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Concepts Are Not a Natural Kind*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2022

Edouard Machery
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Abstract

In cognitive psychology, concepts are those bodies of knowledge that are stored in long-term memory and are used by default in human beings’ higher cognitive processes (categorization, inductive and deductive reasoning, etc.). Most psychologists of concepts assume that these mental representations share many scientifically important properties, and the psychology of concepts is expected to describe those properties. Psychologists assume thereby that concepts constitute a natural kind. I call this assumption the natural kind assumption. This article challenges the natural kind assumption. It is argued that a growing body of evidence suggests that concepts do not constitute a natural kind. Hence, the notion of concept is inappropriate, if one aims at formulating scientifically relevant inductive generalizations about the human mind.

Type
Research Article
Information
Philosophy of Science , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , July 2005 , pp. 444 - 467
Copyright
Copyright © The Philosophy of Science Association

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Footnotes

‡

I would like to thank the anonymous referees for their very useful comments. Previous versions of this article were presented at the University of Paris-Sorbonne in February 2003, at the annual meeting of the Society for Philosophy and Psychology in June 2003, at the Congress of Logic, Methodology and Philosophy of Science in August 2003, at the SOPHA in September 2003, at the Max-Planck Institute for Human Development in March 2004, and at the University of Pittsburgh in April 2004.

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