Saturday, August 22, 2009

concepts as building blocks of thinking

A warning should be given here. Our textbook rightly says that "the concepts are the basic building blocks around which people organize their thinking and communication". This sounds philosophical, however when it starts to present the various kinds of concepts one realizes that it shifts from the philosophical viewpoint into a psychological description of the concept. I personally does not mind the author for doing this. What is important is that we, as readers, are aware of the shift being done.
If one sticks to the philosophical view of the definition of the concept, one gets into the minds of john locke, emmanuel kant, and others, and we have to get into terms such as a posteriore, and a priore, which are in the field of philosophy. This makes it complicated. Hence the psychological treatment of the concept will suffice for our purpose.