Concept - William James's Truth

A concept is an abstract, universal idea, notion, or entity that serves to designate a category or class of entities, events, or relations. Concepts are abstract in that they omit the differences of the things in their extension, treating them as if they were identical. They are universal in that they apply equally to every thing in their extension. Concepts are also the basic elements of propositions, much the same way a wor ...

Including:

• Concept - Locke
• Concept - Kant's Definition
• Concept - Schopenhauer
• Concept - John Stuart Mill's Conceptions
• Concept - William James's Truth
• Concept - Gilles Deleuze's definition of Philosophy
• Concept - Ayn Rand
• Concept - Concepts in science
• Concept - Concepts in Mathematics

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A concept may be abstracted from several perceptions, but that is only its origin. In regard to its meaning or its truth, William James proposed his Pragmatic Rule. This rule states that the meaning of a concept may always be found in some particular difference in the course of human experience which its being true will make (Some Problems of Philosophy, "Percept and Concept -- The Import of Concepts"). In order to understand the meaning of the concept and to discuss its importance, a concept may be tested by asking, "What sensible di ...

See also:

Concept, Concept - Locke, Concept - Kant's Definition, Concept - Schopenhauer, Concept - John Stuart Mill's Conceptions, Concept - William James's Truth, Concept - Ayn Rand, Concept - Concepts in science

Read more here: » Concept: Encyclopedia II - Concept - William James's Truth

John Stuart Mill stated that general conceptions are formed through abstraction. A general conception is the common element among the many images of members of a class. "...[W]hen we form a set of phenomena into a class, that is, when we compare them with one another to ascertain in what they agree, some general conception is implied in this mental operation" (A System of Logic, Book IV, Ch. II). Mill did not believe that concepts exist in the mind before the act of abstraction. "It is not a law of our intellect, that, in compa ...

See also:

Concept, Concept - Locke, Concept - Kant's Definition, Concept - Schopenhauer, Concept - John Stuart Mill's Conceptions, Concept - William James's Truth, Concept - Ayn Rand, Concept - Concepts in science

Read more here: » Concept: Encyclopedia II - Concept - John Stuart Mill's Conceptions

Concepts are extremely useful for the development of science. It would be difficult to imagine science without the concepts like: energy, force, acceleration, time, charge, gravity, field ( The list can be almost endless). Some illustrative examples of concepts in physical science are: absorption, acid, acceleration, activation, activity, adsorption, atmosphere, alkali, amorphous, angular, anisotropy aromatic, atom, azeotrope, ballast, bandwidth, base, baryons, bond, body, capacitance, catalyst, choke, circuit, color, conductor, covalent, cr ...

See also:

Concept, Concept - Locke, Concept - Kant's Definition, Concept - Schopenhauer, Concept - John Stuart Mill's Conceptions, Concept - William James's Truth, Concept - Ayn Rand, Concept - Concepts in science

Read more here: » Concept: Encyclopedia II - Concept - Concepts in science

The Ayn Rand Institute has disseminated the following information on Ayn Rand's understanding of human concept formation. "According to Objectivism, concepts are derived from and do refer to the facts of reality. The mind at birth (as Aristotle first stated) is tabula rasa; there are no innate ideas. The senses are man's primary means of contact with reality; they give him the precondition of all subsequent knowledge, the evidence that something is. What the something is he discovers o ...

See also:

Concept, Concept - Locke, Concept - Kant's Definition, Concept - Schopenhauer, Concept - John Stuart Mill's Conceptions, Concept - William James's Truth, Concept - Ayn Rand, Concept - Concepts in science

Read more here: » Concept: Encyclopedia II - Concept - Ayn Rand