Understanding Concepts: Definition, Types & Characteristics

Concept and Concept System

• Conceptualization involves the process of objects changing into concepts.

Types and Names of Concept

• Individual concepts are like appellations, while general concepts are represented by terms.

Concept Characteristics

• Essential characteristics are indispensable for a concept to be what it is.
• Critical thinking relies on having clearly defined concepts and their names, which are terms.
• Critical thinking involves asking Who, What, Where, When, and Why, along with How (5Ws+1H).

What is a Concept?

• Concepts are mental constructs or images.
• Concepts can be prototypes of similar objects or categories of entities in our minds.
• Concepts are units or elements of thought and knowledge.
• Objects are categorized into mental constructs or units of thought called concepts through conceptualization
• The progression goes from objects, through conceptualization, to concepts, then designation, to terms, and finally to communication within a special language.

Conceptualization

• Conceptualization is a cognitive process used to grouping similar objects under concepts.
• Depicting objects turns into concepts, like the origin of Chinese characters.

Defining an Object

• Anything that is perceived or conceived is defined as an object.
• There are three types of objects: concrete, immaterial or abstract, and purely imagined.

Perception's Role

• The outside world exists independently.
• Entities are perceived as mental entities or items, becoming things or objects.
• The outside world is divided into pieces and categories, then mapped into a virtual inside world.
• Identifying objects involves recognizing their bounds, borders, or boundaries, both physical and non-physical, which relates to Morphology.

Appellation

• Many unique individual objects or entities have a unique name.
• Every object, entity, or thing can be named.
• The sun/moon, Hong Kong, Kowloon, Kowloon Tong, and Tat Chee Ave. are appellations
• Observation: Not every object has a name because there are too many to name.
• Only a mental entity can be named

Category Names

• Sets/categories/classes of objects have names.
• Every category is named otherwise it cannot exist at all.
• Categorization can be rather subjective
• Language can shape the way we think

Concepts as Categories

• The outside world is partially and categorically mapped onto our inside world (mind).
• Perception is the bridge between the inside and outside worlds.
• The brain, and therefore the mind, has access only to the inside world.
• A concept is a category of entities/objects in our inside world, mapped from and onto the outside world.

Types of Concepts

• There are primarily individual and general types of concepts.
• Individual concepts refer to a single object.
• General concepts refer to the category/set of 2 or more objects

Appellation Information

• Appellations are names or symbols of individual concepts or objects.
• Appellations are independent of the plurality of nouns, conjunction of nouns, and identical names- Examples: United Nations, United States, Shanghai and Hong Kong Bank, LT, Paris
• Terms designate general concepts in a special language, while appellations may carry knowledge.

What Forms a Concept?

• Concepts form from a combination of characteristics.
• In ISO 704, properties are identified with objects in the subject field. Those properties are then abstracted into characteristics before the characteristics are combined to form a concept.
• Example: "lead pencil" = {wood cylinder or cylindrical stick, graphite core, wood casing, a cone at one end and an eraser at the other, ... }

Bird - An Example

• Birds, class Aves, are feathered, winged, bipedal, endothermic (warm-blooded), egg-laying, vertebrate animals.
• Birds have sharp claws and beaks, can fly, and have a specific shape

Intension vs Extension

• Intension is the set of characteristics of a concept while extension is the set of objects/subcategories.
• Example tree = {green leaves, branches, woody plant, root, stem or trunk, bark, flower, fruit, seed, ... }
• Example- vehicle = {car, bus, train, bicycle, truck, motorcycle, ship, boat, aircraft, ...}

Concept Notion

• Common sense views can differ from scientific views.
• Common sense says"fish refers to cetaceans (whale, dolphin, porpoise) (because of look like fish and swim like fish)
• Common sense says "fish" does not refer to sea dragon, seahorse (because not do not look like fish)
• Common sense refers to some marine animals that are not fish (shellfish, cuttlefish, starfish, crayfish) as "fish."

Essential vs Non-Essential Characteristics

• An essential characteristic is indispensable.
• A non-essential characteristic is expendable.
• Graphite core is essential to pencil. Color, length, size, eraser is non-essential.

