Why Concepts Can’t Be Theories

Presents an alternative argument for Jerry Fodor’s recent conclusion that there are currently no tenable theories of concepts in the cognitive sciences and in the philosophy of mind. Briefly, the approach focuses on the ‘theory-theory’ of concepts. It argue that the two ways in which cognitive psychologists have formulated this theory lead to serious difficulties, and that there cannot be, in principle, a third way in which it can be reformulated. Insofar as the ‘theorytheory’ is supposed to replace, and to rectify the problems of, the earlier ‘classical’ and ‘probabilistic’ theories, its failure confirms Fodor’s original observation. Since the critique does not rest on controversial philosophical assumptions and is readily available from within the cognitive sciences, it is a stronger argument than Fodor’s.