (a concept) is not the large, bright, shape-changing object up in the sky, but only ''represents'' that celestial object. Concepts are created (named) to describe, explain and capture reality as it is known and understood.<ref>“We now consider briefly the origins of intermolecular forces. An essential concept here is that <i>a molecule is a distribution of charges:</i>”- p.99, “Introduction to chemical engineering thermodynamics”, Fifth edition, 1996, J.M. Smith, H.C. VanNess, M.M. Abbott </ref>  However popular or not, [[art]] <i>actively</i> imposes definiteness to its conception.<ref>“(4) So the conciliability of determinism and freedom depends of the fact, if this <i>be</i> a fact, that determinism simply means <i>definiteness</i> (instead of constraining foreordination), while freedom means (instead of unpredictable whim) <i>action spontaneously flowing from the definite guiding intelligence of the agent himself.</i>”- “The limits of evolution, and other essays, illustrating the metaphysical theory of personal idealism,” [[George HolmesHowison]], Second edition, 1905 p.320</ref>

==== ''A priori'' concepts and ''a posteriori'' concepts ====
{{Main article|A priori and a posteriori|Category (Kant)}}

[[Immanuel Kant|Kant]] maintained the view that human minds possess not only empirical or ''a posteriori'' concepts, but also pure or ''[[a priori and a posteriori|a priori]]'' concepts. Instead of being abstracted from individual perceptions, like empirical concepts, they originate in the mind itself. He called these concepts [[category (Kant)|categories]], in the sense of the word that means [[predicate (grammar)|predicate]], attribute, characteristic, or [[quality (philosophy)|quality]]. But these pure categories are predicates of things ''in general'', not of a particular thing. According to Kant, there are twelve categories that constitute the understanding of phenomenal objects. Each category is that one predicate which is common to multiple empirical concepts. In order to explain how an ''a priori'' concept can relate to individual phenomena, in a manner analogous to an ''[[Empirical evidence|a posteriori]]'' concept, Kant employed the technical concept of the [[schema (Kant)|schema]]. He held that the account of the concept as an abstraction of experience is only partly correct. He called those concepts that result from abstraction "a posteriori concepts" (meaning concepts that arise out of experience). An empirical or an ''a posteriori'' concept is a general representation (''Vorstellung'') or non-specific thought of that which is common to several specific perceived objects (Logic §1, Note 1)

A concept is a common feature or characteristic. Kant investigated the way that empirical ''a posteriori'' concepts are created.
{{Blockquote|The logical acts of the understanding by which concepts are generated as to their form are:

# ''comparison'', i.e., the likening of mental images to one another in relation to the unity of consciousness;
# ''reflection'', i.e., the going back over different mental images, how they can be comprehended in one consciousness; and finally
# ''abstraction'' or the segregation of everything else by which the mental images differ ...

In order to make our mental images into concepts, one must thus be able to compare, reflect, and abstract, for these three logical operations of the understanding are essential and general conditions of generating any concept whatever. For example, I see a fir, a willow, and a linden. In firstly comparing these objects, I notice that they are different from one another in respect of trunk, branches, leaves, and the like; further, however, I reflect only on what they have in common, the trunk, the branches, the leaves themselves, and abstract from their size, shape, and so forth; thus I gain a concept of a tree.|Logic, §6}}

====Embodied content====
{{Main article|Embodied cognition}}

In [[cognitive linguistics]], abstract concepts are transformations of concrete concepts derived from embodied experience. The mechanism of transformation is structural mapping, in which properties of two or more source domains are selectively mapped onto a blended space (Fauconnier & Turner, 1995; see [[conceptual blending]]). A common class of blends are [[metaphors]]. This theory contrasts with the rationalist view that concepts are perceptions (or ''recollections'', in [[Plato]]'s term) of an independently existing world of ideas, in that it denies the existence of any such realm. It also contrasts with the empiricist view that concepts are abstract generalizations of individual experiences, because the contingent and bodily experience is preserved in a concept, and not abstracted away. While the perspective is compatible with Jamesian pragmatism, the notion of the transformation of embodied concepts through structural mapping makes a distinct contribution to the problem of concept formation.{{citation needed|date=December 2011}}

