Online research in philosophy

Conceptual analysis, like any exclusively theoretical activity, is far from overrated in current psychology. Such a situation can be related both to the contingent influences of contextual and historical character and to the more essential metatheoretical reasons. After a short discussion of the latter it is argued that even within a strictly empirical psychology there are non-trivial tasks that can be attached to well-defined and methodologically reliable, conceptual work. This kind of method, inspired by the ideas of Ludwig Wittgenstein, Peter Strawson (conceptual grammar), and Gilbert Ryle (conceptual geography), is proposed and formally depicted as being holistic, descriptive, and connective. Finally, the newly presented framework of connective conceptual analysis is defended against the “Charge from Psychology,” in a version developed by William Ramsey, claiming that conceptual analysis is based on psychological assumptions that have already been refuted by empirical psychology.

The current discussions of conceptual schemes and related topics are misguided; for they are based on a tacit assumption that the difference between two schemes consists in the different distributions in truth-values. I argue that what should concern us, in the discussions of conceptual schemes and related issues, is not truth-values of assertions, but rather the truth-value-status of the sentences used to make the assertions. This is because the genuine conceptual innovation between alternative theories or languages does not lie in differences in determining truth-values of their sentences, but turns on whether these sentences have truth-values when considered within the context of a competing one. This new interpretation of the notion of conceptual schemes, which I refer to as presuppositional languages, is not only good in itself—for establishing the intelligibility and tenability of the notion—but quite beneficial in its effect on other related issues.

Thinking of concepts as explicit lists of features used to pick out referents neatly is indeed mistaken; but there are other alternatives than making concepts mere pointers. These alternatives are suggested by the difference between meaning X and having the concept X, problems of conceptual change, implicit conceptual schemata, the conceptual requirements of the division of cognitive labor, and how concepts figure in perception versus language.

The claim that there are incommensurable conceptual schemes through which different cultures see the world (or see their worlds) poses a challenge to the viability of comparative philosophy that cannot be easily dismissed. Donald Davidson’s famous attack on the very idea of alternative conceptual schemes through his rejection of the “third dogma of empiricism,” the dogma of the absolute distinction between scheme and content, has never been very well understood. I will argue that the rejection of the dogma enables Davidson to adopt a realist position (as opposed to the anti-realist position of Rorty, who endorses the rejection)and forms the basis for his theory of radical interpretation, supported by his “principle of charity.” And I will use John Dewey’s “postulate of immediate empiricism” to explain Davidson’s views. Together they provide a way to meet the challenge of conceptual relativism.

It is sometimes argued that Wittgenstein's conception of grammar and the role he allocated to grammar (in his sense of the term) in philosophy changed between the Big Typescript and the Philosophical Investigations. It is also held that some of the grammatical propositions Wittgenstein asserted prior to his writing of the Philosophical Investigations are theses, doctrines, opinions or dogmatism, which he abandoned by 1936/37. The purpose of this paper is to show these claims to be misunderstandings and misinterpretations. On all important matters, his conception of grammar and of grammatical investigations, of grammatical statements or propositions and of grammatical clarification did not change between the Big Typescript and the Investigations. Grammatical propositions (e.g. the meaning of a word is its use; a sample in an ostensive definition belongs to the means of representation; belief is not a mental state) are no more theses, doctrines or opinions than is “a bachelor is an unmarried man.” Nor are they in any way dogmatic.

This paper is an examination and evaluation of McDowell’s criticisms of Davidson’s views on conceptual schemes and empiricism. I will argue that McDowell does not understand the real nature of Davidson’s arguments against the scheme-content dualism and that his new empiricist proposal fails to solve all the problems that old empiricism has traditionally raised. This is so because Davidson does not try to reject only a certain conception of experience by rejecting the dualism of scheme and content, but a way of thinking about meaning and knowledge that assumes a dualism that cannot be maintained.

At several points in his later writings Wittgenstein discusses imaginary forms of life and ways of thinking that appear queer or alien from our point of view; concepts so different from ours that those who think from within them seem to be alternatives to us. In this paper I argue that reflection on the notions of difference and possibility in play here shows that imaginary cases of alien conceptual schemes or forms of life such as those considered by Wittgenstein are not all cases of concepts that are entirely unintelligible for us; rather they may represent possible, albeit distant, ways of thinking for us. Such cases serve to aid imaginative reflection on our own case(s). By making us appreciate the possibility of the strange, they help us better to appreciate the arbitrariness of the familiar. I end the paper by considering what the implications of this reading of Wittgenstein's position might be for Donald Davidson's rejection of conceptual relativism.

According to Donald Davidson, the very idea of a conceptual scheme is the third dogma of empiricism. In this paper I examine the ways in which this claim may be interpreted. I conclude by arguing that there remains an innocent version of the scheme-content distinction which is not motivated by empiricism and does not commit us to the pernicious type of dualism that Davidson rejects.

Philosophers and historians of science have made the claim that successive scientific theories are incommensurable, that is, that many or all of their concepts fail to coincide. This claim has been echoed by cognitive psychologists who have applied it to the successive conceptual schemes of young children, or of children and adults. This paper examines the psychological evidence for the claim and proposes ways of reinterpreting it which do not involve imputing incommensurability. An alternative approach to understanding conceptual change is suggested, according to which novel concepts are introduced against a background of shared concepts, rather than as part of incommensurable conceptual schemes.

Despite widespread confusion over its meaning, the notion of a conceptual scheme is pervasive in Anglo-American philosophy, particularly amongst those who call themselves 'conceptual relativists'. In this paper, I identify three different ways to understand conceptual schemes. I argue that the two most common models, deriving from Kant and Quine, are flawed, and, in addition, useless for the relativist. Instead, I urge adoption of a 'neo-Kantian', broadly Wittgensteinian model, which, it is ' argued, is immune from Davidsonian objections to the very idea of a scheme.