Bloom P
Department of Psychology, University of Arizona, Tucson 85721, USA.
Cognition. 1996 Jul;60(1):1-29. doi: 10.1016/0010-0277(95)00699-0.
What determines our intuitions as to which objects are members of specific artifact kinds? Prior research suggests that factors such as physical appearance, current use, and intended function are not at the core of concepts such as chair, clock and pawn. The theory presented here, based on Levinson's (1993) intentional-historical theory of our concept of art, is that we determine that something is a member of a given artifact kind by inferring that it was successfully created with the intention to belong to that kind. This theory can explain why some properties (such as shape) are more important than others (such as color) when we determine kind membership and can account for why certain objects are judged to be members of artifact kinds even though they are highly dissimilar from other members of the kinds. It can also provide a framework for explaining the conditions under which broken objects cease to be members of their kinds and new artifacts can come into existence. This account of our understanding of artifact concepts is argued to be consistent with more general "essentialist" theories of our understanding of concepts corresponding to proper names and natural kind terms.
是什么决定了我们对于哪些物体属于特定人工制品类别的直觉呢？先前的研究表明，诸如外观、当前用途和预期功能等因素并非椅子、时钟和棋子等概念的核心。这里提出的理论基于列文森（1993）关于我们艺术概念的意向历史理论，即我们通过推断某物是带着属于该类别的意图而成功制造出来的，从而确定它是给定人工制品类别的一员。该理论可以解释为什么在我们确定类别归属时，某些属性（如形状）比其他属性（如颜色）更重要，还能解释为什么某些物体即使与该类别的其他成员极为不同，仍被判定为人工制品类别的成员。它还能提供一个框架，用以解释破损物体何时不再属于其类别以及新人工制品何时能够产生。有人认为，这种对我们对人工制品概念理解的解释与我们对与专有名称和自然类别术语相对应的概念理解的更一般“本质主义”理论是一致的。
