Innatism, Concept Formation, Concept Mastery and Formal

Education.

Introduction.

There has recently been much interest within Philosophy of Education in debates

about concept formation and whether the idea of concept acquisition is coherent (eg.

Luntley 2009a), and whether we are compelled to acknowledge that concepts are

innate, a position maintained by, for example, Fodor (1975, 2008). My aim will be to

show that not only is acceptance of the fact of concept acquisition necessary to make

sense of our conceptual abilities (in particular the phenomena of: concept change,

conceptual depth, and conceptual variation), but that the mode of acquisition of

concepts enables us not only to understand concept possession, but also concept

mastery and hence the growth of expertise in particular activities, practices and

occupations and the role that formal education might play in the growth of concept

mastery and the acquisition of expertise.

The issue of innatism is important for understanding learning and education more

generally. If concept possession is innate, (the claim that we are born with our

conceptual apparatus, we do not acquire it) then there is a sense in which it is also

complete. All that experience, learning and maturation can do is activate dormant

concepts whose latency is transformed into full potency. But this seems to contradict

our understanding of the growth of expertise. We become experts in particular

activities and occupations by dint of practice and experience and we are all too well

aware of this. Granted, expertise is something more than mastery of the relevant

concepts (cf. Bengson and Moffett 2007 for the claim that it is not), but concept

mastery is a necessary condition. So what could the claim that concept mastery is

innate and yet requires long practice and experience to achieve it amount to? It would

appear impossible to distinguish between having a capacity for concept mastery (and

mastery could well require long practice and experience to achieve) and having

innately already mastered concepts which took long practice and experience to

manifest themselves. Since the former is by far the most plausible explanation, the

latter should be rejected, as it amounts to saying that a great deal of learning is

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necessary for concept mastery to manifest itself (which is a form of the non-innatist

claim) and thus to show completeness. It also suggests that the innatist is labouring

under the confusion between a capacity (an ability to acquire an ability – which in this

case could plausibly be said to be innate) and an ability (to make the relevant kinds of

judgment which exhibit concept mastery). 1

A fall-back position for the innatist would be to distinguish between concept

possession and concept mastery and to maintain that the former is innate and the latter

acquired. But this is inherently implausible and no-one to my knowledge has

suggested how it would work. It is implausible because mastery is complete or near-

complete possession. Although the distinction between non-expert concept possession

and expert concept mastery makes a good deal of sense, it does not follow that there is

always a sharp distinction between the two. It may be that in one context someone

may be said to possess a concept and in another to have mastered it as in the latter

case, that individual is an expert relative to his peers and shows greater conceptual

ability than they. But relative to other experts in a different context he may do no

more than possess the relevant concepts. If innatism about concept acquisition and

possession is unable to account for concept mastery then its persuasive power and

explanatory philosophical potential is greatly reduced.

In what follows, first, the ‘learning paradox’ of Fodor is outlined. Next, the reason

why it is not a valid argument is stated and an account is given of how concept

acquisition can take place, together with empirical evidence which counts in favour of

such an account. Fodor’s positive account of conceptual abilities is described and in

particular his account of the acquisition of stereotypes and how they are related to

concepts properly so-called is critically examined. It is concluded that the account

remains obscure and that the role of automatic and rational elements in stereotype

acquisition and the ‘locking’ of stereotypes onto concepts is not convincing. By way

of contrast, a Wittgensteinian framework, buttressed by empirical research, is offered

as an alternative. This involves both an account of the nature of concepts derived from

the work of Geach (1957) and of empirical research on how concepts are formed. This

alternative not only yields the objectivity required by any satisfactory account of

1 See Kenny 1968 on the distinction between capacity and ability.

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concept acquisition and possession, but has the further virtue of explaining the

contrast between concept possession and concept mastery and thus an important

element in the transition from novicehood to expertise.

This allows the distinction between preconceptual attention and judgment on the one

hand and non-discursive attention and judgment on the other to be clarified in relation

to the development of expertise. Finally, the role of formal education in systematising

and extending conceptual structures is outlined and an explanation of the growth of

practical expertise as an advanced form of know-how is set out.

The Paradox of Learning Revisited.

According to innatists like Fodor and Chomsky, concept learning is a paradoxical idea

whose only coherent resolution is to postulate that concepts are innate.

“In fact, try to define a word like ‘table’ or ‘book’ or whatever and

you’ll find that it’s extremely difficult. There is, in fact – just to give

one example – a recent issue of a linguistics journal that has a long

detailed article trying to give the meaning of the word ‘climb’. And it is

very complicated. But every child learns it perfectly right away. Now

that can only mean one thing. Namely, human nature gives us the

concept ‘climb’ for free. That is, the concept ‘climb’ is just part of the

way in which we are able to interpret experience available to us before

we even have the experience. That is probably true for most concepts

that have words for them in a language. This is the way we learn

language. We simply learn the label that goes with the pre-existing

concept. So in other words, it is as if the child, prior to any experience,

has a long list of concepts like ‘climb’, and then the child is looking at

the world to figure out which sound goes with the concept. We know

that the child figures it out with only a very small number of

presentations of the sound.” (Chomsky, 1988, pp.190-191).

