The Project investigates the thoughts and feelings that accompany the use of concepts. Concepts lie at the heart of the extraordinary power of the human mind. They are the building blocks of thought, the tools with which we think. Like physical tools, they can be more or less dependable, more or less fit for purpose: e.g. for most people AMPHIBIAN feels like a better concept than SHRUB. We have an intuitive sense of how dependable a concept is, which is crucial when we decide whether to rely on the concept.
Developing an account of people’s metacognitive understanding of their concepts is likely to tell us important things about concepts and about cognitive control; and to shed light on some thorny philosophical problems. The Project takes up that opportunity. It will be the first systematic investigation of the scope of metacognition as it applies to concepts. Our approach is to combine the analytic methods developed by philosophers of mind and cognitive science with psychological model-building and experimen
Nicholas Shea , PI (Institute of Philosophy, University of London) Joulia Smortchkova (University of Oxford) Jake Quilty-Dunn (University of Oxford) James Hampton (City, University of London) Sapphira Thorne (City, University of London; now Cardiff University / Prifysgol Caerdydd)