WHERE DO ABSTRACT CONCEPTS COME FROM?

18.00 – 19.00
PROF. SUSAN CAREY
Professor of Psychology (Harvard University)

As a matter of logic, a theory of the origin of any given concept must have three parts: a characterization of the innate primitives that are the input to any learning process, a characterization of the target concept, and a characterization of the learning process that builds the target from the beginning representational resources. Abstract concepts, as a whole, pose a challenge only if the innate primitives are limited to sensory or sensory-motor, representations (as many theorists have posited). I will provide evidence that –some- abstract concepts are innate. In addition, I will characterize a learning mechanism that is capable of creating new primitives, including abstract ones, that are not definable in terms of representational resources available at the outset of learning.