{"id":2286,"date":"2026-04-20T21:21:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:21:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/?p=2286"},"modified":"2026-04-20T21:22:24","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T20:22:24","slug":"seminar-series-in-analytic-philosophy-2025-26-session-22","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/seminar-series-in-analytic-philosophy-2025-26-session-22\/","title":{"rendered":"Seminar Series in Analytic Philosophy 2025-26: Session 22"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Concept Learning As Opening a Mental File<\/strong><\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Nico Orlandi (University of California, Santa Cruz)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">24 April 2026, 16:00 (Lisbon Time \u2013 WET)<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sala Mattos Rom\u00e3o [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Abstract:\u00a0<\/strong>Standard accounts of concepts in philosophy and in cognitive psychology hold that we learn a target concept by learning the concepts that constitute it. If this is the only model of learning we have, then only concepts that are complex or structured can be learned. I argue for an alternative to this framework by presenting a proposal for how we learn some atomic concepts. I show that we can learn a concept through descriptions without thinking that the concepts employed in the descriptions constitute the target concept. I develop this idea by using the notion of a mental file and by employing a general externalist explanatory strategy. In the view I develop, some concepts are akin to files in that the descriptions associated with a given concept are means of properly individuating the extension of the concept, and they are also means of connecting a concept to others, but they do not constitute the concept and can be revised or abandoned. I show how this discussion connects to issues in conceptual engineering.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This event is funded by Portuguese national funds through FCT \u2013 Funda\u00e7\u00e3o para a Ci\u00eancia e a Tecnologia, I.P., within the project UID\/00310\/2025, Centro de Filosofia da Universidade de Lisboa (<a href=\"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.54499\/UIDB\/00310\/2025\">https:\/\/doi.org\/10.54499\/UIDB\/00310\/2025<\/a>)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Concept Learning As Opening a Mental File Nico Orlandi (University of California, Santa Cruz) &nbsp; 24 April 2026, 16:00 (Lisbon Time \u2013 WET) Faculdade de Letras de Lisboa Sala Mattos Rom\u00e3o [C201.J] (Departamento de Filosofia) &nbsp; Abstract:\u00a0Standard accounts of concepts in philosophy and in cognitive psychology hold that we learn a target concept by learning [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2286"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2290,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2286\/revisions\/2290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cful.letras.ulisboa.pt\/lancog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}