==== Realist universal concepts ====
{{Main|Platonic realism}}
[[Platonism|Platonist]] views of the mind construe concepts as abstract objects.<ref name="concepts core readings">{{cite book|title=Concepts and Cognitive Science|author=Stephen Lawrence|author2=Eric Margolis|publisher=Massachusetts Institute of Technology|year=1999|isbn=978-0-262-13353-1|location=in Concepts: Core Readings|pages=3–83}}</ref> [[Plato]] was the starkest proponent of the realist thesis of universal concepts. By his view, concepts (and ideas in general) are innate ideas that were instantiations of a transcendental world of pure forms that lay behind the veil of the physical world. In this way, universals were explained as transcendent objects. Needless to say, this form of realism was tied deeply with Plato's ontological projects. This remark on Plato is not of merely historical interest. For example, the view that numbers are Platonic objects was revived by [[Kurt Gödel]] as a result of certain puzzles that he took to arise from the phenomenological accounts.<ref>'Godel's Rationalism', [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/goedel/#GodRat Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]</ref>

==== Sense and reference ====
{{Main|Sense and reference}}
[[Gottlob Frege]], founder of the analytic tradition in philosophy, famously argued for the analysis of language in terms of sense and reference. For him, the sense of an expression in language describes a certain state of affairs in the world, namely, the way that some object is presented. Since many commentators view the notion of sense as identical to the notion of concept, and Frege regards senses as the linguistic representations of states of affairs in the world, it seems to follow that we may understand concepts as the manner in which we grasp the world. Accordingly, concepts (as senses) have an ontological status.<ref name=":1"/>

==== Concepts in calculus ====
According to [[Carl Benjamin Boyer]], in the introduction to his ''The History of the Calculus and its Conceptual Development'', concepts in calculus do not refer to perceptions. As long as the concepts are useful and mutually compatible, they are accepted on their own. For example, the concepts of the [[derivative]] and the [[integral]] are not considered to refer to spatial or temporal perceptions of the external world of experience. Neither are they related in any way to mysterious [[limit (mathematics)|limits]] in which quantities are on the verge of nascence or evanescence, that is, coming into or going out of existence. The abstract concepts are now considered to be totally autonomous, even though they originated from the process of abstracting or taking away qualities from perceptions until only the common, essential attributes remained.

== Notable theories on the structure of concepts ==

=== Classical theory ===
{{Main article|Definitionism}}

The classical theory of concepts, also referred to as the empiricist theory of concepts,<ref name="Origin of Concepts"/> is the oldest theory about the structure of concepts (it can be traced back to Aristotle<ref name="Big Book"/>), and was prominently held until the 1970s.<ref name="Big Book"/> The classical theory of concepts says that concepts have a definitional structure.<ref name="Stanford Encycl"/> Adequate definitions of the kind required by this theory usually take the form of a list of features. These features must have two important qualities to provide a comprehensive definition.<ref name="Big Book"/> Features entailed by the definition of a concept must be both ''[[necessity and sufficiency|necessary]]'' and jointly ''[[necessity and sufficiency|sufficient]]'' for membership in the class of things covered by a particular concept.<ref name="Big Book" /> A feature is considered necessary if every member of the denoted class has that feature. A set of features is considered sufficient if having all the parts required by the definition entails membership in the class.<ref name="Big Book" /> For example, the classic example ''[[bachelor]]'' is said to be defined by ''unmarried'' and ''[[man]]''.<ref name="Stanford Encycl"/> An entity is a bachelor (by this definition) if and only if it is both unmarried and a man. To check whether something is a member of the class, you compare its qualities to the features in the definition.<ref name="Origin of Concepts"/> Another key part of this theory is that it obeys the ''[[law of the excluded middle]]'', which means that there are no partial members of a class, you are either in or out.<ref name="Big Book"/>

