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The cognitive role of concept variability

Mind & Language / Mind and Language

Published online on

Abstract

["Mind &Language, Volume 41, Issue 1, Page 66-87, February 2026. ", "\nI present and defend concept variability, the view that concepts can admit of indefinitely many variations and changes in their representational contents without thereby losing their identity. I argue that the variability of concepts is central to their role in enabling cognition, and thus that a concept's content variability is, despite philosophical orthodoxy to the contrary, a feature of our cognitive architecture and not a bug.\n"]