Concept
Pronunciation
- UK IPA: /ˈkɒn.sɛpt/
Origin
Middle French, from Latin conceptus ("a thought, purpose, also a conceiving, etc."), from concipere, present active infinitive of concipiÅ ("to take in, conceive"); see conceive.
Full definition of concept
Noun
concept
(plural concepts)- An understanding retained in the mind, from experience, reasoning and/or imagination; a generalization (generic, basic form), or abstraction (mental impression), of a particular set of instances or occurrences (specific, though different, recorded manifestations of the concept).
- 1855, Thomas Reid, W:Sir William Hamilton, 9th Baronet, Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man Chapter Essay IV. Of Conception, The words conception, concept, notion, should be limited to the thought of what can not be represented in the imagination; as, the thought suggested by a general term.Frege's concepts are very nearly propositional functions in the modern sense. Frege explicitly recognizes them as functions. Like Peirce's rhema, a concept is unsaturated. They are in some sense incomplete. Although Frege never gets beyond the metaphorical in his description of the incompleteness of concepts and other functions, one thing is clear: the distinction between objects and functions is the main division in his metaphysics. There is something special about functions that makes them very different from objects.
- 2012, Jan Sapp, Race Finished, Few concepts are as emotionally charged as that of race. The word conjures up a mixture of associations—culture, ethnicity, genetics, subjugation, exclusion and persecution. But is the tragic history of efforts to define groups of people by race really a matter of the misuse of science, the abuse of a valid biological concept?
- (programming) In generic programming, a description of supported operations on a type, including their syntax and semantics.