Phil 562: Concepts in Language and Mind

(USC graduate seminar, Spring 2026)

What are concepts? How do they relate to word and sentence meaning? And how does conceptual thought interface with other systems of mind? This seminar surveys major approaches to concepts in philosophy and cognitive science, examining the theoretical work that 'concepts' must do and assessing whether any single notion can do it all. A distinctive feature of the seminar is its sustained focus on how concepts interface with linguistic meaning — a connection often neglected when these topics are treated in isolation. We begin with the classical computational view associated with Fodor, on which concepts are stable mental symbols that compose into thoughts and serve as the meanings of words. We then examine challenges and alternatives: prototype and exemplar theories from psychology, Millikan's teleosemantic approach, and Shea's recent proposal that concepts are an interface. Throughout, we ask what linguistic meaning requires of concepts, drawing on evidence from language understanding, acquisition, and processing.