Headerbild: Erste Promotion einer Frau (Elsa Neumann, 1872–1902) an der Universität Berlin 1899. Stich nach Zeichnung von Ewald Thiel.

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Vortrag

What is a concept?

Datum
17:00 Uhr
Ort
Max-Planck-Institut für Wissenschaftsgeschichte, Boltzmannstraße 22, 14195 Berlin, Raum 265
Veranstaltet von
Max-Planck-Forschungsgruppe „Die Konstruktion von Normen in Europa und den USA vom 17. bis 19. Jahrhundert“
Vortragende Person(en)
Jocelyn Benoist, Professor der Philosophie an der Universität Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne

In his book ‘Concepts. Introduction à l’analyse’ (Ed. du Cerf, 2010, rep. Flammarion, 2013), Jocelyn Benoist has put forward a theory of concepts drawing on the resources of the contemporary philosophy of language and mind. He treats concepts as normative structures defining the multifarious ways of our commitments to reality. He emphasizes their flexibility, their boundedness, and their historicity. Thus, he wants to lay the foundation for what he calls a contextualist philosophy of mind.

In his talk he will summarize the essential results of the book. He will particularly focus on the problem of the ‘generality’ of concepts. He will debunk some usual misinterpretations of that essential property, and show how, if correctly interpreted, it squares with contextuality.

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