Abstract

The special concern of this essay is the proper explanation of the nature of concept formation, not only in respect to the growth of knowledge through experience, but in respect to the logic of its augmentation or 'construction'. The perspective endorsed is pragmatist and naturalist. Concept formation is best viewed, I argue, as a developed form of practical intelligence. I show how the particular conception of meaning belonging to the pragmatic method of Peirce and James is developed by Clarence Irving Lewis through a vigorous criticism of Kant's theory of how Sinn und Bedeutung figure in the 'construction' of our a priori cognitions. In the Critique of Pure Reason, Kant held that a 'mediating function', a 'schematization' or 'schema' for a concept in terms of a definite sense , must intercede in any recognition of an object of possible experience as one which bears out the meaning or significance of that particular concept. Lewis argues against the Kantian view according to which such schemas of sense pose 'limitations of possible experience' which 'transcendentally' constrain valid application of our concepts, Lewis denying that any such 'limits' are imposed by mind as 'conditions' of objective knowledge. The real object to which our experience is referred, for Lewis, is not a ideal forever beyond our grasp, but something the form of which is "malleable to our purpose and responsive to our need." I show how Lewis's pragmatic criticism of Kant's theory renders it conversant with the natural sciences of mind. The study begins by introducing basic epistemological conceptions owing largely to the imagination of Lewis's precursor William James, and proceeds to examine the state of pragmatist thinking on knowledge, by focusing on criticisms put forth in the writings of Rorty and Quine against the so-called 'foundationalist' method employed by Lewis, with its supposition of the possibility of clear and definite conceptual meanings. It advances to a thorough analysis of Lewis's criticism of Kant's theory of a priori concept formation; and concludes with a critical analysis of elements of Lewis's foundationalist epistemology pertinent to a proposed epistemology naturalized