The classical theory persisted for so long unquestioned because it seemed intuitively correct and has great explanatory power. It can explain how concepts would be acquired, how we use them to categorize and how we use the structure of a concept to determine its referent class.<ref name="Stanford Encycl"/> In fact, for many years it was one of the major activities in [[philosophy]]—[[formal concept analysis|concept analysis]].<ref name="Stanford Encycl"/> Concept analysis is the act of trying to articulate the necessary and sufficient conditions for the membership in the referent class of a concept.{{citation needed|date=December 2012}} For example, Shoemaker's classic "[[Time Without Change]]" explored whether the concept of the flow of time can include flows where no changes take place, though change is usually taken as a definition of time.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}

==== Arguments against the classical theory ====
Given that most later theories of concepts were born out of the rejection of some or all of the classical theory,<ref name="concepts core readings"/> it seems appropriate to give an account of what might be wrong with this theory. In the 20th century, philosophers such as Wittgenstein and Rosch argued against the classical theory. There are six primary arguments<ref name="concepts core readings"/> summarized as follows:
* It seems that there simply are no definitions—especially those based in sensory primitive concepts.<ref name="concepts core readings"/>
* It seems as though there can be cases where our ignorance or error about a class means that we either don't know the definition of a concept, or have incorrect notions about what a definition of a particular concept might entail.<ref name="concepts core readings"/>
* [[Willard Van Orman Quine|Quine]]'s argument against analyticity in [[Two Dogmas of Empiricism]] also holds as an argument against definitions.<ref name="concepts core readings"/>
* Some concepts have fuzzy membership. There are items for which it is vague whether or not they fall into (or out of) a particular referent class. This is not possible in the classical theory as everything has equal and full membership.<ref name="concepts core readings"/>
* Experiments and research showed that assumptions of well defined concepts and categories might not be correct. Researcher Hampton<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Hampton |first1=J.A. |title=Polymorphous concepts in semantic memory. |journal=Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior |date=1979 |volume=18 |issue=4 |pages=441–461|doi=10.1016/S0022-5371(79)90246-9 }}</ref> asked participants to differentiate whether items were in different categories. Hampton did not conclude that items were either clear and absolute members or non-members. Instead, Hampton found that some items were barely considered category members and others that were barely non-members. For example, participants considered sinks as barely members of kitchen utensil category, while sponges were considered barely non-members, with much disagreement among participants of the study. If concepts and categories were very well defined, such cases should be rare. Since then, many researches have discovered borderline members that are not clearly in or out of a category of concept.
* [[Eleanor Rosch|Rosch]] found typicality effects which cannot be explained by the classical theory of concepts, these sparked the prototype theory.<ref name="concepts core readings"/> See below.
* Psychological experiments show no evidence for our using concepts as strict definitions.<ref name="concepts core readings"/>

=== Prototype theory ===
{{Main article|Prototype theory}}

Prototype theory came out of problems with the classical view of conceptual structure.<ref name="Stanford Encycl"/> Prototype theory says that concepts specify properties that members of a class tend to possess, rather than must possess.<ref name="concepts core readings"/> [[Ludwig Wittgenstein|Wittgenstein]], [[Eleanor Rosch|Rosch]], Mervis, [[Brent Berlin]], Anglin, and [[Michael Posner (psychologist)|Posner]] are a few of the key proponents and creators of this theory.<ref name="concepts core readings"/><ref name="new paradigm">{{cite book|last=Brown|first=Roger|title=A New Paradigm of Reference|year=1978|publisher=Academic Press Inc|isbn=978-0-12-497750-1|pages=159–166}}</ref> Wittgenstein describes the relationship between members of a class as ''family resemblances''. There are not necessarily any necessary conditions for membership; a dog can still be a dog with only three legs.<ref name="Big Book"/> This view is particularly supported by psychological experimental evidence for prototypicality effects.<ref name="Big Book"/> Participants willingly and consistently rate objects in categories like 'vegetable' or 'furniture' as more or less typical of that class.<ref name="Big Book"/><ref name="new paradigm"/> It seems that our categories are fuzzy psychologically, and so this structure has explanatory power.<ref name="Big Book"/> We can judge an item's membership of the referent class of a concept by comparing it to the typical member—the most central member of the concept. If it is similar enough in the relevant ways, it will be cognitively admitted as a member of the relevant class of entities.<ref name="Big Book"/> Rosch suggests that every category is represented by a central exemplar which embodies all or the maximum possible number of features of a given category.<ref name="Big Book"/> Lech, Gunturkun, and Suchan explain that categorization involves many areas of the brain. Some of these are: visual association areas, prefrontal cortex, basal ganglia, and temporal lobe.

