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The Emperor’s New Concepts
Author(s) -
Tennant Neil
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
noûs
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.574
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1468-0068
pISSN - 0029-4624
DOI - 10.1111/1468-0068.36.s16.13
Subject(s) - emperor , citation , state (computer science) , library science , computer science , information retrieval , history , ancient history , programming language
Christopher Peacocke, in «A study of concepts», motivates his account of possession conditions for concepts by means of an alleged parallel with the conditions under wich numbers are abstracted to give the numerosity of a predicate. There are, however, logical mistakes in Peacock's treatment of numbers, which undermine his intended analogy. Nevertheless Peacocke's account of possession conditions for concepts is not rendered inadequate simply by virtue of being deprived of the intended analogy and the motivation it was supposed to afford. His account of concepts deserves still to be considered on its own merits, even if it is more idiosyncratic for being isolated from the paradigm case of numerical abstraction. Peacocke's own account of concepts as abstract objects turns out, though, not to have the logical form of the kind he requires. Then we re-formulate it so to achieve complete generality. This exercise helps to clarifiy the central theses in Peacocke's acount of concepts. It invites the conclusion that his account of content-determination is rather platitudinous and unoriginal - except for a claim of doxastic sufficiency for content-determination, which emerges at the end of the discussion.