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Concept innateness, concept continuity, and bootstrapping

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 May 2011

Susan Carey
Susan Carey
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138. scarey@wjh.harvard.edu
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Abstract

The commentators raised issues relevant to all three important theses of The Origin of Concepts (henceforth TOOC). Some questioned the very existence of innate representational primitives, and others questioned my claims about their richness and whether they should be thought of as concepts. Some questioned the existence of conceptual discontinuity in the course of knowledge acquisition and others argued that discontinuity is much more common than was portrayed in TOOC. Some raised issues with my characterization of Quinian bootstrapping, and others questioned the dual factor theory of concepts motivated by my picture of conceptual development.

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Authors' Response
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Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 34 , Issue 3 , June 2011 , pp. 152 - 162
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2011

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