Project description
Unlocking the power of conceptual learning
Concepts are the tools that allow us to ask the right questions and form new hypotheses. However, traditional philosophy often overlooks how these tools evolve, assuming our conceptual resources remain fixed. The ERC-funded CONCEPT project challenges this view by developing a new theory, which considers concepts as knowledge facilitators. By integrating insights from psychology, linguistics and cognitive science, the research models conceptual learning as a rational social process. The project’s goal is to show how normative ideas shape our reasoning and how evolving concepts drive discovery. The findings will lay the foundation for mental frameworks that are optimised for navigating an increasingly complex and interconnected world.
Objective
Concepts are crucial from an epistemic perspective. Having the right concepts allows asking the right questions, formulating new hypotheses, and providing good explanations. Good concepts are projectable in inductive reasoning. While the ability of concepts to aid and obstruct our thinking has been a recurring theme throughout the history of philosophy, discussions of concepts have little place in current epistemological debates. For instance, existing formal models and informal pictures of updating our beliefs hold fixed conceptual resources: there is no room for conceptual learning.
The main aim of the project is to conduct the first large-scale current study of the epistemic significance of concepts, developing an ambitious view of concepts as knowledge facilitators. This aim is achieved by attaining four main objectives.
O1: To lay down the groundwork for the rest of the project by developing a social epistemological methodology for studying the epistemic significance of concepts in a way that navigates the so-called concept problem.
O2: To provide an account of conceptual inquiry and to model conceptual learning as a rational process.
O3: To construct a novel view of epistemically good categorisations that avoids problems with both metaphysical and conventionalist/pragmatist views.
O4: To develop an account of how concepts facilitate reasoning and inference, applying the account to thick normative concepts as a case study.
The view of concepts as knowledge facilitators developed is continuous with the novel feasibilist view in epistemology that the PI has defended across numerous articles and a forthcoming monograph. Though the questions asked are distinctively philosophical ones, CONCEPT is informed by empirical research on concepts and categorisations in psychology, linguistics, and cognitive science. We deploy some powerful formal tools, and the overall epistemological approach developed is social rather than individualistic.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
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Call for proposal
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(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG
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00014 Helsinki
Finland
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