Reasoning with Concepts - Conceptual Spaces as a Framework

A unified treatment of different types of reasoning with concepts, such as category-based induction, nonmonotonic reasoning, analogies, and generics. Psychologists and philosophers have worked on topics such as category-based induction, nonmonotonic reasoning, analogies, and generics, but these problems have largely been investigated independently. In While probabilistic models exist for some of these notions, no comprehensive formal framework has previously encompassed them all. The proposed measures here, based on distances in conceptual space and prototypes, generate novel testable predictions while unifying previously disparate theoretical territories. Furthermore,;the models can be implemented in artificial systems that deal with different forms of reasoning.

About the author

Peter Gärdenfors is Professor of Cognitive Science, Lund University. He is the author of Knowledge in Flux (MIT Press), Conceptual Spaces (MIT Press), How Homo Became Sapiens, and Geometry of Meaning (MIT Press).

Matías Osta-Vélez is Associate Professor of Philosophy of Science at the University of the Republic, Uruguay. Before that, he was a NeuroMind research Fellow at Ruhr University Bochum and a postdoctoral researcher at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf.

Product details

• Authors: PETER GARDENFORS, Peter Gärdenfors, Matias Osta-Velez
• Publisher: The MIT Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Release: 03.03.2026
• EAN: 9780262053402
• ISBN: 978-0-262-05340-2
• No. of pages: 260
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Psychology; PHILOSOPHY / Epistemology, PSYCHOLOGY / Cognitive Psychology & Cognition, SCIENCE / Cognitive Science, Cognition & cognitive psychology, Cognition and cognitive psychology, Philosophy: epistemology & theory of knowledge, Cognitive studies, Cognitive Science, Philosophy: epistemology and theory of knowledge