EXCERPT: Concepts without categories

Oddly Influenced

This excerpt from episode 40 contains material independent of that episode's topic (collaborative circles) that might be of interest to people who don't care about collaborative circles. It mostly discusses a claim, due to Andy Clark, that words are not labels for concepts. Rather, words come first and concepts accrete around them. As a resolute, concepts are messy. Which is fine, because they don't need to be tidy.

Sources

• Louise Barrett, Beyond the Brain: How Body and Environment Shape Animal and Human Minds, 2011
• Anthony Chemero, Radical Embodied Cognitive Science, 2011

Mentioned

• Emily Dickinson, "A narrow Fellow in the Grass", 1891 (I think version 2 is the original. Dickinson's punctuation was idiosyncratic, but early editions of her poetry conventionalized it.)
• Talking Heads, "Psycho Killer", 1977
• Andy Clark, Being There: Putting Brain, Body, and World Together Again, 1997. (This is the source for much of the argument, but I'm relaying it second hand, from Barrett.)

Credits

The image titled "Girl seated in middle of room with books; smaller child standing on stool and wearing dunce cap" is via the US Library of Congress and has no restrictions on publication. It is half of a stereograph card, dating to 1908.