Many innatists take a much more cautious approach than this (eg Fodor 2008), and I

will not address all the difficulties straightaway. It is worth noting however that

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innatists have to postulate learning for concepts to be activated. And, unless this

learning is itself non-conceptual, it is hard to see how it could get started, since non-

activated concepts would need to be pressed into service in order for learning to be

possible and this is impossible, since by their nature, they are inert. As we shall

presently see, however, there are deep ambiguities in the way in which innatists

approach the issue of learning which makes their position on this issue hard to

understand.

How then should we approach the innatist argument for concept possession. If we can

show what is wrong with this, then one obstacle to the account offered will have been

removed. Luntley (2008) provides detailed gloss on the innatist argument, by

elaborating the argument for the innateness of concepts. What follows is an expansion

of his argument.

1] A hypothesises that a is F.

Explanation: In order to test the hypothesis that a is F, A must be able to recognise

instances of F and so must already possess the concept of an F.

Response: one could implicitly concede the point for hypothesis formation and testing

(HFT) and maintain that HFT is a special case and not the only and certainly not the

most basic kind of learning. Other kinds of learning do not require the prior

possession of concepts in order to be successful. Training, imitation, instruction and

memorisation are all effective ways of learning which do not require HFT in order to

work and hence do not always require the prior possession of concepts. But as soon as

one looks at these forms of learning and teaching one can see that they do require that

the learner already possesses concepts.

For example, training focuses on a target behaviour: A will learn to respond to a red

light by braking. But in order to respond to a red light A will have to recognise one

first and in order to do so will have to recognise it as a red light and hence must

possess the prior concept of red light. Similar arguments can be constructed for the

cases of instruction and imitation. So the prior possession of concepts is a general

requirement for experiential learning, not peculiar to HFT.

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As Luntley puts it:

“Any attempt to explain concept acquisition on the basis of experience

will still need to appeal to the grammar of some representational system

in order for bare experience to be rendered informative in the

appropriate way. And, once again, that will require a tacit grasp of the

very concept whose acquisition is being modelled so that the account

remains at best an account of label acquisition, rather than concept

acquisition.” ((Luntley 2008 p.2).

It is true that the explainer will need to appeal to a representational system in order to

explain what is going on. But will the agent whose conceptual apparatus is being

assessed require one in order for experience to be informative? If not, then the

learning paradox cannot get under way. The red light example looks convincing, but it

is necessary to distinguish the case where someone like a motorist recognises a red

light and responds by braking because he understands its normative import and a case

where an animal responds to one out of, say, unfocused interest or because it is an

indicator of danger. Consider the following case of someone conjecturing whether

something falls under a particular concept:

1] A hypothesises that a is F

2] a is G (a has more than one property)

It does not follow that A hypothesises that a (an instance of F) is G.

Explanation: 3] A hypothesises that φ is ψ.

3] is an example of a referentially opaque context in which the principle of

substitution salva veritate does not hold. Both 1] and 2] can be true but 3] need not be

(c.f. Linsky, 1971, pp.1-3). This suggests that one can recognise something as a

something without at the same time recognising it as a something else (which it also

is). This point is important for the discussion about concept mastery.

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Furthermore, the general case of recognition, which is a feature of learning generally,

seems also to be referentially opaque. From

4] A recognises a

and

5] a is an F

It does not follow that:

6] A recognises a as an F

Although it does follow that:

7] A recognises an F

as a third person report on A’s recognitional abilities.

This remains so even in the unlikely case that a falls under just one concept. It does

not follow that because you need a recognition ability to recognise an F, that you need

already to possess the concept F. This would only be the case if another premise were

assumed:

hidden premise:

8] In order to recognise an F you need to recognise it as an F

This statement is evidently not true, either when something falls under a single or

under multiple concepts and also begs the question at issue, namely whether to

recognise an F, you need to recognise it under some concept. To put the matter

another way, to recognise a, which is F, you do not need to recognise that a is an F. In

reply it could be said that there is no other way for an observer to describe someone’s

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recognition of something except in terms of their recognising the kind of thing that it

is. While this is necessarily true for third-person ascriptions of recognition, it hardly

follows that the person concerned recognises that thing as falling under a concept

(first-person ascription). As we saw, possessing a concept is to possess an ability

exercised in judgement (to be able to judge that a is an F) and ex hypothesi, the

recogniser is, as yet, unable to do this. It is of course possible that someone can tell

that recogniser that they should recognise the thing as a falling under a concept

(second-person ascription) and that this should subsequently lead to first person

ascription – ‘I recognise that the a is an F’.2

A’s recognition can thus be pre-conceptual and dependent only on non-discursive

discriminatory abilities. In objection, it might be said that, in order to make sense of

bare experience of a and to account for the cognitive process involved in recognition

A would need the concept of an F. But the idea of bare experience is debateable.

