George Lakoff on Exemplars and prototypes

David B. Kronenfeld kfeld at CITRUS.UCR.EDU
Sat Oct 17 20:39:57 UTC 1998


At 09:50 AM 10/16/98 -0700, George Lakoff wrote:

...
>
>There are many different types of prototypes, each with different inference
>patterns
>(e.g., typical cases, ideal cases, social stereotypes, centers of radial
>categories, etc.) and
>various types of exemplars, again with different inference patterns (e.g.,
>paragons, salient examplars, antiparagons, etc.).

        In the sense that this list represent ways in which some item can be
focal within the set of referents of some expression, and thus represents
kinds of focality that we should be aware of in our research, I agree.  At
the same time, though, I want to warn against the possibility of taking this
list (others like it) as too directly representing the distinctions that
inhere in the phenomena themselves.  Until we have a better understanding of
the reasoning processes involved, including the underlying abilities and
perceptions these reasoning processes build on, such a taxonomy seems
premature.  Relevant here is the question concerning the degree to which we
sort potential referents into some pre-existing kinds of relational
categories vs. construct our representations of relationships among
referents in some more constructivist or even ad hoc manner.
>
>Psychologists have been fairly sloppy in not distinguishing among the
>different logical types -- largely,I think, because they tend not to study
>inferences. I find this fairly bizarre, because inferences are what
>reasoning is about.
>
        Yes !

                                        David Kronenfeld



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