The Prototype perspective is proposed as an alternative view to the Classical approach. While the Classical theory requires an all-or-nothing membership in a group, prototypes allow for more fuzzy boundaries and are characterized by attributes.<ref name="prototype in linguistic theory">{{Cite book|url=https://philpapers.org/rec/TAYLCP-3|title=Linguistic Categorization: Prototypes In Linguistic Theory|last=TAYLOR|first=John R.|date=1989}}</ref> Lakoff stresses that experience and cognition are critical to the function of language, and Labov's experiment found that the function that an artifact contributed to what people categorized it as.<ref name="prototype in linguistic theory"/> For example, a container holding mashed potatoes versus tea swayed people toward classifying them as a bowl and a cup, respectively. This experiment also illuminated the optimal dimensions of what the prototype for "cup" is.<ref name="prototype in linguistic theory"/>

Prototypes also deal with the essence of things and to what extent they belong to a category. There have been a number of experiments dealing with questionnaires asking participants to rate something according to the extent to which it belongs to a category.<ref name="prototype in linguistic theory"/> This question is contradictory to the Classical Theory because something is either a member of a category or is not.<ref name="prototype in linguistic theory"/> This type of problem is paralleled in other areas of linguistics such as phonology, with an illogical question such as "is /i/ or /o/ a better vowel?" The Classical approach and Aristotelian categories may be a better descriptor in some cases.<ref name="prototype in linguistic theory"/>

=== Theory-theory ===
{{Main|Theory-theory}}
Theory-theory is a reaction to the previous two theories and develops them further.<ref name="Big Book"/> This theory postulates that categorization by concepts is something like scientific theorizing.<ref name="Stanford Encycl"/> Concepts are not learned in isolation, but rather are learned as a part of our experiences with the world around us.<ref name="Big Book"/> In this sense, concepts' structure relies on their relationships to other concepts as mandated by a particular mental theory about the state of the world.<ref name="concepts core readings"/> How this is supposed to work is a little less clear than in the previous two theories, but is still a prominent and notable theory.<ref name="concepts core readings"/> This is supposed to explain some of the issues of ignorance and error that come up in prototype and classical theories as concepts that are structured around each other seem to account for errors such as whale as a fish (this misconception came from an incorrect theory about what a whale is like, combining with our theory of what a fish is).<ref name="concepts core readings"/> When we learn that a whale is not a fish, we are recognizing that whales don't in fact fit the theory we had about what makes something a fish. Theory-theory also postulates that people's theories about the world are what inform their conceptual knowledge of the world. Therefore, analysing people's theories can offer insights into their concepts. In this sense, "theory" means an individual's mental explanation rather than scientific fact. This theory criticizes classical and prototype theory as relying too much on similarities and using them as a sufficient constraint. It suggests that theories or mental understandings contribute more to what has membership to a group rather than weighted similarities, and a cohesive category is formed more by what makes sense to the perceiver. Weights assigned to features have shown to fluctuate and vary depending on context and experimental task demonstrated by Tversky. For this reason, similarities between members may be collateral rather than causal.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Murphy|first1=Gregory L.|last2=Medin|first2=Douglas L.|date=1985|title=The role of theories in conceptual coherence.|journal=Psychological Review|volume=92|issue=3|pages=289–316|doi=10.1037/0033-295x.92.3.289|pmid=4023146|issn=0033-295X}}</ref>

