Observational concepts

Unknown     12:37:00 AM     No comments

1. From perception to thought 


How is it that we are able to think about what we perceive? More specifically, how are we able to bring the resources of conceptualized thought to bear on the objects and events that are represented to us in perception? And how much of our capacity for conceptualized thought is undergirded by, or is an extension of, our capacities for perception and action? Addressing these questions requires disentangling some of the more tightly woven strands linking perception, thought, and action. 

While one of the most distinctive things about human concepts is that they extend over indefinitely many types of things that transcend perception, we can also reflect on straightforwardly perceivable objects, and the concepts we have of these objects are often acquired by perceptually encountering and manipulating them. Additionally, how we perceive the world is infused or colored by the conceptual capacities that we possess. We don’t merely see the cat, we see her as a cat, a visual state that depends on conceptualizing her in a certain way. And in virtue of seeing her as a cat, we may come to form perceptual beliefs concerning her presence and qualities. Thus, conceptualized perception enables conceptualized thought.

My aim here is to illuminate what happens at the interface between perception and higher cognition. On the view I develop, observational concepts are the pivot on which this relationship turns. Observational concepts are those that are spontaneously made available at the interface between perception-action systems and the conceptual system. They correspond to the ways we have of conceptually dividing the world based solely on the available perceptual information. We are able to treat what is perceived as evidence for what isn’t directly perceived (or, indeed, perceivable at all). Observational concepts form the evidential basis for these perceptiontranscendent inferences. And ultimately, we acquire ways of thinking about perceived things that are not tied directly to how they are perceived; observational concepts are central to this process insofar as they provide us with an initial way of conceptually tracking categories that we will learn to represent in perception-transcendent ways.

In what follows, I situate observational concepts in the larger architecture of cognition, characterize their role and content, describe how they are learned, and show how they play a key role in learning further concepts. Along the way I distinguish them from related constructs such as recognitional concepts and show that arguments against recognitional concepts fail to work against observational concepts. I conclude by discussing what observational concepts can teach us about the extent to which perceptual systems and representations may shape higher cognition. 

2. Interfaces


Observational concepts are distinguished by their functional role, specifically by the location they occupy in the overall architecture of cognition. Many issues about cognitive architecture remain largely unsettled, but the only architectural assumption employed here is the distinction between input-output systems and central cognitive systems. Central systems include but need not be exhausted by the conceptual system, which is not assumed to be unitary.1   Download

,

0 comments :

Loading...
Loading...

Amazon Promote Code

Help & Customer Service

Subscribe to Newsletter

We'll never share your Email address.
© 2015 Needdaily.net. Amazon Run Designed by Amanzon Run. Powered by Amazon Run.