Delimiting Characteristics

• A delimiting characteristic is one that distinguishes one concept from another.
• Human vs other mammals, +walk on two feet, +language, +clothes, +shelter, +tools, +social/artistic/spiritual life, +culture...
• E.g., human language vs animal/insect language & many animals uisng tools

Combination of Concepts

• Determination specifies or constrains another concept: reed pen, quill pen, dip pen, fountain pen, ballpoint pen, rollerball pen, and marker. + head/stem
• Conjunction joins concepts: smoke + fog = smog, rainbow, laser print
• Disjunction divides the concept into 2 new concepts: child → boy + girl
• Integration combines several concepts into one: Austro-Hungary ← Austria + Hungary

Concept Relations

• The general principle is the overlap between concepts via a common subset within intension and/or extension.
• Includes: Superordinate vs subordinate / (hypernym vs hyponym) "writing instrument" = {pen, pencil, marker, ...} "pen" = {reed, quill, dip, fountain, ballpoint, ...}
• Example Partitive relation: pencil = wood cylinder + graphite core + eraser
• Example Associative relation: Eye: organ, face/head, vision/sight/seeing, blind, scene/view/image, light/color/image, shortsighted,

Concept System Definition

• A concept system is an organized structure of items/entities/elements, usually in a hierarchy or network and concepts exist in a system.
• In concept systems concepts will organize themselves into the system through various relations.

Concept System

• A concept system usually presents a special subject field and vice versa.
• The goal is to model concept structures based on specialized knowledge of a field.
• The goal is to clarify the relations between concepts. Facilitate the writing of definitions.
• It facilitates the comparative analysis of concepts and designation across languages
• This provides a basis for uniform, standardized terminology.

Representations

• The two listed ways to represent a concept system are via a tree diagram and a fan-shaped and rectangular block diagram.

Concept Definition

• It is the study of terms, knowledge, and epistemology (study of knowledge).
• Focuses on definition vs designation, formal structure, intensional/extensional/ostensive types, defects, aids, and systematicity.

Recall: Concept and Term Relationship

• Objects relate to individual concepts, which then relate to appellations or names.
• Categories of objects relate to general concepts, which then relate to terms.

Defining a Term

• Defining a term equates to defining its underlying concept which encodes special knowledge in its special subject field.
• Generally speaking, defining involves specifying the content of an individual/general concept within a specific subject field.
• Terms serve as key items in the lexicon of a Language for Special Purposes (LSP).

Knowledge

• Knowledge is familiarity with someone or something and the study of knowledge is called epistemology.
• Knowledge is in philosophy and is also called epistemology

Definition

• The reason we have definitions is to provide a clear boundary between different concepts.
• According to the textbook, the purpose of a dictionary is to help one define a term with their own individual knowledge. The dictionary is not supposed to be the end all be all decision for what words mean
• Terminology aims to make a concept explicit to the audience for whom you are speaking to
• A concept definition gives the audience the precise and concise statement, while a concept description may include more information.
• A formalized definition and description is important because of the audience you are giving the definition towards. Some audience may be unaccustomed to specific terms or need extra information of the subject.

Definition vs Designation

• The designation and definition should not be the same
• Instead both an original term and its abbreviation need to share the same definition.
• A definition is not the equivalent term in another language, definitions have to be universal.

Defintion of Defintion

• Sager states that defining is to describe the meaning of linguistically expressed symbols.
• Additionally, a specialized definition describes a concept within a specific subject field.

Formal Sructure

• There should be a defined item, which will have a very standard use case and use case. In term taxonomy you can also divide this item into standard genus with distinctive characteristics
• Definiendum: What is being defined using a synonym that best describes it
• Definiens: The part with characteristics that distinguish it from other things, to differentiate the definiendum from other species.

Hyponym vs Hypernym vs Genus

• A hyponym comes under hypernym in the same way species come under genera
• It is important that with hypernyms that there must be a single well known fact. In the example if the hypernym is children it has to be well known what makes a child a child

Scientific Definition

Common Types of Definition

• Types of definition include intensional, extensional, and ostensive.
• Other kinds of description are used in lexicography and terminology. By analysis, synonyms, paraphrasing, synthesis, implication, denotation, demonstration and mix of any two

Purpose

• Dictionaries, definition serve to avoid confusing concepts.
• Terminologies are there to create a minimum information to define something. And differentiate a concept from another. Intension and or extension
• The indications are there to identify the concepts location in the scope
• The generic characteristics superordinate concept, subordinate concepts

Intensional Definition

• Defining a concept as a unit with unique intentional expression to indicate subordinate and expression to make subordinate concepts.
• We want to have superordinate and subordinate relations/ concepts

Examples

pencil whose graphite core is fixed in a wooden casing that is removed for the sharpening. As well as the location

• The barrel and lead advance mechanism are essential.
• What is the case for pencils?

Fish

• Common terms vs popular, stiputive

Extenstional Definition

• We use subcategories to define the rest or parts and that is the extension

Ostensive Defintion

• Defintion by audio visual means

Context

• Using what you know about the case to help define the term and what is talked about.

Defective Definition

• A bad explanation. To direct with the use of screws?
• Restrictive. Only glass?
• Copper and metal, its missing the connection. And what else are you considering water?

Aids

• audio visual means for demonstrations

System

• no context stands alone