Animals of all kinds possess recognitional abilities based on their needs. They

experience the world, not as something that needs interpretation, but as impacting on

their interests. Their ability to recognise salient features of the world renders it more

than bare experience, it is the experience that they have as members of a species. And

because there is no interpretative processing of bare experience, they do not need any

cognitive process to do so either.

Thus, in order for someone to exercise a recognitional ability one does not need to

recognise the thing recognised as an instance of an F. This is obviously true of

animals. Thus my cat Tibbles can recognise a mouse. But it does not follow that he

recognises it as a mouse (as something possessing the marks of the concept mouse,

thus allowing material inference to properties like mammalian, omnivore, rodent etc.).

Therefore he can recognise a mouse without possession of the concept mouse.3 But

the innatist argument needs the fully fledged concept in order to work. The most

economical way of explaining what is going on in this example is that Tibbles can

recognise prey and different kinds of it (mice, birds etc.) and his discriminatory and

2 Provided, of course, that the ability to recognise the place of ‘a’ and ‘F’ in grammar was already established through prior language and concept acquisition, (Wittgenstein 1953 para 30). See below for an account of work on how children develop a variegated vocabulary which expresses growing concept acquisition, which takes account of what Wittgenstein calls ‘ostensive teaching’, op.cit.para.6).3 Possible note on Crary here

7

agentive properties are sufficient indication of this, without invoking any discursive

abilities on his part, although as pointed out, human observers will feel comfortable

about describing Tibbles’ recognitional capacities in conceptual terms. Tibbles is not

working with bare experience, but with experience with the characteristically salient

features which correspond to the needs of cats.

We need, though, to distinguish this case from a distinct one applying to young

human beings, which is clearly important for those who do possess concepts:

9] A recognises (conceptually) a as an F

Suppose:

10] a is also G

It does not follow that A recognises a as a G. In order to do that, A would need the

concept of a G.

But, in order to work, the innatist argument requires that if someone recognises

something then they recognise it as an instance of a concept. Furthermore, if the

innatist argument is valid then A will possess all concepts already and, given that

concepts are interconnected it would follow that not only does A possess the concept

G, but in non-contingent cases where there is a possible material inference from Fa to

Ga that A would recognise the F as a G.

To take an example,

11] An oak tree is a source of fuel.

12] A recognises an oak tree

But:

13] A does not recognise the oak tree as a source of fuel.

8

More generally:

14] A recognises a φ

is a referentially opaque context, where if

15] All φs are ψs

happens to be true, it does not follow that:

16] A recognises a ψ

There are two reasons for why this could be so:

The first is that A’s recognition is pre-conceptual and depends on non-discursive

discriminatory abilities, as in the case of the squirrel. The second is that a rudimentary

possession of the concept oak tree need not include the mark is a source of fuel.4 Even

if it did, it is not reasonable to expect that a possessor of concept A in a rudimentary

form can make all the material inferences that it is possible to make from possession

of the concept.

The innatist argument only seems to be valid in cases where:

17] A recognises a as an F (rather than A recognises an F)

And does so in the the first person sense.

and in this case they clearly bring it under the concept F.

This would be a precondition of also recognising a as a G. However, this begs the

question because, as we have already seen, it does not follow from the fact that

someone can recognise an F that they recognise it as an F, as an object that falls under 4 See the later discussion of the Fodorian distinction between concepts and stereotypes.

9

a concept.5 But this is precisely what the innatist argument aims to prove. If it only

does so by already covertly asserting that recognition involves concept possession

then it cannot prove what it seeks to prove, namely that recognition involves concept

possession. The argument gains some plausibility from the fact that, for concept

possessors, to recognise something is usually to recognise that something as falling

under one or more concepts. But it is misleading in this instance to generalise from

cases which apply to concept possessors to those for whom concept possession is

precisely what is at issue.

It thus looks as if the innatist argument depends on question-begging, namely the

contention that in order to recognise an F a creature must recognise it as an F. In order

to keep track of what is at issue in this debate we need to acknowledge the possibility

that, contrary to Chomsky’s claim , concept acquisition and hence concept possession

are not all-or-nothing affairs, but come in degrees. Furthermore, we do not operate

with rigid criteria for when someone has acquired and possesses a concept, our

inclination to ascribe these to someone very often depends on context and purpose. Of

course, the innatist will deny these points, but what we know about how language

develops serves to lend plausibility to this claim, as does the alternative explanation of

concept acquisition and possession as being part of the larger process of a neonate’s

learning to take part in human society (and hence to learn the mothertongue).

