Conceptualism and the Notion of a Concept

Abstract

Hannah Ginsborg defends a conceptualist view of perceptual experiences. She contends that the current debate regarding the content of perceptual experiences suffers from the fact that the concept of a concept is unclear and understood in different ways by different parties. She defines concepts, with Kant, as general representations, in contrast to individual ones, that is, in contrast to intuitions (Anschauungen). Concept possession therefore means being able to represent individual things as being of the same kind. It is, however, unclear why the possession of concepts in this sense should depend on the capacities to draw conclusions, give reasons, or even to think propositionally contentful thoughts. Ginsborg asserts that it is rather sufficient for the possession of a concept F to sort out those things which are F from the group of things which are not and to be able to adopt a “primitive” normative attitude, that is an attitude which is independent of reasons, toward one's own sorting behavior. Perceptual experiences on the basis of which things are, in this sense, recognized as things of a certain kind can be called conceptual in a moderate sense.