The Philosophers' Cocoon

2 responses to “Necessary and Sufficient Conditions”

1. Nick

   February 12, 2013

   I don’t have too much of a problem with the necessity relation, when its scope is properly restricted. A set of necessary conditions can be an interesting and informative way of characterizing a concept without committing to a full-blown analysis. So, I think a tempered form of conceptual analysis (sans sufficiency claims) can peacefully co-exist with other ways of looking at concepts (genealogical, linguistic/pragmatic, etc.) The problems really arise when a single method of analysis is given ultimate priority.

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2. David Morrow

   February 12, 2013

   I remember being struck, as an undergraduate, by the disconnect between the way philosophers thought of concepts and the way cognitive scientists (or, at least, my cog sci professors) did. The view that I recall from Cog Sci 101 was the prototype theory (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prototype_theory), according to which an object belongs to the extension of a concept iff it is sufficiently similar, in some relevant way(s), to one (or more?) prototypes. The idea, as I understand it, is that humans actually categorize things in the way described by prototype theory. This means that the pursuit of necessary and sufficient conditions will be fruitless if succeeding means finding necessary and sufficient conditions the pick out the extension of the concept. I’m sure that people who have studied the cognitive science of concepts more recently and in more depth can correct me if this view is muddled or outdated.

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