Fodor’s Later Argument for Innatism:

Fodor’s later discussion of the innateness of concepts outlined in LOT 2 is cautious

and acknowledges that there are significant gaps in the innatist story that remain to be

filled. LOT 2 amounts to a reformulation of the innatist position. Fodor is more

troubled about the activation of concepts than he appeared to be in 1975 and than

Chomsky appeared to be in 1988. The ‘switching on’ of innate concepts is now a

more elaborate process than originally set out. It is envisaged as a two-stage process

which initially involves the formation of stereotypes. These are non-conceptual and

subjective representations of instances of the concept to be activated. They are non-

conceptual because they can be developed without the intervention of concepts,

5 Even if they did recognise it as an F in the sense of simple concept possession, it does not follow that they would recognise it as a G where some concept mastery is presupposed.

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because they are built up through associational processes and do not have the capacity

to be used in discursive and ratiocinative acts in the way that concepts can be. The

process of stereotype formation seems thus to be associational and mechanical,

although Fodor describes stereotypes as statistical representations of experience

(op.cit. p.162).

“What’s learned (not just acquired) are stereotypes (statistical

representations of experience). What’s innate is the disposition to

grasp such and such a concept (i.e. to lock on to such and such a

property) in consequence of having learned such and such a

stereotype.” (ibid.).

The learning process involved cannot be a conceptual one, since the stereotype is

invoked to explain how it is that concepts are activated. On the other hand, it does

appear to have representational features. It thus seems as if there are processes that are

not purely causal (and hence non-representational) but are nevertheless

representational as well as, in some sense, being causal processes. They thus appear to

have both nomological and normative properties.6 We will examine what

commitments this leads to shortly. For the moment it should be noted that stereotype

formation, although in some sense an inductive process which is based on

resemblance to previous instances of a particular, and although in some sense

‘computational’ (it depends on the computational activity of the nervous system), is

not a conscious process nor based on overt ratiocination. Berkeley and Hume’s

associationism is also a product of the natural powers of the mind (Berkeley; Hume;

Mounce 1999; D’Agostino 1986).

Hume and Berkeley’s own account of the formation of ideas (which did duty, among

other things, for what we now call ‘concepts’) suggests that one idea can call up

another. Hume suggested a mechanism whereby continuous association and

contiguities in space and time bring about a situation whereby one particular image is

6 This need not be completely implausible. An adder in a solid state device represents to its user, not to the mechanism of which it is a part. There is an ambiguity in saying that a computer is a representational system. One needs to specify to whom the machine represents. It operates causally in order to function representationally to its users. See Wittgenstein (1974) for a suggestion as to how a causally governed mechanism may take part in normative activities (p.188).

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made a proxy for all resembling images and when recalled, also potentially recalls the

others although it stands as a representational proxy for them (op.cit. p.18ff). Berkeley

realised that the possession of images by individuals could not guarantee that each

image was the same for each individual, but maintained that this need not completely

disturb the communication of ideas through the use of language, even if different

ideas were invoked by different individuals to act as proxies for objects in the class

(op.cit. paras 18-19).7 This of course begs the question as to the role played by ideas

in communication (and indeed in thinking processes that do not depend on

associations), but for Fodor stereotypes function as a bridge between the world of the

non concept user and the concept user whose innate concepts have been made active

through experience. Eventually, the stereotype activates the concept and, for it to do

so it is not absolutely necessary that each individual possesses the same stereotype.

At this point the story becomes a little more difficult to follow. Stereotypes, based on

resemblance to previous particulars, are not concepts. On the other hand, their

generation is a necessary condition for the activation of concepts within an

individual’s innate repertoire. On a plausible account of how stereotypes relate to

concepts, they must therefore possess some of the properties of the concepts which

they are eventually to activate. It should be borne in mind that, at this point,

stereotypes are subjective entities, whose characteristics are determined by individual

experiences, while concepts are objective entities, the same for all who possess them.

It should be noted however that like concepts, stereotypes have extensions which are

often a subset of the range of the corresponding concept (ibid.p.168).

How then could a stereotype ‘lock in’ to a concept and thus activate it? Here one is in

need of a metaphor which suggests that the latency of the innate but inactive concept

becomes a real power through the proximity of the stereotype to the latent concept.

Here Fodor invokes the metaphor of the latent concept as a kind of whirlpool within a

conceptual sea, it serves as an ‘attractor’ for the relevant stereotype. Strictly speaking,

there is an ‘attractor landscape’ consisting of multiple concepts which are, presumably

7 Holloway (1951) points out that Berkeley is unclear as to whether a word suggests ideas because it represents one of a class, or whether it represents ideas because it already suggests one. Hume’s invocation of custom (in his own, technical, sense), implies that words can suggest ideas and vice versa through constant conjunction (Holloway, pp.5-6; Berkeley, para 11; Hume Bk.I, 1, p.7).

