The cognitive role of concept variability
I present and defend concept variability , the view that concepts can admit of indefinitely many variations and changes in their representational contents without thereby losing their identity. I argue that the variability of concepts is central to their role in enabling cognition, and thus that a concept's content variability is, despite philosophical orthodoxy to the contrary, a feature of our cognitive architecture and not a bug.
Authors
- Alnica Visser (ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2948-9490)
Institutions
- Texas Christian University (US)
Publication Details
- Journal
- Mind & Language
- Published
- 2025-06-18
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.1111/mila.12546
- Citations
- 1
- Primary Topic
- Child and Animal Learning Development
- Type
- article
- Field-Weighted Citation Impact
- 3.44