There is a debate in philosophy and cognitive science over whether concepts – the building blocks of thought—are couched in a perceptual modality or are amodally represented. The empirical evidence so far collected seems not to have adjudicated this question yet, as reinterpretation of the same set of evidence by both supporters of modalism and amodalism have been provided. I offer a critique of such reinterpretations, arguing that they ultimately derive from theoretical problems in the definition of a modal representation. In particular, I will review three criteria which have been offered to distinguish amodal concepts from modal ones: the isomorphism criterion, the neural location criterion, and the input specificity criterion. I will explain how these criteria often lack theoretical clarity, making it possible in most cases to propose a parsimonious explanation of the same set of data from both an amodalist and a modalist perspective. As a result, it becomes impossible to empirically discriminate between the two interpretations. My conclusion is that the main problem with the discussed criteria is that they frame the question on the format of concept as an either/or debate, by overlooking more interesting empirical questions.

哲学和认知科学中存在着关于概念（思维的基石）是以感知方式表达还是以非方式表示的争论。迄今为止收集到的经验证据似乎还没有裁决这个问题，因为形态论和非形态论的支持者都对同一组证据进行了重新解释。我对这种重新解释提出了批评，认为它们最终源于模态表示定义中的理论问题。特别是，我将回顾用于区分非模态概念和模态概念的三个标准：同构标准、神经位置标准和输入特异性标准。我将解释这些标准为何常常缺乏理论清晰度，使得在大多数情况下可以从非模态论和模态论的角度对同一组数据提出简洁的解释。结果，不可能凭经验区分这两种解释。我的结论是，所讨论的标准的主要问题是，它们通过忽略更有趣的经验问题，将概念格式的问题框定为非此即彼的辩论。