Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Only human beings have a rich conceptual repertoire with concepts like tort, entropy, Abelian group, mannerism, icon and deconstruction. How have humans constructed these concepts? And once they have been constructed by adults, how do children acquire them? While primarily focusing on the second question, in The Origin of Concepts, Susan Carey shows that the answers to both overlap substantially.Carey begins by characterizing the innate starting point for conceptual development, namely systems of core cognition. Representations of core cognition are the output of dedicated input analyzers, as with perceptual representations, but these core representations differ from perceptual representations in having more abstract contents and richer functional roles. Carey argues that the key to understanding cognitive development lies in recognizing conceptual discontinuities in which new representational systems emerge that have more expressive power than core cognition and are also incommensurate with core cognition and other earlier representational systems. Finally, Carey fleshes out Quinian bootstrapping, a learning mechanism that has been repeatedly sketched in the literature on the history and philosophy of science. She demonstrates that Quinian bootstrapping is a major mechanism in the construction of new representational resources over the course of children's cognitive development.Carey shows how developmental cognitive science resolves aspects of long-standing philosophical debates about the existence, nature, content, and format of innate knowledge. She also shows that understanding the processes of conceptual development in children illuminates the historical process by which concepts are constructed, and transforms the way we think about philosophical problems about the nature of concepts and the relations between language and thought.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• 1 Some Preliminaries (p. 3)
• 2 The Initial Representational Repertoire: The Empiricist Picture (p. 27)
• 3 Core Object Cognition (p. 67)
• 4 Core Cognition: Number (p. 117)
• 5 Core Cognition: Agency (p. 157)
• 6 Representations of Cause (p. 215)
• 7 Language and Core Cognition (p. 247)
• 8 Beyond Core Cognition: Natural Number (p. 287)
• 9 Beyond the Numeral List Representation of Integers (p. 335)
• 10 Beyond Core Object Cognition (p. 361)
• 11 The Process of Conceptual Change (p. 413)
• 12 Conclusion I: The Origins of Concepts (p. 447)
• 13 Conclusion II: Implications for a Theory of Concepts (p. 487)
• References (p. 539)
• Author Index (p. 567)
• Subject Index (p. 577)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In this masterful work, Carey integrates the works of philosophers, psychologists, linguists, and computer scientists to explore the origins and ontogenesis of concepts such as object, intentional agent, cause, integer, rational number, matter, weight, and density. In doing so, she provides a detailed and convincing explanation of how individuals think, and how they come to think in qualitatively distinct ways. Carey contends that the key to understanding cognitive development lies in recognizing the conceptual discontinuities that occur when new representational systems emerge that have more expressive power than, and are incommensurate with, previous representational systems. Numerous examples of discontinuities in ontogeny of children's thinking serve as illustrations, providing detailed accounts of the transitions between one conceptual system and another. In demonstrating how Quinlan bootstrapping can be conceptualized as a major mechanism in the construction of new representational resources over the course of cognitive development, the author describes not only a probable process underlying cognitive development but also a potential means to understand how and why children may experience difficulty in acquiring some advanced conceptual states that are critical to Western culture (e.g., rational numbers). Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty. R. B. Stewart Jr. Oakland University

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Susan Carey is a Professor of Psychology at Harvard University. She is a renowned expert on conceptual development and is known for introducing the concept of fast mapping, whereby children learn the meanings of words after a single exposure, and for integrating work on conceptual change in the history of science with work on conceptual change in childhood. Carey received a B.A. from Radcliffe College in 1964 and a Ph.D. from Harvard University in 1971. She was employed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 1972-1996 and New York University from 1996-2001 before joining the faculty at Harvard University in 2001.