Talk:Concept

From Academic Kids

I took away this below, not because its wrong, but because it might be copyrighted by Random House. The definition below, (from Random House Unabridged Dictionary) is how the word was used up until not too many years ago:

1. a general notion or idea; conception. 2. an idea of something formed by mentally combining all its characteristics or particulars; a construct. 3. a directly conceived or intuited object of thought.

In Fact, the word "concept" has many meanings, and this article needs a list of alternate meanings or a disambiguation page. DanielDemaret

I'm not sure about that first sentence. Does a "concept" have to identify a class or category? For example, I would classify "courage" as a concept. Any thoughts? Meelar 05:44, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Regarding the phrase 'bearers of meaning' in the second paragraph: where 'bearer' has been redirected to 'hierarchy'. This confuses me. It can be reworded to state 'Concepts are hierarchy of meaning' and then will mean that there are many meanings. Which meaning is the most meaningful of the hierarchy?

I want to use the word concept in a writing for the encyclopedia but do not have a word to express what I mean by 'concept'. For my purposes a concept cannot be expressed in words, even when the words are in several languages to express a more generaalized word description. I want concept to refer to a mental construct which is not expressable in language. It seems to me that I often hold a concept which requires a search for words to express the concept but often find that the words cannot express the uppermost 'hierarchy' of meaning which I wish to convey by language.

Is it possible to refine the article on concept in order to express this generalization?

comments by O1thomas.

translation?

what is it that makes a dog "doggy"? Who's to say that a spaniard thinks of "chien" in the same way a German thinks of "Hund"? Or even that two people of the same culture have the same concept of "dog"? This is a classic example of why true translation is, in some sense, impossible... maybe the article can clarify this? What is the "concept" of a dog?

Can someone with a good philisophical grounding expand this article? Maybe it could include some history of the term and how various philosphers thought we obtain concepts -- Locke's tabula rasa and other empiricist ideas vs. "a priori" knowledge, aka Kant, Descartes, etc. I am unfortunately not knowledgable enough to do it.

Concept as object which exists psychically

I would like to suggest that one aternate meaning of concept can be derived from the definition of object which is included in wikipedia.

O1thomas 14:10, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Concept as object which exists psychically

I would like to suggest that one alternate meaning of concept can be derived from the definition of object which is included in wikipedia. This is a meaning which I like to use.

O1thomas 14:11, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Concept as object which exists psychically

I would like to suggest that one alternate meaning of concept can be derived from the definition of OBJECT (PHILOSOPHY) which is included in wikipedia. This is a meaning which I like to use.

O1thomas 14:17, 19 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Concept from Mathematical Category Theory

  1. A concept has a name, for example, “Number” or “Set” are names of certain concepts.
  2. Concepts have components, which are concepts, too. These components are used to construct a concept.
  3. There are three fundamental principles how to combine such components
     * Conceptual Selection: requires one component
     * Conceptual Conjunction: requires one or two components
     * Conceptual Disjunction: requires two components
  4. Concepts have instances (Examples), which have the following properties:
     * Instances have a name.
     * Instances have a value.