Shifting Concepts

The Philosophy and Psychology of Conceptual Variability

Edited by Teresa Marques and Åsa Wikforss

Presents novel accounts of concepts, communication, and conceptual change and variability
Brings together original contributions from leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on concepts
Explores experimental research on the most relevant and foundational aspects of conceptual variability
Connects conceptual variation with its social, political, and moral consequences to stimulate debates around the legitimacy and permissibility of conceptual revisions

Shifting Concepts

The Philosophy and Psychology of Conceptual Variability

Edited by Teresa Marques and Åsa Wikforss

Description

Concepts stand at the centre of human cognition. We use concepts in categorizing objects and events in the world, in reasoning and action, and in social interaction. It is therefore not surprising that the study of concepts constitutes a central area of research in philosophy and psychology, yet only recently have the two disciplines developed greater interaction. Recent experiments in psychology that test the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning have found a great deal of variation, across individuals and cultures, in categorization behaviour. Meanwhile, philosophers of language and mind have investigated the semantic properties of concepts, and how concepts are related to linguistic meaning and linguistic communication. A key motivation behind this was the idea that concepts must be shared across individuals and cultures. With the dawn of experimental philosophy, the proposal that the experimental data from psychology lacks relevance to semantics is increasingly difficult to defend.

This volume brings together leading psychologists and philosophers to advance the interdisciplinary debate on the role of concepts in categorizing and reasoning, the relationship between concepts and linguistic meaning and communication, the challenges conceptual variation poses to communication, and the social and political effects of conceptual change.

Shifting Concepts

The Philosophy and Psychology of Conceptual Variability

Edited by Teresa Marques and Åsa Wikforss

Introduction: Shifting Concepts, Teresa Marques and Åsa Wikforss
Part I. How Concepts Shift: Variation Across Individuals, Times, and Contexts
1:Mapping Thoughts to Words: Cross-Language Differences, Learning, and Communication, Barbara C. Malt
2:How to Make Psychological Generalizations When Concepts Differ: A Case Study of Conceptual Development, Gregory L. Murphy
3:When does communication succeed? The case of general terms, Peter Pagin
4:Investigating Differences in People's Concept Representations, James A. Hampton
5:Color Categories in Context, Yasmina Jraissati
6:The Myth of the Common-Sense Conception of Colour, Zed Adams and Nat Hansen
7:Variation in Natural Kind Concepts, Daniel Cohnitz and Jussi Haukioja
Part II. To Shift a Concept: Conceptual Revolution, Amelioration, and Perversion
8:Conceptual Revolution, Joshua Glasgow
9:The Folk Concept of Race, Edouard Machery and Luc Faucher
10:On the Conceptual Mismatch Argument: Descriptions, Disagreement, and Amelioration, Esa Díaz-León
11:Conceptual Fragmentation and the Use of 'Race' in Scientific Theorizing, Robin O. Andreasen
12:How Not to Change the Subject, Sally Haslanger
13:Amelioration vs. Perversion, Teresa Marques

Shifting Concepts

The Philosophy and Psychology of Conceptual Variability

Edited by Teresa Marques and Åsa Wikforss

Author Information

Edited by Teresa Marques, Assistant Professor, Philosophy Department, University of Barcelona, and Åsa Wikforss, Professor of Theoretical Philosophy, Stockholm University

Teresa Marques is a researcher in the Philosophy Department of the University of Barcelona and a member of the LOGOS Group and of the Barcelona Institute of Analytic Philosophy. Her research interests lie in the philosophy of language, metaethics, and social and legal philosophy. In 2014 she was awarded a Marie Curie Fellowship. In 2012-2015, she was a PI in the cross-disciplinary project on concepts and communication CCCOM, a EUROCORES project of the European Science Foundation. She has also held positions at the University Pompeu Fabra, the University of Lisbon, and the University of Maryland - University College Europe.

Åsa Wikforss is a professor of theoretical philosophy at Stockholm University. She is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Science and in 2019 she was elected to the Swedish Academy. Her research interests lie in the intersection of philosophy of language, mind, and epistemology. In 2012-2015 she was the leader of a cross-disciplinary project on concepts and communication CCCOM, a EUROCORES project of the European Science Foundation, and in 2018 she was awarded a large grant for a cross-disciplinary program on knowledge resistance, funded by the Swedish Foundation for Humanities and Social Sciences.

Contributors:

Zed Adams, The New School for Social Research
Robin O. Andreasen, University of Delaware
Daniel Cohnitz, University of Utrecht
Esa Díaz-León, University of Barcelona
Luc Faucher, University of Québec at Montreal
Joshua Glasgow, Sonoma State University
James A. Hampton, City, University of London
Nat Hansen, University of Reading
Sally Haslanger, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Jussi Haukioja, Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Yasmina Jraissati, American University of Beirut
Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh
Teresa Marques, University of Barcelona
Gregory L. Murphy, New York University
Peter Pagin, Stockholm University
Åsa Wikforss, Stockholm University

Shifting Concepts

The Philosophy and Psychology of Conceptual Variability

Edited by Teresa Marques and Åsa Wikforss

Reviews and Awards

"Shifting Concepts proves so fundamentally vital at our current moment, for our politics — and the people for whom our political systems ostensibly operate — seem ever on the verge of losing touch with reality." - Guy Lancaster, Marx & Philosophy Review of Books

"The book she has assembled with co-editor Marques offers an array of thoughtful chapters from a variety of disciplinary perspectives that emphasize the role concepts play in our interpersonal communication and how these concepts may be transformed for purposes of expanding or contracting the potential of human liberation." - Guy Lancaster, Mrx and Philosophy: Review of Books

"All in all, the chapters are clearly written and well-structured and the collection is enjoyable to read for a broad interdisciplinary audience." - Christian Michel, Metascience