Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - June 2011 - Volume 34, Issue 03  

Authors' Response

Concept innateness, concept continuity, and bootstrapping

Susan Careya1

a1 Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. scarey@wjh.harvard.edu

Abstract

The commentators raised issues relevant to all three important theses of The Origin of Concepts (henceforth TOOC). Some questioned the very existence of innate representational primitives, and others questioned my claims about their richness and whether they should be thought of as concepts. Some questioned the existence of conceptual discontinuity in the course of knowledge acquisition and others argued that discontinuity is much more common than was portrayed in TOOC. Some raised issues with my characterization of Quinian bootstrapping, and others questioned the dual factor theory of concepts motivated by my picture of conceptual development.

(Online publication May 19 2011)

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    Précis of The Origin of Concepts Susan Carey Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138 scarey@wjh.harvard.edu