== Methodology of conceptualisation ==
Regarding conceptualisation, the conventional approach, influenced by [[Giovanni Sartori]], treats concepts as precise categories with defined attributes.<ref name="Sartori1970" /> It uses a "ladder of abstraction" to adjust a concept's generality for clear [[classification]] and analytical rigour.<ref name="Sartori1970">{{cite journal |last1=Sartori |first1=G. |year=1970 |title=Concept misformation in comparative politics |journal=American Political Science Review |volume=64 |issue=4 |pages=1033–1053 |doi=10.2307/1958356 |jstor=1958356 }}</ref> In contrast, interpretive approaches view concepts as fluid products of [[language]] and [[Social environment|social context]]. These methods analyse how language and a researcher's own [[Positionality statement|positionality]] shape conceptual meaning in practice.<ref name="KnottAlejandro2024">{{cite journal |last1=Knott |first1=E. |last2=Alejandro |first2=A. |year=2024 |title=From Conceptual Misalignment to Reconceptualizing: Demonstrating the Process of Reconceptualization |journal=Global Studies Quarterly |volume=4 |issue=3 |article-number=ksae077 |doi=10.1093/isagsq/ksae077|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Methodological debates in the [[Social science|social sciences]] have been addressing how researchers should refine concepts that are misaligned with empirical reality. Emerging methodologies tried to bridge the above-mentioned traditions. For instance, Knott and Alejandro developed a structured four-step process to guide researchers through reconceptualisation when an existing concept is misaligned with their observations.<ref name="KnottAlejandro2024" /> Their approach integrates the conventional need for clarity with a [[reflexivity (social theory)|reflexive]] attention to context to give concepts greater analytical leverage.<ref name="AlejandroKnott2022">{{cite journal |last1=Alejandro |first1=A. |last2=Knott |first2=E. |year=2022 |title=How to pay attention to the words we use: the reflexive review as a method for linguistic reflexivity |journal=International Studies Review |volume=24 |issue=3 |article-number=viac025 |doi=10.1093/isr/viac025|doi-access=free }}</ref> Specifically, the process involves mapping the attributes of the original concept against the nuances of the empirical case to pinpoint misalignments and systematically build a revised concept.

== Ideasthesia ==
{{Main|Ideasthesia}}
According to the theory of [[ideasthesia]] (or "sensing concepts"), activation of a concept may be the main mechanism responsible for the creation of phenomenal experiences. Therefore, understanding how the brain processes concepts may be central to solving the mystery of how conscious experiences (or [[qualia]]) emerge within a physical system e.g., the sourness of the sour taste of lemon.<ref name="MroczkoNikolic2014">{{Cite journal|doi = 10.3389/fnhum.2014.00509|doi-access = free|title = Semantic mechanisms may be responsible for developing synesthesia|year = 2014|last1 = Mroczko-Wä…Sowicz|first1 = Aleksandra|last2 = Nikoliä‡|first2 = Danko|journal = Frontiers in Human Neuroscience|volume = 8|page = 509|pmid = 25191239|pmc = 4137691}}</ref> This question is also known as the [[hard problem of consciousness]].<ref>Stevan Harnad (1995). Why and How We Are Not Zombies. ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'' 1: 164–167.</ref><ref>David Chalmers (1995). Facing Up to the Problem of Consciousness. ''Journal of Consciousness Studies'' 2 (3): 200–219.</ref> Research on ideasthesia emerged from research on [[synesthesia]] where it was noted that a synesthetic experience requires first an activation of a concept of the inducer.<ref>Nikolić, D. (2009) Is synaesthesia actually ideaesthesia? An inquiry into the nature of the phenomenon. Proceedings of the Third International Congress on Synaesthesia, Science & Art, Granada, Spain, April 26–29, 2009.</ref> Later research expanded these results into everyday perception.<ref name = Gomez2013>Gómez Milán, E., Iborra, O., de Córdoba, M.J., Juárez-Ramos V., Rodríguez Artacho, M.A., Rubio, J.L. (2013) The Kiki-Bouba effect: A case of personification and ideaesthesia. ''The Journal of Consciousness Studies.'' 20(1–2): pp. 84–102.</ref>

There is a lot of discussion on the most effective theory in concepts. Another theory is semantic pointers, which use perceptual and motor representations and these representations are like symbols.<ref>{{Cite journal|doi = 10.1111/cogs.12265|title = Concepts as Semantic Pointers: A Framework and Computational Model|year = 2016|last1 = Blouw|first1 = Peter|last2 = Solodkin|first2 = Eugene|last3 = Thagard|first3 = Paul|last4 = Eliasmith|first4 = Chris|journal = Cognitive Science|volume = 40|issue = 5|pages = 1128–1162|pmid = 26235459| s2cid=16809232 |doi-access = free}}</ref>

