I really like Klaus’ contribution to this discussion because it corresponds with what I have observed in the work of students putting together concepts for design proposals. The ‘togetherness’ quality of concepts suggests to me that concepts are arrangements of 2 or more ideas, usually more, and hopefully in novel configurations. They are productive intersections of ideas that facilitate human communication. But I think this communication between individuals is not an essential component of a concept, rather that concepts are prepared for communication by virtue of arising from an interior correspondence between ideas within the brain.



This seems to follow what Deleuze & Guattari claim in the chapter What is a Concept? in What is Philosophy? (ignoring for the moment that their definition of a concept comprises one of the three major parts of a broader metaphysics), D&G argue there is “no concept with only one component”. Concepts are more complex than just ideas, whether general or abstract.



Klaus said concepts are “not strictly” cognitive phenomena. I would say they are usefully distinguishable from sensory perceptions and the affects that comprise aesthetics. Concepts are higher level, though they depend on sensory phenomena for themselves to be sensed, and so there is an aesthetics of concepts –they have an aesthetic quality–, for example, concepts that are felt to be elegant or clean (e.g form follows function), messy and wild, or even horrific (e.g Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy, which is a concept as much as it is a psychiatric disorder).



There can also be concepts of aesthetics, which are found in philosophies of aesthetics.



Returning to concepts as productive intersections of several ideas, I’ve found this is a pragmatically useful definition for students in the early stages of a project. It can be used with mind maps to help create concepts by encouraging them to link up distant ideas branching differently from the one topic.



best



Guy



Dr Guy Keulemans



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On 31 Dec 2017, at 3:15 pm, Krippendorff, Klaus <[log in to unmask]<mailto:[log in to unmask]>> wrote:



Lars,

This is a good question to explore.

To me concepts are cognitive abstractions derived from language.

There are only two points I wish to make the first I etymological



The terms is traced back to 1554-60, derived from Latin "conceptum," "something conceived." It's stem is shared with "received," "deceived," and "perceived." All of them have something to do with formations in the mind.  However, the prefix "con" links concepts with togetherness. So conceptions can be said to be collaborative cognition.



My other comment has to do with Eleanor Rosh's work who studied three kinds of conceptions:

(1) we use prototypes to define a class of visualizable phenomena by how prototypical they are. For example, in the U.S. the Robbin is close to the prototypical bird. When we see a bird we describe it by how it differs from that prototype by pointing out its untypical qualities, for example, having a red beak, long legs, etc. A penguin is a bird by scientific definitions but it is very far from a typical, in folk conceptions, not a bird.



Accordingly, we can never see A chair but judge what affords us sitting by its protototypicality.

(2) adding details to prototype, we qualify chairs by adjectives or uses like baby chair, dining room chairs, or office chairs.

(3) Abstracting from prototypes are talk of concepts that are no longer visualizable, like furniture.



Designer who talk of design concepts tend to talk of visualizable but not yet observable phenomena, like guides or models. What links my second point to the first is that con-cepts always emerge among people in interactions, using language to explain what they have in mind doing. Concepts are cannot dispense of cognition but heavily depend on the tropes provided in the language used to talk of them. They are not strictly cognitive phenomena.



Klaus









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