Reflections [IV] Conceptual Spaces At Work: Parthemore, Unified Conceptual Space

In my notes on Hodges' model, nursing theory and conceptual spaces I've referred to Rosch, Gärdenfors and there is much of note in my copy of The Big Book of Concepts. There are gaps to fill, key sources to find and digest including the history of concepts. In Empirical Investigations in Conceptual Spaces Theory and the Unified Conceptual Space Joel Parthemore really helped this effort. His presentation began with: What is a concept? Which begs the question: What is a concept within Hodges' model? Is it a single entity?

Joel's slides included the following:

In the Beginning Was...

• Classical definitionism: concepts are like entries in a dictionary.
• Classical imagism: concepts are like pictures in the mind.

And then came their descendants:

• Prototype and exemplar theories (Rosch)
• Informational atomism (Fodor)
• Proxytypes theory (Prinz)
• Conceptual spaces theory (Gärdenfors)

Listening to Joel introduce his work on unified conceptual spaces I can relate several points to Hodges' model especially the following.

• Attempt to describe how all of an individual conceptual agent’s conceptual spaces map or weave together into a single unified space, a “space of spaces” describable along certain common axes.
• By extension, how all of the individual conceptual agents’ unified spaces map together, in linguistic human society, into a single, common unified space.
• Unlike CST, UCST is explicitly enactive: concepts are located not in the agent nor in the environment but in the interaction of agent and environment.

A couple of speakers brought up the question of a 'space of spaces'. Centeredness also preoccupies us in health and education. We are desperate to pick up the patient and the student and put them at the center of things. I keep wondering (see link below) about the extent to which structure and a theory of cognition are interdependent in terms of the resulting conceptual spaces? Since the late 1980s Buzan's mind-mapping has struck me as not being 'grounded'. This may not be an issue in many applications, but for a generic conceptual framework some underlying structure (dimensions) seems essential.

Joel also considered this:

• One major shortcoming of currently available mind-mapping software is the lack of any well-defined theory of cognition (let alone theory of concepts) underlying the application.

I hope I can make contact with Joel and return to this. He indicated papers and further projects with colleagues and a piece of software.

Additional link (Hodges' model - nexus, structure):

http://hodges-model.blogspot.co.uk/search?q=nexus