Previous Workshops

Abstract Concepts, Perception, and Language: What we think and how we say it  (25th April 2024)

This event, organised by members of the Semantics, Pragmatics, and Philosophy (SPP) research group of the University of Cambridge, aimed to bring together those interested in abstract concepts across disciplinary boundaries. 

Please click here for the Book of Abstracts 

Concepts are the lens through which humans experience and interact with the world, and as such, understanding concepts has a broad implication for understanding reality. However, the ways in which concepts are analysed are still primarily limited to Rosch’s categorisation approach from the 1970s. This workshop aims to encourage and explore innovative ways, both theoretical and experimental, of analysing and understanding the meaning of abstract concepts. This means focusing on issues concerning abstract concepts, such as their meaning, their processing and perception, and new approaches to analysing and defining them.

Keynote speakers included: 

- Sean Enda Power (University of Cork) Is our concept of time in the ‘specious present’ abstract or concrete?

- Derek Ball (University of St Andrews) Abstract Concepts, Metasemantics, and Temporal Externalism