==Etymology==
The term "concept" is traced back to 1554–60 (Latin ''[[Wikt:conceptus|conceptum]]'' – "something conceived").<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.bartleby.com/61/49/C0544900.html |title=Homework Help and Textbook Solutions &#124; bartleby |access-date=2011-11-25 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080706200201/http://bartleby.com/61/49/C0544900.html |archive-date=2008-07-06 }}The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition.</ref>

==See also==
{{Div col|colwidth=18em}}
* [[Abstraction]]
* [[Categorization]]
* [[Class (philosophy)]]
* [[Conceptualism]]
* [[Concept and object]]
* [[Concept map]]
* [[Conceptual blending]]
* [[Conceptual framework]]
* [[Conceptual history]]
* [[Conceptual model]]
* [[Conversation theory]]
* [[Definitionism]]
* [[Formal concept analysis]]
* [[Fuzzy concept]]
* [[General Concept Lattice]]
* [[Hypostatic abstraction]]
* [[Idea]]
* [[Ideasthesia]]
* [[Noesis (phenomenology)|Noesis]]
* [[Notion (philosophy)]]
* [[Object (philosophy)]]
* [[Process of concept formation]]
* [[Schema (Kant)]]
* [[Intuitive statistics]]
{{Div col end}}

== References ==
{{reflist}}

== Further reading ==
{{refbegin}}
* Armstrong, S. L., Gleitman, L. R., & Gleitman, H. (1999). what some concepts might not be. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, Concepts (pp.&nbsp;225–261). Massachusetts: MIT press.
* Carey, S. (1999). knowledge acquisition: enrichment or conceptual change? In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp.&nbsp;459–489). Massachusetts: MIT press.
* Fodor, J. A., Garrett, M. F., Walker, E. C., & Parkes, C. H. (1999). against definitions. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp.&nbsp;491–513). Massachusetts: MIT press.
* {{cite journal|doi=10.1016/0010-0277(95)00694-X|pmid=8820389|title=The red herring and the pet fish: Why concepts still can't be prototypes|journal=Cognition|volume=58|issue=2|pages=253–270|year=1996|last1=Fodor|first1=Jerry|last2=Lepore|first2=Ernest|s2cid=15356470}}
* Hume, D. (1739). book one part one: of the understanding of ideas, their origin, composition, connexion, abstraction etc. In D. Hume, a treatise of human nature. England.
* Murphy, G. (2004). Chapter 2. In G. Murphy, a big book of concepts (pp.&nbsp;11 – 41). Massachusetts: MIT press.
* Murphy, G., & Medin, D. (1999). the role of theories in conceptual coherence. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp.&nbsp;425–459). Massachusetts: MIT press.
* {{cite book|doi=10.7551/mitpress/3169.001.0001|title=Furnishing the Mind|year=2002|last1=Prinz|first1=Jesse J.|isbn=978-0-262-28193-5}}
* Putnam, H. (1999). is semantics possible? In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp.&nbsp;177–189). Massachusetts: MIT press.
* Quine, W. (1999). two dogmas of empiricism. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp.&nbsp;153–171). Massachusetts: MIT press.
* Rey, G. (1999). Concepts and Stereotypes. In E. Margolis, & S. Laurence (Eds.), Concepts: Core Readings (pp.&nbsp;279–301). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
* Rosch, E. (1977). Classification of real-world objects: Origins and representations in cognition. In P. Johnson-Laird, & P. Wason, Thinking: Readings in Cognitive Science (pp.&nbsp;212–223). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
* Rosch, E. (1999). Principles of Categorization. In E. Margolis, & S. Laurence (Eds.), Concepts: Core Readings (pp.&nbsp;189–206). Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press.
* {{cite book|doi=10.7551/mitpress/9780262015578.003.0071|chapter=Concepts: A Pragmatist Theory|title=The Language of Thought|pages=159–182|year=2011|last1=Schneider|first1=Susan|isbn=978-0-262-01557-8}}
* Wittgenstein, L. (1999). philosophical investigations: sections 65–78. In E. Margolis, & S. Lawrence, concepts: core readings (pp.&nbsp;171–175). Massachusetts: MIT press.
* ''The History of Calculus and its Conceptual Development'', [[Carl Benjamin Boyer]], [[Dover Publications]], {{ISBN|0-486-60509-4}}
* ''The Writings of William James'', [[University of Chicago Press]], {{ISBN|0-226-39188-4}}
* ''[[Logic]]'', [[Immanuel Kant]], Dover Publications, {{ISBN|0-486-25650-2}}
* ''[[A System of Logic]]'', John Stuart Mill, University Press of the Pacific, {{ISBN|1-4102-0252-6}}
* ''Parerga and Paralipomena'', Arthur Schopenhauer, Volume I, [[Oxford University Press]], {{ISBN|0-19-824508-4}}
* ''Kant's Metaphysic of Experience'', H. J. Paton, London: Allen & Unwin, 1936
* ''[https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1207/s15516709cog2202_1 Conceptual Integration Networks].'' Gilles Fauconnier and Mark Turner, 1998. ''Cognitive Science.'' Volume 22, number 2 (April–June 1998), pp.&nbsp;133–187.
* ''The Portable Nietzsche'', Penguin Books, 1982, {{ISBN|0-14-015062-5}}
* Stephen Laurence and Eric Margolis [http://www.philosophy.dept.shef.ac.uk/papers/CCS.pdf "Concepts and Cognitive Science"]. In ''Concepts: Core Readings'', [[MIT Press]] pp.&nbsp;3–81, 1999.
* {{cite journal|doi=10.1002/asi.21082|title=Concept theory|journal=Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology|volume=60|issue=8|pages=1519–1536|year=2009|last1=Hjørland|first1=Birger}}
* Georgij Yu. Somov (2010). Concepts and Senses in Visual Art: Through the example of analysis of some works by [[Pieter Bruegel the Elder|Bruegel the Elder]]. ''[[Semiotica]]'' 182 (1/4), 475–506.
* Daltrozzo J, Vion-Dury J, Schön D. (2010). [https://web.archive.org/web/20110814063224/http://daltrozzo.net78.net/papers/Daltrozzo_et_al_2011.pdf Music and Concepts]. Horizons in Neuroscience Research 4: 157–167.
{{refend}}

