Two Kinds of Concept : Implicit and Explicit 1

Machery argues that “philosophical theories of concepts” and “psychological theories of concepts” are about different things (31). To begin with, the expression “philosophical theory of concept” is somewhat obscure. Machery seems to use it as a synonym for “theory of concepts developed by a philosopher” (33, 34). Now, it may be true that some theories of concepts proposed by philosophers are about something different than the theories proposed by psychologists. But other theories of concepts proposed by professional philosophers – including Machery! – are explicitly after same thing (e.g., Fodor 2008, which Machery cites). Roughly speaking, they are after the building blocks of thought. Slightly more precisely, concepts – the target of theories proposed by both psychologists and many philosophers – are representations posited to explain certain cognitive phenomena, including recognition, naming, inference, and language understanding (cf. Piccinini and Scott 2006, 396). To be sure, philosophers tend to emphasize aspects of concepts, such as how concepts get to represent categories, that psychologists tend to de-emphasize, and vice versa. It doesn’t follow that all members of the two classes of theories are about different things. So it is a mistake to conclude that in general, “philosophical” and “psychological” theories of concepts are about different things.