Concepts, kinds, and cognitive development

TLDR

Frank Keil’s book offers a unified account of how concepts and word meanings develop in children, integrating cognitive development, philosophy, and cognitive psychology, and drawing on empirical evidence from nominal and natural kind studies to explain conceptual representation across ages. The author analyzes qualitative changes in conceptual development by examining how concepts of natural kinds, nominal kinds, and artifacts shift from global feature lists to core defining features, revealing a move toward theory‑guided core concepts. Cross‑cultural data support that children organize concepts by characteristic features but also possess a framework of causal beliefs that enables deep, theory‑driven understanding of kinds. Frank Keil, Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and co‑director of the Cognitive Studies Program, authored the book, which appears in the Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change series and is published by A Bradford Book.

Abstract

In Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development, Frank Keil provides a coherent account of how concepts and word meanings develop in children, adding to our understanding of the representational nature of concepts and word meanings at all ages.Keil argues that it is impossible to adequately understand the nature of conceptual representation without also considering the issue of learning. Weaving together issues in cognitive development, philosophy, and cognitive psychology, he reconciles numerous theories, backed by empirical evidence from nominal kinds studies, natural-kinds studies, and studies of fundamental categorical distinctions. He shows that all this evidence, when put together, leads to a better understanding of semantic and conceptual development.The book opens with an analysis of the problems of modeling qualitative changes in conceptual development, investigating how concepts of natural kinds, nominal kinds, and artifacts evolve.The studies on nominal kinds document a powerful and unambiguous developmental pattern indicating a shift from a reliance on global tabulations of characteristic features to what appears to be a small set of defining ones. The studies on natural kinds document an analogous shift toward a core theory instead of simple definition. Both sets of studies are strongly supported by cross cultural data.While these patterns seem to suggest that the young child organizes concepts according to characteristic features, Kell argues that there is a framework of conceptual categories and causal beliefs that enables even very young children to understand kinds at a deeper, theoretically guided, level. This account suggests a new way of understanding qualitative change and carries strong implications for how concepts are represented at any point in development.Frank Keil is Professor of Psychology at Cornell University and Co Director of the Cognitive Studies Program at Cornell. Concepts, Kinds, and Cognitive Development is included in the series Learning, Development, and Conceptual Change. A Bradford Book.