Includes bibliographical references (p. [201]-211) and index.

1. Observation and conceptual interpretation -- 2. The absence of experience in empiricism -- 3. The conceptual analysis of observation -- 4. The interaction-information theory of observability and observation -- 5. Connectionist accounts of observation -- 6. A hermeneutical approach to perception -- 7. The material realization and conceptual interpretation of observational processes -- 8. How concepts structure the world -- 9. The extensibility of concepts to novel observational processes -- 10. Extensible concepts, abstraction, and nonlocals -- 11. Wider philosophical implications -- 12. Abstraction, formalization, and digitization -- 13. Aristotelian abstraction and scientific theorizing -- 14. Abstraction and the extension of actor networks -- 15. Meaning finitism and the sociology of scientific knowledge -- 16. Product patenting as the exploitation of abstract possibilities -- 17. Epilogue : experience, naturalism, and critique.

"Observation and conceptual interpretation constitute two major ways through which human beings engage the world. The World Observed/The World Conceived presents an innovative analysis of the nature and role of observation and conceptualization. While these two actions are often treated as separate, Hans Radder shows that they are inherently interconnected - that materially realized observational processes are always conceptually interpreted, and that the meaning of concepts depends on the way they structure observational processes and abstract from them. He examines the role of human action and conceptualization in realizing observational processes and develops a detailed theory of the relationship between observation, abstraction, and the meaning of concepts."--BOOK JACKET.