The conceptual adjective, which comes from the Latin conceptus, refers to what is linked to the concept: an idea, a judgment, a meaning. The conceptual is often associated with the abstract or the symbolic.
A concept map is called a technique that consists of representing knowledge through a graph. Concept maps are networks that relate various concepts, graphed as nodes. The links between them are the relationships that exist between the concepts.
Thanks to the use of a concept map, it is possible to provide a group of students with a synopsis of a given topic. One of the main problems of the traditional educational system is that texts are proposed for memorization, instead of concepts that can be internalized with the tools of each one.
While the sentence “When water in a liquid state reaches 0 ° centigrade it becomes a solid state” does not lead to improvisation, a concept map in which “liquid state”, “0 °” and “solid state” are related »With arrows they allow each person to internalize the phenomenon with their own words. Memorizing the lines of a book is difficult, but possible with a certain degree of dedication, although if the content does not interest us, we probably will not understand it or retain it in the long term; A concept map, on the other hand, invites us to understand before memorizing, since we must create the connections ourselves.
In the field of philosophy appears the notion of conceptual scheme. These are symbolic representations of ideas that are based on conceptual connections, prior to experience. All people have the ability to construct conceptual schemes, although these developments will depend on the context (culture).
Continuing in the field of philosophy, conceptualism is known as the doctrine that maintains that abstractions do not exist in the external world, although it recognizes that they do appear in the mind in a conceptual way (as concepts).
The conceptual art, on the other hand, is a movement that favors the conceptualization of a work rather than its material representation. Its basis is that the idea behind the work is more important than the object used to transmit it.
Similarly, when creating a work in which graphic art plays a fundamental role, the drawings made in the initial stage are often called conceptual, since they reflect the ideas that the person (s) involved in the project have. Initially, those that once approved will become the very foundation of all the work.
These drawings are often called conceptual art between people of the same field, although they do not correspond exactly to the definition given above; Far from being a movement, it is simply a set of concepts expressed on paper through drawings, and many of them are discarded in the determining phases of the project.
Finally, in the field of music, a concept album is an album in which all its songs are linked through something in common: a theme, an idea, etc. That is why these concept albums are conceived as a unit. “The Wall” by Pink Floyd is an example of a concept album.
Of course, a work made up of several pieces or songs that respond to the same theme is not something that emerged in the 20th century; Although it is not called that way, we could say that opera is also “conceptual music”; in the same way, the song cycles (or lieder, German term that is often used worldwide in academia) that revolve around ideas also connected they are, as the Winterreise of Franz Schubert, one of his works most prominent.
