Concepts and proto-concepts in cognitive science

1. Concepts and proto-conceptsin cognitive science Ron Chrisley Sackler Centre for Consciousness Science Centre for Research in Cognitive Science School of Informatics University of Sussex SweCog Summer School in Cognitive Science Marston Hill, August 9th-13th 2010

2. Overview 1 • The concept: The workhorse of orthodox cognitive science • Concepts are constituents of mental content that are: • Articulable • Recombinable • Rational • Deployable • Because of these features, concepts present the objective world as the objective world • Often thought to be required for any intentional explanation of cognitive phenomena SweCog Summer School 2010

3. Overview 2 • However, there seem to be mental phenomena not adequately characterized in terms of concepts: • the fineness of grain of experience • the incorrigibility of illusion • non-circularity requirements on a theory of perception • the graded nature of development and evolution • commonalities in perception for those who do not share the same concepts • the minds of animals and infants • the context-sensitivity and situatedness of some cognitive processes • the phenomenology of non-objectual thought SweCog Summer School 2010

4. Overview 3 • Proposal: Employ a notion of non-conceptual content that does not suffer from these limitations • Non-conceptual constituents of content can be called proto-concepts • Challenges for non-conceptual content: • Specification • Relation between conceptual and non-conceptual content (McDowell) • Conceptual objections (McDowell) • Empirical objections (e.g., Clark) SweCog Summer School 2010

5. Fineness of grain • The content of our perceptual experience seems to outstrip our perceptual concepts • E.g., we can experience many more shades of colour than we have colour terms (or colour concepts) for (Peacocke 1994) • Violates criterion 1 SweCog Summer School 2010

6. The incorrigibility of illusion • Consider, e.g., the Müller-Lyer illusion: • The illusion persists, even after one is told (and believes) that the central line segments are of the same length • Thus, the content of one’s perception is not rationally revisable (contra criterion 3) • Consider, e.g., the Müller-Lyer illusion: SweCog Summer School 2010

7. Non-circularity requirements on a theory of perception • To possess a perceptual concept, such as red, a subject must be disposed to apply red to an object under the right conditions. Which ones? • Not: only when the object is red. Too strong: requires us to be infallible • Rather: when the object looks red. • But how are we to understand this? • How something looks is a matter of content • But the content in question cannot involve the concept red, on pain of circularity • One would have to already possess the concept red (cf the Possession Principle) in order to possess (a fortiori, to acquire) the concept red SweCog Summer School 2010

8. The graded nature of development and evolution • To explain the evolution of some trait, need to construct a an ordered chain of traits in which each preceding trait is a more primitive version of its successor (e.g., the eye) • So this must be true of conceptual traits; an evolutionary explanation of a fully Articulable, Recombinable, Rational and Deployable concept requires the notion of a sequence of content constituents that are more primitive (e.g., not fully recombinable) SweCog Summer School 2010

9. The graded nature of development and evolution • But concepts cannot provide this sequence, since concepts are by stipulation already fully recombinable, etc. • A similar point can be made concerning development, and learning (Cussins 1996) SweCog Summer School 2010

10. Commonalities in conceptually distinct perceptions • Consider two subjects: • Both are looking at the same electron microscope, from the same perspective, under same lighting conditions, etc. • But only one of them has the concept electron microscope • Intuitively, there is something shared (although something not shared) in the contents of the experience of the two subjects SweCog Summer School 2010

11. Commonalities in conceptually distinct perceptions • But this commonality of content is not a matter of the same conceptual content: • What concepts could they be? • Whatever they putatively are, the same thought experiment could be raised for those concepts, ad infinitum SweCog Summer School 2010

12. Animals and infants • Intuitively, animals and infants have minds • But also intuitively, they lack concepts • For example, if they were to have mental content, it seems unlikely their content constituents meet the Articulability constraint • Infants before the stage of object permanence fail to meet the Recombinability constraint • Typically, neither animals nor infants justify the attribution of an ability to Deploy these contents in aid of their goals; rather, if they have any content, it is are foisted upon them by their environment • Thus, the question of Rational justification would not apply to them SweCog Summer School 2010

13. The need for an alternative • Some might take these limitations of the conceptual approach as a basis for intentional eliminativism of some kind • E.g., one might think that they imply that we should dispense with content-based explanations altogether • But the plausibility of such a view would be removed if one could instead find an alternative form of content-based explanation • This alternative could replace conceptual explanation, or merely augment it • Proposed alternative: Non-conceptual content and proto-concepts SweCog Summer School 2010

