NDPR Nicholas Shea Concepts at the Interface

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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

2026.05.9 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews

Nicholas Shea, Concepts at the Interface, Oxford University Press, 2024, 272pp., $90.00 (hbk) ISBN 9780198893660.

Reviewed by Edouard Machery, University of Pittsburgh

After a 15-yearlong lull, philosophical interest in concepts is picking up again: old questions are litigated de novo (e.g., Laurence and Margolis, 2024), and new questions are investigated (e.g., Dove, 2022; McCaffrey, in press). Shea’s Concepts at the Interface is a major contribution to this renewed discussion. As one has come to expect from him, the book is crystal clear and engaging; it moves seamlessly from careful philosophical arguments to sophisticated and well-informed empirical discussions, which bring together cognitive science, neuroscience, and machine learning. Shea’s goal is, explicitly, less to argue for specific claims about the mind than to paint...