Having tried to read it, I get the idea that prototypes represent knowledge about a category of things in terms of typical properties of members of that categories (e.g. “dogs bark and pee on things”); whereas exemplars represent knowledge in terms of familiarity with individual members of the category (e.g. “dogs are like Fido and Lassie”).
The description of theories seems substantially hazier:
Theories are bodies of causal, functional, generic, and nomological knowledge about categories, substances, types of events, and the like. A theory of dogs would consist of some such knowledge about dogs.
I’m having difficulty figuring out what this means.
I think that’s meant to encompass the sort of “necessary and sufficient” rules-based reasoning that was originally associated with concepts-in-general. Whereas prototypes and exemplars denote fuzzy categories, theories are usually more straightforward.
At least, that’s how I read it. Certainly, I would say that some human reasoning is of that form.
Having tried to read it, I get the idea that prototypes represent knowledge about a category of things in terms of typical properties of members of that categories (e.g. “dogs bark and pee on things”); whereas exemplars represent knowledge in terms of familiarity with individual members of the category (e.g. “dogs are like Fido and Lassie”).
The description of theories seems substantially hazier:
I’m having difficulty figuring out what this means.
I think that’s meant to encompass the sort of “necessary and sufficient” rules-based reasoning that was originally associated with concepts-in-general. Whereas prototypes and exemplars denote fuzzy categories, theories are usually more straightforward.
At least, that’s how I read it. Certainly, I would say that some human reasoning is of that form.