Modern Social Science Research

Concepts and definitions are the core fundamental categories supporting human thinking and communication. Traditional studies have long been plagued by two fundamental flaws: the confusion between concepts and definitions, and rational dogmatism. Such studies sever the intrinsic connection between rational and irrational cognition, failing to reasonably explain special conceptual categories such as fictional objects and digital virtual objects. Taking discrimination-association, which runs through the entire cognitive process, as the basic core cognitive operation, this paper proposes that rationality and irrationality are the synergistic manifestations of this operation at different processing depths and in different neural pathways, and systematically reconstructs the theoretical system of concepts and definitions. It constructs a three-dimensional eight-category classification system of concepts: “existential form (substance/event)×cognitive function (discrimination/association)×cognitive level (concrete/abstract)”, clarifies the classification attribution and generation laws of fictional and digital virtual objects, and reveals the evolution mechanism of concepts from concreteness to abstraction. It also clarifies the essence, dual structure and descriptive-explanative classification of definitions, and expounds the dialectical relationship of “ontology-tool” between concepts and definitions. Meanwhile, it responds to mainstream academic controversies such as the dual-process theory and the relationship between language and thinking. This study fills the academic gap in the interdisciplinary field of cognition and logic, and provides a unified theoretical basis for cognitive science, artificial intelligence and other fields.

Concept essence; Definition theory; Core cognitive operations; Discrimination-association; Concept classification; Dual-process theory