Literary notes about concepts (AI summary)
In literature the term “concepts” functions as a versatile tool for exploring and categorizing both thought and experience. For instance, Dewey [1] suggests that enlarging one’s fund of concepts is essential to expanding vocabulary and, by extension, cognitive capacity. Kant [2] and Schopenhauer [3] use the term to denote foundational categories that structure our perception of objects and artistic representations, respectively, with Schopenhauer noting that while concepts aid in understanding art, they cannot instill its inner life. Meanwhile, Durkheim [4] regards concepts as collective representations that shape social reality, and other writers further emphasize their role in systematic reasoning and the formation of abstract thought.
- To enlarge vocabulary, the fund of concepts should be enlarged ( i ) Enlargement of vocabulary.
— from How We Think by John Dewey - The determinant Judgement has for itself no principles which are the foundation of concepts of Objects .
— from Kant's Critique of Judgement by Immanuel Kant - All imitators, all mannerists, apprehend in concepts the nature of representative works of art; but concepts can never impart inner life to a work.
— from The World as Will and Idea (Vol. 1 of 3) by Arthur Schopenhauer - This remark enables us to determine the sense in which we mean to say that concepts are collective representations.
— from The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life by Émile Durkheim
