Kant and Abstractionism about Concept Formation

This chapter outlines Kant’s account of empirical concept formation and discusses two objections that have been advanced against it. Kant holds that we form empirical concepts, such as color concepts, by comparing sensory representations of individuals, identifying shared features, and abstracting from the differences between them. According to the first objection, we cannot acquire color concepts in this way because there is no feature that all and only the instances of a given color share, and because the boundary between colors is conventional. According to the second objection, assuming that all instances of a given color share certain features, we can identify them only if we already possess a concept of that color. Neither of the objections is convincing as it stands. Kant can offer replies to both objections that are consistent with his views and with empirical evidence concerning the perception and representation of colors.