Editing Conceptualism (section)

=== Contemporary philosophy<!--'Conceptualist realism', 'Perceptual conceptualism', 'Non-conceptualism', 'Nonconceptualism', 'Perceptual non-conceptualism', 'Perceptual nonconceptualism', 'Non-conceptual mental content', and 'Nonconceptual mental content' redirect here--> ===
In [[Contemporary philosophy|contemporary times]], [[Edmund Husserl]]'s [[philosophy of mathematics]] has been construed as a form of conceptualism.<ref>{{Cite book| author=Zahar, Elie| year=2001| title=Poincaré's Philosophy: From Conventionalism to Phenomenology| publisher=Open Court Pub Co| location=Chicago| page=211| isbn=0-8126-9435-X}}</ref> 

'''Conceptualist realism'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA--> (a view put forward by [[David Wiggins]] in 1980) states that our conceptual framework maps reality.<ref>A. M. Ferner, ''Organisms and Personal Identity: Individuation and the Work of David Wiggins'', Routledge, 2016, p. 28.</ref>

Though separate from the historical debate regarding the status of universals, there has been significant debate regarding the conceptual character of experience since the release of ''Mind and World'' by [[John McDowell]] in 1994.<ref>{{cite book |title=Mind and World |last1=McDowell |first1=John |year=1994 |publisher=Harvard University Press |location=Cambridge |isbn=978-0-674-57610-0 }}</ref> McDowell's touchstone is the famous refutation that [[Wilfrid Sellars]] provided for what he called the "[[Myth of the Given]]"—the notion that all empirical knowledge is based on certain assumed or 'given' items, such as sense data.<ref>{{cite web | url = http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/sellars/ | title = Wilfrid Sellars | access-date = 2013-05-24}}</ref> Thus, in rejecting the Myth of the Given, McDowell argues for '''perceptual conceptualism'''<!--boldface per WP:R#PLA-->, according to which perceptual content is conceptual "from the ground up", that is, all perceptual experience is a form of conceptual experience. McDowell's [[philosophy of justification]] is considered a form of [[foundationalism]]: it is a form of foundationalism because it allows that certain judgements are warranted by experience and it is a coherent form of this view because it maintains that experience can warrant certain judgements because experience is irreducibly conceptual.<ref>John McDowell, ''Mind and World''. Harvard University Press, 1994, p. 29.</ref><ref name=Gibson>Roger F. Gibson, "McDowell's Direct Realism and Platonic Naturalism", ''Philosophical Issues'' Vol. 7, ''Perception'' (1996), pp. 275–281.</ref>

A clear motivation of contemporary conceptualism is that the kind of perception that rational creatures like humans enjoy is unique in the fact that it has conceptual character. McDowell explains his position:

<blockquote>I have urged that our perceptual relation to the world is conceptual all the way out to the world’s impacts on our receptive capacities. The idea of the conceptual that I mean to be invoking is to be understood in close connection with the idea of rationality, in the sense that is in play in the traditional separation of mature human beings, as rational animals, from the rest of the animal kingdom. Conceptual capacities are capacities that belong to their subject’s rationality. So another way of putting my claim is to say that our perceptual experience is permeated with rationality. I have also suggested, in passing, that something parallel should be said about our agency.<ref name=McDowellPaper>{{Cite journal | last1 = McDowell | first1 = J. | title = What Myth? | doi = 10.1080/00201740701489211 | journal = Inquiry | volume = 50 | issue = 4 | pages = 338–351 | year = 2007 | s2cid = 214653941 }}</ref></blockquote>

McDowell's conceptualism, though rather distinct (philosophically and historically) from conceptualism's genesis, shares the view that universals are not "given" in perception from outside the sphere of reason. Particular objects are perceived, as it were, already infused with conceptuality stemming from the spontaneity of the rational subject herself.

The retroactive application of the term "perceptual conceptualism" to Kant's [[philosophy of perception]] is debatable.<ref>[https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kant-judgment/supplement1.html "The Togetherness Principle, Kant's Conceptualism, and Kant's Non-Conceptualism" – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy]</ref> Robert Hanna has argued for a rival interpretation of Kant's work termed '''perceptual non-conceptualism'''.<ref>Robert Hanna, "Kantian non-conceptualism", ''Philosophical Studies'' '''137'''(1):41–64 (2008).</ref>

'''How Conceptualism Provides Answers'''

The view of conceptualism approaches philosophical questions by looking at the role of mental constructs and how they shape our understanding of the world. For example, in the debate over the existence of universals, conceptualism proposes that ideas (or concepts) like "justice" or "beauty" do not exist independently but rather are mental categories that have been developed through experiences and reasoning.<ref>{{Citation |last=Gabriel |first=Gottfried |title=Logik und Metaphysik in Freges Philosophie der Mathematik |date=2000-02-28 |work=Gottlob Frege - Werk und Wirkung |pages=25–37 |url=https://doi.org/10.30965/9783969751800_004 |access-date=2025-04-30 |publisher=Brill {{!}} mentis |isbn=978-3-89785-085-9}}</ref> This approach allows for a more flexible understanding of philosophical ideas and also accommodates variations in individuals' thoughts. By focusing on the role of mental constructs, the view of conceptualism allows for a procedure that analyzes and interprets different philosophical problems.

'''Universals'''

The view of conceptualism assumes that universals, such as "justice" or "beauty,” are mental constructs of the human mind. They do not exist in the external world.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Armstrong |first=D. M. |date=2018-05-04 |title=Universals |url=https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429492617 |doi=10.4324/9780429492617|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Even though individual objects share common features, the universals that are assigned to them are mental abstractions that allow the categorization and understanding of these similarities between them. For example, the concept of a tree appears from an individual's mental grouping of various trees based on experienced and perceived similarities. There is no external universal for a tree in this view.

'''Conceptualism and Personal Identity: The Ship of Theseus'''

The Ship of Theseus paradox asks questions about identity over a period of time. It asks the question, if all parts of an object are replaced, does the object remain the same? The way conceptualism approaches this situation is by claiming that the identity is not an innate property, but rather a conceptual structure that is applied.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Hawley |first=Katherine |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199275434.001.0001 |title=How Things Persist |date=2004-09-30 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-927543-4}}</ref> Therefore, the conclusion of whether the ship remains the same depends on the conceptual criteria that is used to define identity. This idea also extends to personal identity, it suggests that our sense of self is a construct based on the continuity of our experiences and memory, rather than a fixed nature.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Parfit |first=Derek |date=2017-12-21 |title=Subjectivist Reasons |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198778608.003.0014 |journal=Oxford Scholarship Online |doi=10.1093/oso/9780198778608.003.0014|url-access=subscription }}</ref>