Edouard Machery has argued that the notion of concept should be eliminated from scientific theorising about cognition on the grounds that what psychologists call concepts do not form a natural kind and that keeping this notion would encumber scientific progress. His view is that the class of concepts really divides into three distinct yet co-referential kinds of bodies of knowledge typically used in distinct cognitive processes. The main purpose of this paper is to challenge Machery’s eliminativist conclusion on the grounds (...) that his alternative to concepts fails to be combined with any prominent account of content determination. As a case of philosophical scrutiny of a psychological proposal, the paper also intends to show how philosophical and psychological interests in concepts can be brought together. (shrink)

Connectionism: Debates on Psychological Explanation, Volume Two Edited by Cynthia Macdonald and Graham Macdonald Blackwell, 1995. Pp. xvii + 424. ISBN 0-631-19744-3. 50.00 (hbk). ISBN 0-631-19745-1 16.99 (pbk). New books on the philosophy of religion Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason By J.L. Schellenberg, Cornell University Press, 1993. Pp. 217. ISBN 0-8014-2792-4. $36.50 (hbk). Reason and the Heart By William J. Wainwright, Cornell University Press, 1995. Pp. 160. ISBN 0-8014-3139-5. $28.50 (hbk). The Rationality of Belief and the Plurality of Faith Edited (...) by Thomas D. Senor, Cornell University Press, 1995. Pp. 291. ISBN 0-8014-3127-1. $39.95 (hbk). (shrink)

Eliminativism was targeted by transcendental arguments from the first. Three responses to these arguments have emerged from the eliminativist literature, the heart of which is that such arguments are question-begging. These responses are shown to be incompatible with the position, eliminativism, they are meant to defend. Out of these failed responses is developed a general transcendental argument against eliminativism (the "Paradox of Abandonment"). Eliminativists have anticipated this argument, but their six different attempts to counter it are shown to be separately (...) inadequate, mutually incompatible, and, again, incompatible with the position that they are seeking to defend. (shrink)