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related in familiar ways that we can characterise through formal or material

implication.8

“…what is innate is the geometry of the attractor landscape..” (ibid. p.161)

Thus stereotypes will have properties that make them representations of concepts. The

stereotype of a triangle will have three straight sides, for example, corresponding to

the more formal properties of the concept triangle. Since the stereotype could not

have the formal properties of a triangle (for reasons advanced by Berkeley and Hume

against the claim that an idea in Locke’s sense could be an abstract representation), it

must ‘lock in’ the relevant concept through some form of verisimilitude, sharing

properties with the concept to which it is attracted.9 The more verisimilitude a

stereotype has, the closer it is to an attractor and gets ‘sucked in’ through a

subcomputational and therefore causal, process (Fodor 2008 op.cit., p.161).

Although, as Fodor acknowledges, the details of this story are unknown since we do

not understand the subcomputational processes that lead to stereotype formation and

then to the locking of stereotypes onto concepts, the general account of what it means

for concepts to be innate and for them to be activated, has an apparent plausibility.

What is the Explanatory Plausibility of the Innatist Story about Concepts?

Innatism offered two types of argument for its position. The first was a negative one,

claiming that concept acquisition was a logical impossibility. The second is positive,

claiming that innatism explains how it is that humans possess concepts. As we saw

the negative case does not work, as it assumes what it seeks to prove. Does the

positive case fare any better? The standard that it needs to satisfy is, obviously, that it

is logically coherent, that it is plausible and, finally, that it is a better explanation

(more coherent, economical, more comprehensive, more elegant) than any alternative

(Lipton 2004, p.68).

8 Although Fodor also insists on the atomistic nature of concept possession (ibid, p.141).9 It is difficult to avoid this formulation in order to do justice to Fodor’s account, but it is evident that there are problems in allowing stereotypes to have the marks of a concept and not themselves to be conceptual in nature. We will return to this point.

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The first thing to note is that the account is, by Fodor’s own admission, incomplete.

Not only is it not fully fleshed out, but key concepts, such as on the one hand the

inductive process that generates stereotypes and, on the other, the neurological

process that explains the ‘locking’ of stereotypes to concepts is not clear. If we cannot

get a grip on what these processes are, the explanation fails to be intelligible. The

most basic kind of computational process is a logic gate which mimics a truth

function in the propositional calculus. If processes that involve single logic gates are

the most basic kind of subcomputational process it is difficult to see that they are

anything other than causal processes, where the output is caused by the input.10

Insofar as such processes signify, they do so as indices in Peirce’s sense, in that, for

example, the output is an index (indicates the presence of in a causal manner) of the

inputs. Aggregations of such processes can lead to iconic representation, where the

sign physically resembles the signified in some respect and also to symbolic

representation, where the signification (and ultimately communicative act) is

governed by rules (Dipert 1996). The computer’s own activity in computation is,

however, causally governed, even if it is designed to give rise to iconic and symbolic

representations for the benefit of its human users.

For the user, the computer represents something to someone or, better, person A

represents B to person C via the medium of the computer and its processes. This

triadic relationship is a special case of communication in which someone

communicates something to someone. But people always do so via some medium, be

they vocal chords, pen and paper or computing technology. In other words the

computer is best seen as a technology for humans to communicate iconically and

symbolically rather than as an entity that represents to itself or to other computers. We

understand the physical workings of computers heuristically through representing

their most minute subcomputations and aggregates of these as indices, that is, their

communication is causally operative without the intervention of rational agency.

10 There is an ambiguity in ‘computational’ and ‘subcomputational’. On the one hand the terms can mean processes describable in inferential terms as transitions within a program, in which case it would be misleading to describe the process as causal. On the other hand, it could mean the workings of the hardware in terms of events taking place within and between logic gates, in which case we are quite justified in describing the processes as causal. But it should be clear that the possibility of instantiation of the former sense within a computer is dependent on its being realised within the hardware as a causal process. Fodor seems committed to a form of explanatory monism, where ultimate explanations are to be physically causal (ibid. p.152, fn 24).

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Contemporary innatism such as Fodor’s is motivated in large part by the ambition to

represent significant elements of the work of the mind (to all intents and purposes, on

this view, the brain and nervous system) as computational. But if this is so, then the

process is causal and it is difficult to see what the need for concepts would be. In fact,

Fodor describes both the formation and the locking on of stereotypes to concepts,

which is closely related to Chomsky’s labelling process, as computational processes.

