Saggi e ricerche

The concept of concept has seldom been examined in its entirety, and the term very seldom defined. The rigidity, or lack thereof, and the homogeneity, or lack thereof, of concepts, are only two of their characteristics that have been debated. These issues are reviewed in this paper, namely: 1) does a concept represent its referent(s), or is it a free creation of the mind?; 2) can a concept be analyzed in parts or elements?; 3) must a concept be general, i.e., refer to a category or a type, or can it refer to a single
object, physical or mental?; 4) are concepts as clearly delimited as terms are? Are concepts voiceless terms?; and, 5) what do terms contribute to an individual’s and a community’s conceptual richness? As regards the relationship of concepts with their referents in the stage of formation, it seems reasonable to conclude that said relationship may be close in some concepts, less close in others, and lacking altogether in some cases. The set of elements of a concept, which varies from individual to individual and across time inside the same individual, is called the intension of a concept. The set of referents of a concept is called the extension of that concept. Most concepts don’t have a clearly delimited extension: their referents form a fuzzy set. The aspects of a concept’s intension form a scale of generality. A concept is not equal to the term that describes it; rather, many terms are joined to concepts. Language, therefore, renders a gamut of services to the development, consolidation, and communication of conceptual richness.