This site has been permanently archived. This is a static copy provided by the University of Southampton.

@misc{cogprints3934, title = {Holism, Concept Individuation, and Conceptual Change}, author = {Ingo Brigandt}, year = {2004}, keywords = {concepts, concept individuation, holism, conceptual role semantics, conceptual change, gene concept}, url = {http://cogprints.org/3934/}, abstract = {The paper discusses concept individuation in the context of scientific concepts and conceptual change in science. It is argued that some concepts can be individuated in different ways. A particular term may be viewed as corresponding to a single concept (which is ascribed to every person from a whole scientific field). But at the same time, we can legitimately individuate in a more fine grained manner, i.e., this term can also be considered as corresponding to two or several concepts (so that each of these concepts is attributed to a smaller group of persons only). The reason is that there are different philosophical and explanatory interests that underlie a particular study of the change of a scientific term. These interests determine how a concept is to be individuated; and as the same term can be subject to different philosophical studies and interests, its content can be individuated in different ways.} }