It looks as if the idea of an active individual who engages in such activities as using

concepts in action and communication is superfluous in this account. Computational

processes are causal processes, there is no physically-based supervenience of iconic or

symbolic representation on the underlying electronic activity. The way that people use

computers means that iconic and symbolic representation supervenes normatively not

causally on the underlying processes, in that humans have designed and used

computers to engage in such pictorial and linguistic representation in order to

facilitate human-to-human communication.

It can be replied that interpreting a type of computer as the mind of an agent which

can understand and act within a conceptual framework is compatible with the

underlying computer model developed above. We assume the agent, the ‘homunculus’

of the system and the homunculus is unproblematically discharged through the

underlying circuitry (cf. Fodor 2008; Searle 1992). While this is in principle a good

account of how computers work (the individual logic gates being the most ‘idiotic’

lowest tier of homunculi) the discharge of the homunculus also involves,

unfortunately, the discharge of the representational and conceptual elements of the

activity of the mind and the de facto adoption of explanatory monism (see footnote 8

above). These are nothing more than constructs superimposed on computational

activity by our own designs. A naturally occurring computational mechanism, such as

the ‘mind-brain’ is not representing anything to anyone, including itself. At the very

least, the explanation of the innatism of concepts through an account of the mind as a

computational mechanism does not appear to satisfy key explanatory desiderata such

as simplicity, comprehensiveness, clarity, economy and plausibility. However, such a

criticism will not carry much weight if the key to accepting an explanation as the best

available depends on comparison with the explanations offered by alternative

accounts. All that I hope to have accomplished at this point is to establish that the

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positive account of conceptual innatism raise serious questions that need to be

answered.

An Alternative Normative Account of Concept Acquisition.

On Fodor’s account of concept possession there are two stages of concept activation.

These are causal processes, not properly called representational. But we require an

account of concept activation that accounts for the normative character of concept

possession. An account is needed which does justice to our use of concepts in

communication and in action more generally. The description of concept possession

as the property of a causal mechanism ultimately controlled by a mechanical language

of thought does not appear, on the face of it, to do this. This language of thought will,

in turn, regulate our use of our mother tongue and other languages that we may

acquire. It is possible to develop from such a mechanical system to a normatively

based one. A natural language based on mechanical considerations (if we are prepared

to count this as a language in the primary sense, could be developed through the

interaction of the mechanical language user with normative language users.11 What we

are left with is, in Wittgenstein’s terms, a language as mechanism (causally governed)

capable of transformation into language as a game (normatively governed).12 But is

the postulation of language as mechanism necessary in the first place?

Suppose that humans are born possessing no language or concepts. They are,

however, able to sense, imitate and memorise. In time they acquire the ability to

notice objects in their environment and to become interested in them. They acquire

the ability to make sounds and to imitate some of the sounds made by adults. Having

acquired the ability to recognise some objects they are able to follow pointing

gestures and to repeat (imperfectly) the sounds adults make when pointing at these

objects. They fix on certain properties of objects pointed to (such as the circularity of

the Moon) and repeat the sound they first made when noticing the Moon (eg. ‘mooi’)

when noticing other circular objects (Menyuk, 1988; Halliday, 1975). In the course of

time, they verbally differentiate circular objects according to other criteria such as

11 Fodor does not think that the Language of Thought is shareable.12 Wittgenstein (1974, p.188. See also 1958, pp.12, 97; 1953, Para 495).

16

use, size, distance, texture, dimensionality etc. and their vocabulary grows

accordingly.

Very schematically, I start by recognising something which is F, but which is also G,

H, etc.

I label the Fs, Gs, Hs as ‘A’. (this is where an associative mechanism may be in play).

So I can recognise instances of F (but they may be instances of G etc.) and call them

‘A’. Then, through my own questioning and also through practice, correction,

encouragement etc. I come to distinguish Fs as ‘A’, Gs as ‘B’ etc. in the context of

my own activity in interaction with adults and other children. Through this process I

come to acquire the concept F, at least in rudimentary form.

As their linguistic ability develops, they can ask questions which help them to fill in

their incomplete conceptual scheme (Tizard and Hughes 1984). In this way the grasp

of the connectedness of concepts and the ability to understand and to make

elementary material inferences is developed. At the same time, they respond to

painful and pleasurable sensations and are comforted by their carers. The carer attends

to parts of the baby’s body that have been harmed and tells the baby where it hurts

and what kind of pain they are suffering. They come to verbally distinguish different

kinds of sensation and body parts and learn to apply the terminology to others who

exhibit the same behaviour. Here we find the beginnings of the development of

psychological concepts. 13

In due course, children are able to use ‘inner speech’ in order to repeat or rehearse

what has been said or what they wish to say. This ability, itself developed from the

ability to assert, question, promise etc. is, as Geach points out, analogous to speech

acts such as assertion, and is a more fully fledged version of concept possession as an

ability exercised in judgment. We have here the basic elements of concept acquisition.

