Animal Concepts: Psychological Theories, Pluralism and Division of Labor.

Charter and Heyes (1994) claim that the idea of animal concepts has no sense since it cannot fit with any of the current psychological theories of concepts (prototype, exemplar and definitional theories). But, as I claim, the problem of animal concepts is related to the problem of conditions of concept possession, which has been widely studied by philosophical theories. Psychological theories of concepts have focused on the nature of concepts; so they are inadequate for answering such problem. Nevertheless, it does not mean the labors of both disciplines must be unrelated. Instead, by adopting pluralism about concepts –inspired by recent empirical research on psychology of concepts– it is possible to articulate both disciplines. Besides, some methodological consequence on psychology of concepts should follow from the debate on animal concepts.