A REASSESSMENT OF THE SHIFT FROM THE CLASSICAL-THEORY OF CONCEPTS TO PROTOTYPE THEORY

A standard view within psychology is that there have been two importan t shifts in the study of concepts and that each has led to some improv ements. The first shift was from the classical theory of concepts to p robabilistic theories, the most popular of which is prototype theory. The second shift was from probabilistic theories to theory-based theor ies. In this article, I take exception with the view that the first sh ift has led to any kind of advance. I argue that the main reasons give n for preferring prototype theory over the classical theory are flawed and that prototype theory suffers some of the same problems that have been thought to challenge the classical theory.