They do not imply that there is some fixed point in a child’s life when we say once

and for all that s/ he possesses a concept. Our inclination to attribute concept

possession depends on context and our purposes (for example a contrast we might

wish to make between two children at different stages of language acquisition). In the

13 See Strawson (1974) on the growth of moral concepts and attitudes through such participatory and reactive practices.

17

earlier years of life children are developing a growing facility with language and

concept usage, but the open texture and interconnectedness of our conceptual scheme

means that this is a continuing process, not only before formal schooling but

particularly after its advent, when concept growth also involves the regimentation of

concept possession into the structures of systematically organised knowledge (cf.

Kripke, 1980 pp.123-133; Gallie 1952, pp.145-150).14

While all this is happening, children gradually acquire an awareness that they live in a

culture which has a certain unity, that different aspects of life are connected in various

ways and that life makes sense as a whole, albeit through the connectedness of

different its aspects (Rhees 1970; 1998 esp. Part Three, Wittgenstein’s Builders). This

too is part of the ongoing deepening and consolidation of concepts already acquired.

Finally, in learning to participate in more specialised activities, concepts already

possessed become intertwined with these activities and themselves become broadened

and deepened as expertise within given fields of activity is acquired. Through such

processes, concept possession can become concept mastery related to the particular

activity that is mastered.15 Not everyone will become a master of the concepts of a

field, even though most will possess some grasp (of varying degrees) of some of the

relevant concepts. The term ‘expertise’ is sometimes misused to describe the contrast

between a native speaker and someone learning a language, when what is referred to

is relative facility with a language. It is also misleading to refer to ability to negotiate

one’s own culture as ‘expertise’ if one is merely referring to the native’s assurance

and facility relative to that of a stranger. The contrast between being a stranger and a

native within a culture on the one hand, and between the novice and an expert in

activity on the other is not a contrast within a conceptual field but a contrast between

two (albeit related) conceptual fields.

The above presents an elementary outline of concept acquisition in which ‘nothing is

hidden’. All that has been described above is available in the extensive literature on

the growth, learning and development of children (e.g. Menyuk, 1988; Halliday,

14 Scientific discovery is here taken to be the paradigm of concept formation and scientific discoveries about the structure of materials for example according to Kripke, have the status of being necessary a posteriori.15 Which is not to say that concept mastery in a field is the same thing as expertise in that field, although it may well be a necessary component of it.

18

1975). It is obvious that there are certain capacities that young humans enjoy which

enable them to grow, develop and learn. These, no doubt physically based, are worth

study particularly to understand under what circumstances they may not be operating

in the normal way. But the story of conceptual acquisition and growth, although

complex because conceptual schemes are themselves complex and ramified, is one

that can be satisfied by detailed description according to one’s purposes in

understanding what is happening, taking account of the distinctions made in this

paper. Through such descriptions we have the materials for a satisfactory account of

concept acquisition. The addition of a story about stereotype acquisition and the

locking of stereotypes onto innate conceptual fields provides no additional

explanation for which we can find a purpose, or which sheds any explanatory light on

the phenomena. Furthermore, the ambiguous nature of stereotypes as a type of idea in

the empiricist sense, not to mention the nature of innate conceptual fields, taken

together with the unexplained nature of the stereotype acquisition and concept locking

processes, not to mention the absence of evidence for stereotypes and innate

conceptual structures, which should have some form of physical realisation within the

nervous system, leave so many explanatory lacunae that it seems unwise to adopt the

innatist account even provisionally, unless significant further progress is made with

answering the questions raised above. On the other hand, the ‘human natural history’

approach to concept acquisition has not only already yielded a massive amount of

understanding but can continue to do so without the postulation of problematic

entities and processes and can do so while taking account of the ‘inner’ as well as the

‘outer’ elements of human experience.16

The Fodorian account of stereotype formation has strong analogies with the

associationist account of concept (idea) formation developed by Berkeley and Hume,

discussed above. However, a Humean associative fixing of word with image could not

work as a stage in the story of concept activation, since this is precisely the case

where the stereotype is, in effect discarded in favour of the concept properly so called

when the word comes to be extensively used in everyday discourse. Both Berkeley

and Hume suggest a situation where language use and communication ameliorates the

subjective nature of individual ideas, since objectivity concerning concepts is to some

extent secured by agreement in practice through communication. But in that case it is 16 Wittgenstein (1992), V.2., esp. pp.27-32.

19

not at all clear what role is being played by ideas in the communication of concepts,

since it appears that the burden is being carried by language rather than individual

internal mental or computational processes. And this is a problem that the innatist

account must also face, since the use of language appears to render the formation of

stereotypes (conceived imagistically or in any other way) redundant in our

explanation of concept acquisition.