== External links ==
{{wiktionary}}
{{EB1911 poster |Concept}}
* {{PhilPapers|category|Concepts}}
* {{cite SEP |url-id=concepts |title=Concepts}}
* {{InPho|idea|1734}}
* {{cite IEP |url-id=concepts}}
* {{cite IEP |url-id=th-th-co |title=Theory–Theory of Concepts}}
* {{cite IEP |url-id=conc-cl |title=Classical Theory of Concepts}}
* [http://markturner.org/blending.html Blending and Conceptual Integration]
* [https://www.ethicalpolitics.org/ablunden/pdfs/Concepts,_A_Critical_Approach.pdf Concepts. A Critical Approach, by Andy Blunden]
* [http://www.virtuescience.com/conceptualscience.html Conceptual Science and Mathematical Permutations] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091020091842/http://www.virtuescience.com/conceptualscience.html |date=2009-10-20 }}
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090716121100/http://www.conceptmobiles.com/ Concept Mobiles] Latest concepts
* [[v:Conceptualize: A Wikiversity Learning Project]]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20090125191454/http://www.free-dictionary-translation.com/Concept.html Concept simultaneously translated in several languages and meanings]
* TED-Ed [https://ed.ted.com/lessons/ideasthesia-how-do-ideas-feel-danko-nikolic Lesson] on ideasthesia (sensing concepts)
{{philosophy of language}}
{{philosophy of mind}}

{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Abstraction]]
[[Category:Cognitive science]]
[[Category:Concepts in metaphysics]]
[[Category:Concepts| ]]
[[Category:Main topic articles]]
[[Category:Mental content]]
[[Category:Ontology]]
[[Category:Philosophy of language]]
[[Category:Concepts in the philosophy of mind]]
[[Category:Semantics]]
[[Category:Thought]]
[[Category:Objects]]