Cover Image

The building blocks of thought : a rationalist account of the origins of concepts /

Show other versions (1)

This is a broad and authoritative study of a central topic in the study of the mind - the origins of concepts. The authors a comprehensive rethinking of the foundations of the debate between rationalists and empiricists. They draw on a wealth of data across the cognitive sciences to make the case fo...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Laurence, Stephen (Author), Margolis, Eric, 1968- (Author)
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Oxford : Oxford University Press, [2024]
Subjects:
Concepts.
Reason > Physiological aspects.
Innate ideas (Philosophy)
Raison > Aspect physiologique.
Innéisme.
PHILOSOPHY.
Child.
Developmental.
PSYCHOLOGY.
Cognitive Psychology & Cognition.
Psychology.
Electronic books.
Online Access:Connect to the full text of this electronic book
Table of Contents:
  • Cover
  • The Building Blocks of Thought : A Rationalist Account of the Origins of Concepts
  • Copyright
  • Dedication
  • Contents
  • Preface and Guide to the Book
  • Acknowledgements
  • List of Figures
  • Note on Authorship
  • Epigraph
  • 1: Introduction: Whatever Happened to the Debate over Innate Ideas?
  • 1.1 The Rationalism-Empiricism Debate about the Origins of Concepts
  • 1.2 Philosophy, Psychology, and the Naturalistic Study of the Mind
  • 1.3 An Example: Geometrical Concepts
  • Part I: The Rationalism-Empiricism Debate
  • 2: What the Rationalism-Empiricism Debate Is Really About
  • 2.1 Philosophical Hostility to the Rationalism-Empiricism Debate
  • 2.2 The Acquisition Base
  • 2.3 Learning Mechanisms and Their Local Acquisition Bases
  • 2.4 Domain Specificity and Domain Generality
  • 2.5 What Makes One Account More Rationalist (or More Empiricist) Than Another?
  • 2.6 Conclusion
  • 3: Why the Rationalism-Empiricism Debate Isn't the Nature-Nurture Debate
  • 3.1 Is the Rationalism-Empiricism Debate Fundamentally Confused? Nature, Nurture, and Related Issues
  • 3.2 The Rationalism-Empiricism Debate in Practice
  • 3.3 Conclusion
  • 4: The Viability of Rationalism
  • 4.1 A Preliminary Case for Rationalism
  • 4.2 Objections and Replies
  • 4.3 Conclusion
  • 5: Abstraction and the Allure of Illusory Explanation
  • 5.1 Illusory Explanations of Cognitive Capacities
  • 5.2 Abstraction as a Theory of the Origin of General Representation
  • 5.3 A New Framework for Theories of Abstraction
  • 5.4 Why Our Framework for Understanding Abstraction Is Compatible with Rationalism as Well as Empiricism
  • 5.5 Abstraction, Conceptual Structure, and the ABC Model of Conceptual Development
  • 5.6 Conclusion
  • 6: Concepts, Innateness, and Why Concept Nativism Is about More Than Just Innate Concepts
  • 6.1 What Is Innateness?
  • 6.2 What Is a Concept?
  • 6.3 Concept Nativism Is about More Than Just Innate Concepts
  • 6.4 Conclusion
  • 7: Conclusion to Part I
  • Part II: Seven Arguments for Concept Nativism
  • 8: The Argument from Early Development (1)
  • 9: The Argument from Early Development (2)
  • 10: The Argument from Animals
  • 11: The Argument from Universality
  • 12: The Argument from Initial Representational Access
  • 13: The Argument from Neural Wiring
  • 14: The Argument from Prepared Learning
  • 15: The Argument from Cognitive and Behavioural Quirks
  • 16: Conclusion to Part II
  • Part III: Alternative Empiricist Perspectives
  • 17: Methodological Empiricism
  • 18: Neo-Associationism
  • 19: Artificial Neural Networks: From Connectionism to Deep Learning
  • 20: Neuroconstructivism
  • 21: Perceptual Meaning Analysis
  • 22: Embodied Cognition
  • 23: Conclusion to Part III
  • Part IV: Fodorian Concept Nativism
  • 24: The Evolution of Fodor's Case against Concept Learning
  • 24.1 The Language of Thought (1975)
  • 24.2 "The Present Status of the Innateness Controversy" (1981)