Straggler writes:Is that really how you conceptualise? Like a walking dictionary? I seriously doubt it. We humans do not walk around applying dictionary style universal definitions to concepts in order to label them. In fact that is precisely what we do NOT do. That is exactly how human conceptualisation does NOT work. Instead we conceptualise by means of common association.
Associationism has a long tradition in philosophy. However, God has an even longer tradition. I would hope that you are not basing your ideas just on tradition.
Having spent some time analyzing the question, I am inclined to enormous skepticism with respect to associationism. It looks to me as if
Dr Adequate is closer with his "criterion" idea.
I agree with you that we are not carrying around dictionary style definitions. And I suspect that
Dr Adequate would probably also agree. But criteria do not only come in dictionaries.
Visit an apple orchard. You might find a conveyor belt carrying the apples. A barrier deflects the larger apples to a chute on the side, while the smaller apples go under the barrier. That's applying a criterion of sorts, but not a dictionary criterion. It seems likely to me that we are using a variety of physical criteria in our perceptual recognition.
Edited by nwr, : Fix typo (How -> However)
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