The Emergence of the Concept in Early Greek Philosophy

In ‘The Emergence of the Concept in Early Greek philosophy’, André Laks argues that we can trace the first inklings of thinking about concepts by paying close attention to early Greek answers to the following three questions: how is perceptual information reached and processed by the mind, what is the relationship between perception and thinking, and how do the early Greek philosophers account for name-giving? First, Laks discusses whether the explanations of sensory mechanisms offered by the early Greek philosophers as well as by the medical authors might have prepared the ground for later theories of concept formation. Second, he argues that we should resist the Aristotelian report according to which the early Greek philosophers identified thinking with perceiving. In fact, we have good reasons to assume that early Greek philosophers attempted to offer an account of the process of thinking. The final section of the chapter turns to the question of the relationship between giving names to things, and forming and grasping the corresponding concept. ©The author ©Cambridge University Press.