Metacognition and abstract concepts

Journal article

Abstract:: The problem of how concepts can refer to or be about the non-mental world is particularly puzzling for abstract concepts. There is growing evidence that many characteristics beyond the perceptual are involved in grounding different kinds of abstract concept. A resource that has been suggested, but little explored, is introspection. This paper develops that suggestion by focusing specifically on metacognition—on the thoughts and feelings that thinkers have about a concept. One example of metacognition about concepts is the judgement that we should defer to others in how a given concept is used. Another example is our internal assessment of which concepts are dependable and useful, and which less so. Metacognition of this kind may be especially important for grounding abstract concepts.

Files:: 20170133.full.pdf

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Publisher:: Royal Society
Journal:: Philosophical Transactions B: Biological Sciences More from this journal
Volume:: 373
Issue:: 1752
Article number:: 20170133
Publication date:: 2018-06-18
Acceptance date:: 2018-03-28
DOI:: 10.1098/rstb.2017.0133
EISSN:: 1471-2970
ISSN:: 0962-8436

Keywords:: metacognition

deference

linguistic labels

philosophy

abstract concepts

grounding
Pubs id:: pubs:831961
UUID:: uuid:80c1198a-22c9-4c08-8519-42444a255057
Local pid:: pubs:831961
Source identifiers:: 831961
Deposit date:: 2018-04-04
ARK identifier:: ark:/29072/ora_80c1198a22c94c08851942444a255057

Copyright holder:: Shea, N
Notes:: Copyright © 2018 The Author.
Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.

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