Concept
Prototype theory
Overview
Prototype theory is a theory of categorization in cognitive science, particularly in psychology and cognitive linguistics, in which there is a graded degree of belonging to a conceptual category, and some members are more central than others. It emerged in 1971 with the work of psychologist Eleanor Rosch, and it has been described as a "Copernican Revolution" in the theory of categorization for its departure from the traditional Aristotelian categories. It has been criticized by those that still endorse the traditional theory of categories, like linguist Eugenio Coseriu and other proponents of the structural semantics paradigm.
In this prototype theory, any given concept in any given language has a real world example that best represents this concept. For example: when asked to give an example of the concept furniture, a couch is more frequently cited than, say, a wardrobe. Prototype theory has also been applied in linguistics, as part of the mapping from phonological structure to semantics.
In formulating prototype theory, Rosch drew in part from previous insights in particular the formulation of a category model based on family resemblance by Wittgenstein (1953), and by Roger Brown's How shall a thing be called? (1958).
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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A cognition is either an intuition or a conception (intuitus vel conceptus). The former has an immediate relation to the object and is singular and individual; the latter has but a mediate relation, by means of a characteristic mark which may be common to several things. A conception is either empirical or pure. A pure conception, in so far as it has its origin in the understanding alone, and is not the conception…
Immanuel Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason
States what Prototype theory is.
No matter how definite and concrete the habitual imagery of a given mind may be, the things represented appear always surrounded by their fringe of relations, and this is as integral a part of the mind's object as the things themselves are. We come, by steps with which everyone is sufficiently familiar, to think of whole classes of things as well as of single specimens; and to think of the special qualities or…
William James, Psychology
States what Prototype theory is.
That is to say, the different elements are in the first place only qualified as the several elements of the notion, and, secondly, their identity is no less explicitly stated, the one being said to be the other. This realised particularity of the notion is the Judgment. The ordinary classification of notions, as _clear, distinct_ and _adequate,_ is no part of the notion; it belongs to psychology.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Logic of Hegel
States what Prototype theory is.
Related ideas
- Eleanor Rosch
- Natural kind
- Categories (Aristotle)
- Paradigm
- Ludwig Wittgenstein
- Linguistics
- Classification
- Phonology
- Copernican Revolution
- Semantics
- Family resemblance
- Cognitive science
- Concept
- Cognitive linguistics
- Affordance
Place in the tradition
Part of Embodied cognition.