14. Non-conceptual contentA standard definition • Common definition: A content N is non-conceptual iff: • N is canonically specified in terms of (a set of) concepts C • It is possible for a subject to entertain N (be in a state that has content N) without possessing all of the concepts in C • Cf Bermudez, Cussins, Peacocke (previously), etc. SweCog Summer School 2010

15. Problems withthe standard definition • Assumes there is a unique, canonical specification of each content • Even if true for conceptual content, assuming it for content in general is unmotivated • Notion of non-conceptual content should determine what is a canonical specification of it, not vice versa • Requires dropping the Possession Principle (≈ Bermudez’s “Conceptual Constraint”) • Assumes, but does not explicate, the prior notion of concept • But if one already has a robust notion of concept in place, can use it to give a simpler definition of non-conceptual content, viz.: SweCog Summer School 2010

16. Preferred definition • Content that has at least one or more constituents that is a proto-concept • …where a proto-concept is a content constituent that does not meet some or all of the conceptual criteria: • Deployable: Passive, perceptual content is “the given”, not under the endogenous control of the subject… • Rational: …who is therefore not responsible for the content, so no question of justification arises • Recombinable: Unlike linguistic content, not arbitrarily combinable… • Articulable: …and therefore not expressible via languge • If earlier claims are true, then such content will therefore not present the objective world as the objective world SweCog Summer School 2010

17. Fineness of grain • The set of non-conceptual states that we can be in is not bounded by the concepts or colour terms we possess • Explains why our experience seems to be (at least partly) ineffable, contra the Articulability criterion SweCog Summer School 2010

18. The incorrigibility of illusion • Non-conceptual content need not is not obliged to be rationally revised (as per criterion 3) • Thus there is no problem with the idea that the illusion consists in being in an experiential state with non-conceptual content • Such a state can persist, even after one is told (and believes) that the central line segments are of the same length • Consider again the Müller-Lyer illusion: SweCog Summer School 2010

19. Non-circularity requirements on a theory of perception • “Perceptual states with nonconceptual content make… general concepts available to a thinker by providing the canonical, non-inferential basis for the application of these concepts to things given in experience.” • “The nonconceptual contents that make available these various perceptually based conceptual contents cannot, however, be identified with any of the conceptual contents that they make available.” (Peacocke 2001) • Since they are not concepts, but proto-concepts, there need be no justification of their use SweCog Summer School 2010

20. The graded nature of development and evolution • Recognizing the existence of contents that do not meet the criteria, permits the notion of contents that approximate the criteria to varying degrees • E.g., the degree of recombinability (contra criterion 3) • This permits, in theory, the construction of a sequence of content constituents where each is more primitive than its successor • Which in turn permits a non-catastrophic, evolutionary explanation of mental faculties SweCog Summer School 2010

21. The graded nature of development and evolution • Similar non-conceptual explanations can be made concerning development, and learning (Cussins 1996) • Especially concept learning: allows one to avoid an implausible nativism (e.g., Fodor) • Also: conceptual change, creativity… SweCog Summer School 2010

22. Commonalities in conceptually distinct perceptions • Consider two subjects: • Both are looking at the same electron microscope, from the same perspective, under same lighting conditions, etc. • But only one of them has the concept electron microscope • Their experiences can be analyzed as having the same (or similar) non-conceptual content, while also differing in their conceptual content SweCog Summer School 2010

23. Animals and infants • The notion of non-conceptual content allows us to make sense of animals and infants minds: • The infra-verbal status of animals and infants poses no difficulties for contents that do not respect the Articulability constraint • Non-Recombinable content can capture pre-objectual cognition • Non-conceptual content need not be actively deployable, which fits well with the largely passive content of animal/infant perception • That non-conceptual content can provide Rational justifications without requiring them permits a grounded account of the development of conceptuality SweCog Summer School 2010

24. Challenges for non-conceptual content in cognitive science • Specification • Explicating the relation between conceptual and non-conceptual content (McDowell on justification) • Conceptual objections (McDowell on spontaneity) • Empirical objections (e.g. Clark on dorsal vs. ventral pathways) SweCog Summer School 2010

25. Alternative specifications •  Therefore, an alternative means of content specification is needed • A point not fully appreciated in literature • Has restricted non-conceptual content research to theoretical, general discussions, rather than explanatory applications of particular non-conceptual contents • Alternatives have been proposed by • Peacocke (scenarios) • Bermudez (augmented success semantics) • Chrisley (various, including enactive depictions) • Gives purpose to the debate SweCog Summer School 2010

26. Thank you. Comments welcome: ronc@sussex.ac.uk SweCog Summer School 2010