The Epistemic Goal of a Concept: Accounting for the Rationality of Semantic Change and Variation
Synthese 177:19-40 (2010)
| Abstract | The discussion presents a framework of concepts that is intended to account for the rationality of semantic change and variation, suggesting that each scientific concept consists of three components of content: 1) reference, 2) inferential role, and 3) the epistemic goal pursued with the concept’s use. I argue that in the course of history a concept can change in any of these components, and that change in the concept’s inferential role and reference can be accounted for as being rational relative to the third component, the concept’s epistemic goal. This framework is illustrated and defended by application to the history of the gene concept. It is explained how the molecular gene concept grew rationally out of the classical gene concept despite a change in reference, and why the use and reference of the contemporary molecular gene concept may legitimately vary from context to context. | |||||||||
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Dudley Shapere (1989). Evolution and Continuity in Scientific Change. Philosophy of Science 56 (3):419-437.
Michael P. Levine (2003). Can the Concept of Enlightenment Evolve? Asian Philosophy 13 (2 & 3):115 – 129.
Paul E. Griffiths & Karola Stotz (2007). Gene. In David L. Hull & Michael Ruse (eds.), The Cambridge Companion to the Philosophy of Biology. Cambridge University Press.
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Ingo Brigandt (2004). Holism, Concept Individuation, and Conceptual Change. In M. Hernandez Iglesias (ed.), Proceedings of the 4th Congress of the Spanish Society for Analytic Philosophy.
Ingo Brigandt (2006). A Theory of Conceptual Advance: Explaining Conceptual Change in Evolutionary, Molecular, and Evolutionary Developmental Biology. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh
Ingo Brigandt (2006). A Theory of Conceptual Advance: Explaining Conceptual Change in Evolutionary, Molecular, and Evolutionary Developmental Biology. Dissertation, University of Pittsburgh
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