Abstract
The prototype theory of concepts, developed by the psychologist Eleanor Rosch while under the influence of Ludwig Wittgenstein's remarks about family resemblance, and defended and refined by other psychologists and cognitive scientists, has been said to mark a major shift in psychology away from classical theories of concepts and toward probabilistic ones.1 According to the classical theory of concepts, there are individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for the application of a concept. According to the prototype theory, there are not. Concepts, on the prototype theory, are (roughly) complex mental representations of categories, membership in which is a matter of being similar enough to-having enough of the properties of-prototypical members of the class.2
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