Concept empiricism: a methodological critique

Cognition. 2007 Jul;104(1):19-46. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2006.05.002. Epub 2006 Jun 30.

Abstract

Thanks to Barsalou's, Damasio's, Glenberg's, Prinz' and others' work, neo-empiricism is gaining a deserved recognition in the psychology and philosophy of concepts. I argue, however, that neo-empiricists have underestimated the difficulty of providing evidence against the amodal approach to concepts and higher cognition. I highlight three key problems: the difficulty of sorting out amodal predictions from neo-empiricist predictions, the difficulty of finding experimental tasks that are not best solved by imagery and the difficulty of generalizing findings concerning a given cognitive process in a given context to other cognitive processes or other contexts. Finally, solutions to these three problems are considered.

MeSH terms

  • Empirical Research*
  • Humans
  • Imagination*
  • Psychological Theory*
  • Symbolism*