Generics as Expectations

Typicality and Diagnosticity

Bibliographic Data

ID21379206
AuthorsPeter Gärdenfors (0000-0001-7423-828X, Department of Philosophy and Cognitive Science Lund University Lund Sweden, corresponding author), Matías Osta‐Vélez (0000-0002-3228-9801, Department of Philosophy Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf Düsseldorf Germany)
Year2025
Volume38
Issue1
Pages16-26
Publication date2025-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueRatio (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0034-0006 • E-ISSN: 1467-9329
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/rati.12424
OpenAlexW4407586948
LanguageEN
References cited49

Generic statements play a crucial role in concept learning, communication and education. Despite many efforts, the semantics of generics remain a controversial issue, as they do not seem to fit our standard theories of meaning. In this article, we attempt to shed light on this problem by focusing on how these sentences function in reasoning. Drawing on a distinction between property and diagnostic generics, we defend three theses: First, property generics are not about facts but express relations between concepts. Second, generics play an important role in everyday reasoning by interacting with our expectations about the world. Third, diagnostic generics emphasise properties that separate the category in the generics from other categories in the same contrast class. We use the theory of conceptual spaces to advance measures of typicality and diagnosticity capable of modelling different aspects of generics and apply them to the modifier effect and the inverse conjunction fallacy. Finally, we discuss the pragmatics of generics

Epistemology · Child and Animal Learning Development · Language and cultural evolution · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Social Representations and Identity

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