Aims and Scope

The study of concepts lies at the intersection of various scientific disciplines, both formal and empiric. Linguistics deals with concepts as basic semantic units of natural (or ideal) languages, aiming to uncover their logical constitution and structural relationships within a given linguistic system. Cognitive science is interested in concepts insofar as they are the constituents of thought – e.g. some kind of mental entities (or objects) – which are used in an explanation of such diverse psychological phenomena like categorization, inference, memory, learning, and decision-making. In philosophy the challenge imposed by concepts consists, among other things, in linking a theory of intentional content with a theory of knowledge (e.g. Peacocke’s challenging question: “How can our conception of truth in one area be reconciled with the means by which we think we come to know truth about that area?”) and thereby establishing a relationship between reference, knowledge and reality, putting the notion of “concept” in the broader area of epistemological and metaphysical issues.In recent research – for instance in the development and discussion of Minsky’s and Barsalou’s frame-theory –, linguists, cognitive scientists and philosophers have collaborated more and more to contribute to a unified understanding of concepts and conceptual categorization. As welcome as this interdisciplinary programme is, however, the joint venture suffers (so far) from the fact that it is generally left unclear how exactly the different studies on concepts and categorization undertaken in the participating sciences relate to each other. What do linguists, cognitive scientists and philosophers mean by the notion of ‘concept’? Is there some sort of core-theory of concepts and conceptual categorization underlying linguistic, psychological and philosophical research? If not, how and why do the specific theories differ?