The Role of Analogy and Variation in Concept Acquisition.

Chomsky’s example of the concept climb is interesting as it provides a good

illustration of the difficulties encountered in trying to specify a pre-set and universal

meaning for a concept which is acquired. “We simply learn the label that goes with

the pre-existing concept.” If this is true it is very hard to see how one could progress

with concept acquisition. It appears as if we possess the full range of our concepts in

their entirety at birth. But it is evident that there is considerable intercultural and

contextual variation in our use of concept words. It is quite possible that one language

has a different word for the climbing of snakes, for example, than for legged animals

and different again for a railway train climbing a gradient. Some languages may

extend the concept climb to include social climbing, while others may not.

One response would be to maintain that the same concept attracts a variety of

different labels to refer to different aspects of the concept. But this appears like a

defensive move with little plausibility when counterposed to the suggestion that there

is intercultural and contextual variation in concepts and conceptual boundaries and

that this is reflected in language. Indeed it is quite possible that, for example, social

climbing is recognised as an analogical extension of the concept of climbing in one

language and not in another. We can explore conceptual variation and achieve a good

understanding of these differences by carefully noting and describing them. Indeed,

this is what a good interpreter or translator often has to do, and the vocabulary of

conceptual variation comes more naturally to a description of the exercise than does

an account of multiple labelling for the same concept. It is also worth noting that there

is diachronic variation in concept word usage, most would describe this as conceptual

change rather than labelling change.

20

Conceptual Growth, Concept Mastery Formal Education and the Growth of

Expertise.

By contrast with the difficulties that innatism has in presenting a good explanation of

conceptual abilities, the account outlined at the beginning of this chapter does not

have these shortcomings. Furthermore, it has the substantial advantage of being able

to account for the development of conceptual abilities. Critically, the innatist has

difficulty in accounting for the growth of concept mastery. This, as we saw, is

associated with growing expertise within particular activities and possession needs to

be distinguished from mastery, which only grows through experience, learning and

practice and may continue well into adulthood. It is very difficult to maintain that this

is all given to the neonate when concept mastery and the associated expertise is often

so painfully acquired. Once again, a preferable explanation lies to hand in the

possibility of describing the processes of concept acquisition which leads on to

concept mastery as part of the growth of extended linguistic competence.

Any account of concept acquisition and the extended transition to concept mastery

must be able to give a convincing account of how such processes take place over an

extended period, including into and beyond compulsory schooling. Concept innatism,

with its account of concepts being ‘switched on’ in a single process, is woefully

inadequate to describe this coherently. So is the account offered here any better?

This account would hold that concept acquisition and mastery is based on experience

(although it is not an empiricist account) and extended social interaction. We have

already indicated how this happens at the earlier stages of concept acquisition and

found that it accords well with the empirical data. How well does it account for the

acquisition of systematic knowledge through formal education and beyond? In order

to assess this we need to return to the gradualist conception of concept acquisition that

has been implicit in this account. By the time that children reach school, as innatists

correctly note, much of our conceptual structure and linguistic ability has been

acquired. But by no means all has and not only does formal schooling situate the

already existing conceptual structure of a child within the more systematic

21

relationships afforded by school subjects, but it extends it towards greater mastery of

the relevant concepts.

Sometimes this involves an expansion and systematisation of concepts already present

in a non-specialist form as in, for example, History. Sometimes it involves a certain

re-orientation of conceptual understanding away from these non-specialist forms to a

specialist re-conceptualisation of certain concepts, for example in the physical

sciences. An example would be the shift from our understanding of a substance like

water in terms of its perceptible properties to an understanding in terms of atomic and

molecular structure. This may involve having to cope with some inconsistencies

within one’s conceptual structure which however can probably be adequately handled

through a mastery of the shifting contextual frameworks within which interpretations

of a concept are managed.

Schooling therefore extends conceptual understanding as well as knowledge in the

sense of acquaintance with a range of propositions. Indeed it could be argued that

these are both part and parcel of a common process of increasing understanding. But

there are other elements of extending concept mastery which also take place, at least

partly, through processes of formal education. These include practical mastery of the

activities whereby knowledge is acquired and validated and include not just the know-

how involved in such activity but also a more detailed acquaintance with and

perceptual awareness of the phenomena and substances encountered. This increasing

know-how and more intimate acquaintance is an integral part of growing concept

mastery, up to and including the development of ‘activity concepts’ with a strong

ostensive and non-discursive component within an already-developed conceptual field

(Luntley 2011). There is no single story of this gradual ascent from everyday concept

possession to expert concept mastery but a general form of account is necessary in

order to make sense of one of the most fundamental processes in education. The

contention here is that an experientially, socially and normatively based account of

concept acquisition, possession and mastery does this better than the currently

influential innatist account.

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