Generics as reflecting conceptual knowledge
James A. Hampton · Recherches linguistiques de Vincennes · 2012
Generics are proposed to reflect the nature of the conceptual system, whose prototype structure and vague boundaries make an unreliable basis for traditional treatments of truth and logic. Conceptual representations contain information that is considered germane and relevant to an understanding and familiarity with that concept. Such information includes fundamental or ontological features as well as information about the common or typical form that exemplars of the concept may take, and any other information that it is important for someone to know. Examples from the psychological literature are used to illustrate the relation between generics and the reasoning fallacies that can arise from dependence on similarity-based concepts. To understand the logic of generics, we should therefore look to the processes by which information becomes attached to, and a part of, the representation of a concept.