A Study of Concepts (Representation and Mind)

Rating:
Summary: What Is It To Possess A Free Lunch?
Review: As the other reviewer puts it via Philipse (not the least reliable way), Christopher Peacocke's *A Study Of Concepts* is not a work of "revisionary metaphysics": this student of Strawson and Dummett learned his lessons well, and here gives us an elegant, measured consideration of themes drawn from the latter and Gareth Evans (whom he finds less tractable than John McDowell). Many concepts from Dummett's "exploratory" semantical works are given substantive philosophical glosses here, such that a notion of "concept" defined in terms of conditions for their *possession*, rather than application, form the hinge through which thought about the self and external world to various degrees of accuracy is articulated. "By this stage", Peacocke has read enough psychology to know it does not quite suit him and enough semantical works to know that structures permit of homologies as well as analogies -- and what we had here, right here in this book, was the finest analytic work of the 1990s in many sense: by contrast *Being Known* begins with a bad augur, and it is possible that this was simply the highpoint of work in the "philosophy of thought" program. As you must be this pellucid to avoid Kantian worries of the old style, and perhaps logical empiricism does not become more serviceable by subtraction of the term "empiricism", it seems to me that we may have in Peacocke the genuine heir to Wilfrid Sellars' theoretical legacy: there is no excuse for not reading this book, and what that tells you may be beside the point.

Rating:
Summary: What Is It To Possess A Free Lunch?
Review: As the other reviewer puts it via Philipse (not the least reliable way), Christopher Peacocke's *A Study Of Concepts* is not a work of "revisionary metaphysics": this student of Strawson and Dummett learned his lessons well, and here gives us an elegant, measured consideration of themes drawn from the latter and Gareth Evans (whom he finds less tractable than John McDowell). Many concepts from Dummett's "exploratory" semantical works are given substantive philosophical glosses here, such that a notion of "concept" defined in terms of conditions for their *possession*, rather than application, form the hinge through which thought about the self and external world to various degrees of accuracy is articulated. "By this stage", Peacocke has read enough psychology to know it does not quite suit him and enough semantical works to know that structures permit of homologies as well as analogies -- and what we had here, right here in this book, was the finest analytic work of the 1990s in many sense: by contrast *Being Known* begins with a bad augur, and it is possible that this was simply the highpoint of work in the "philosophy of thought" program. As you must be this pellucid to avoid Kantian worries of the old style, and perhaps logical empiricism does not become more serviceable by subtraction of the term "empiricism", it seems to me that we may have in Peacocke the genuine heir to Wilfrid Sellars' theoretical legacy: there is no excuse for not reading this book, and what that tells you may be beside the point.

Rating:
Summary: A Difficult Conception of Concepts
Review: In my work I have found it much important to develop my understanding of semantics, concepts, and meaning. Peacocke's book is a scholarly and powerful treatment of concepts (for which it get 5 stars), but it is also difficult and one-sided. I highly recommend anybody to read the review by Herman Philipse in Inquiry, 1994, 37, pp. 225-252. The reviewer writes that Peacocke leaves out any full treatment of the relations between Concept possession and linguistic understanding. "While the philosophical tradition from Plato to Husserl endorsed it, revolutionary philosophers such as Schliermacher, Nitzsche, Peirce, and Wittgenstein held that it involves a fundamental mistake".

What I have found extremely useful for my purpose and for my understanding is the article by Georges Rey on concepts on pp. 185-193 in A COMPANION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND (ed. by Samuel Guttenplan. Published by Blackwell, Oxford, UK. in 1994 (and later reprints). I also strongly recommend Frank C. Keil: Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1989.

Rating:
Summary: A Difficult Conception of Concepts
Review: In my work I have found it much important to develop my understanding of semantics, concepts, and meaning. Peacocke's book is a scholarly and powerful treatment of concepts (for which it get 5 stars), but it is also difficult and one-sided. I highly recommend anybody to read the review by Herman Philipse in Inquiry, 1994, 37, pp. 225-252. The reviewer writes that Peacocke leaves out any full treatment of the relations between Concept possession and linguistic understanding. "While the philosophical tradition from Plato to Husserl endorsed it, revolutionary philosophers such as Schliermacher, Nitzsche, Peirce, and Wittgenstein held that it involves a fundamental mistake".

What I have found extremely useful for my purpose and for my understanding is the article by Georges Rey on concepts on pp. 185-193 in A COMPANION TO THE PHILOSOPHY OF MIND (ed. by Samuel Guttenplan. Published by Blackwell, Oxford, UK. in 1994 (and later reprints). I also strongly recommend Frank C. Keil: Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development. Cambridge, MA.: The MIT Press, 1989.