Abstract

BRYAN REGISTER explores Rand's theory of concept-formation and concept-employment. Rand proposes a sophisticated nominalist theory of universals, which accounts both for the objectivity of categories of things and for the universality and abstractness of certain mental states. However, Rand's theory is found wanting: through an erroneous and confused treatment of the relation between words and concepts, it fails to account for non-linguistic conceptual activity. A revision of Rand's theory, drawing from Price and from Rand's notion of concepts of method, seeks to fill the gap