Abstract
This paper argues for two conclusions: (1) evaluating the success of engineered concepts necessarily involves empirical work; and (2) the Carnapian Explication criterion precision ought to be a methodological standard in conceptual engineering. These two conclusions provide a new analysis of the race and gender debate between Sally Haslanger and Jennifer Saul. Specifically, the argument identifies the resources Haslanger needs to respond to Saul’s main objections. Lastly, I contrast the methodology advocated here with the so-called “method of cases” and draw out some general implications for how we should think about concepts.
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Notes
Given the controversy surrounding what concepts are, Cappelen (2018) suggests conceptual engineering refer to representational devices broadly construed. There’s no problem with this suggestion, but following the trend in the literature, I will continue to use the word concept, keeping in mind that it does not presuppose any views about what concepts are.
There are other varieties of explicative methodology. Carnap’s (1950) description was the most developed and thorough at the time (see Carus 2007). Since then, numerous philosophers have contributed to the method of explication through negative critique (Quine 1951; Strawson 1963; Reck 2012) and friendly-amendments and defence (Brun 2016; Hanna 1968; Justus 2012; Koch 2019; Maher 2007; Quine 1960). A distinguishing feature of Carnapian Explication is that there is no true or correct explicatum: “Carnap’s distinction between ‘external’ and ‘internal’ questions [has] an obvious application to the process of explication in general. The explicatum \(\ldots\) belongs to some formalized discourse—some ‘framework’. The explicandum \(\ldots\) belongs ipso facto to a mode of discourse outside that framework” (Stein 1992, p. 280). Therefore, for any given explicandum there is no correct explicatum any more than there is a “correct” choice of language. Crucially, though, according to Carnap, we can rationally compare different frameworks. This contrasts sharply with Quine, for whom “there is no stepping outside the ‘conceptual scheme’ in which our ‘mother tongue’ places us. We complicate and sophisticate that scheme by means of our science, but we can never be in a position to choose our language” (Carus 2007, p. 24). Although other versions of explication may have interesting connections to conceptual engineering, the centrality of Carnap’s original conception—and the pluralism at the heart of that conception—aligns much better with the goals of conceptual engineering.
Following Carnap, ‘exactness’ and ‘precision’ are used interchangeably.
Function talk is also rampant in the CE literature. As Nado (2019a) rightly notes, however, the notion of function can be suitably deflated. It need not invoke any commitments to an essentialist notion of telos, or to a telosemantic theory of reference: “it implies no more than the banal fact that we use concepts to do things” (2019a, p. 11). Accordingly, I will continue to talk about concepts having functions.
This contrastive element also arguably undergirds Carnap’s caution against conflating explicanda with explicata. As his diagnosis of the problem of probability indicates, “When we look at the formulations which the authors themselves offer in order to make clear which meanings of ‘probability’ they intend to take as their explicanda, we find phrases as different as ‘degree of belief,’ ‘degree of reasonable expectation,’ ‘degree of possibility,’ ‘degree of proximity to certainty,’ ‘degree of partial truth,’ ‘relative frequency,’ and many others. This multiplicity of phrases shows that any assumption of a unique explicandum common to all authors is untenable \(\ldots\) But most investigators in the field of probability apparently believe that all the various theories of probability are intended to solve the same problem and hence that any two theories which differ fundamentally from one another are incompatible\(\ldots\). These mutual rejections are often formulated in rather strong terms. This whole controversy seems to me futile and unnecessary. The two sides start from different explicanda” (Carnap 1945, pp. 517–518). Thanks to Jack Justus for highlighting this additional connection.
True temp cases involve a person who unknowingly gets a device surgically implanted in their brain that reliably measures the temperature of wherever the individual is.
Machery (2017) makes a similar point related to what he calls “prescriptive conceptual analysis.” Machery argues that given some specified set for normative constraints, experimental philosophy can help determine which concept proposals meet those constraints.
A great illustration of the connection between empirical work and concept determination in ecology can be found in Justus (2012).
Notably, in his work on Interpretation and Preciseness (1950), Arne Naess endorses the importance of precision in testing and modifying conceptual frameworks. Naess also undertakes his own experimental philosophy studies on folk uses of various semantic concepts like ‘synonymity.’ The results of these studies leads Neass to a similar conclusion of the first argument presented here: “acceptance of intuitions reported by the philosophically sophisticated about the verbal and conceptual habits of others leads to confusion and error\(\ldots\) empirical procedures should be applied to empirical questions. When philosophers offer conflicting answers to questions that have empirical components, empirical research is needed.” Thanks are owed to an anonymous reviewer for bringing Naess’s experimental work and Carnap’s (1955) praise of that work to my attention.
See Olsson (2015) for a compelling case study using the four explication criteria to adjudicate theories in epistemology.
Haslanger’s proposed definition of ‘woman’ is the following: “S is a woman if S is systematically subordinated along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.) and S is ‘marked’ as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of a female’s biological role in reproduction” (2000, p. 39). Similarly, for race, “A group is racialized if its members are socially positioned as subordinate or privileged along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.) and the group is ‘marked’ as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of ancestral links to a certain geographical region” (ibid., 44).
Despite Saul’s criticisms, it’s noteworthy that the exactness of Haslanger’s definitions reflect an increase in precision that, as Brigandt and Rosario (2020, p. 104) note, defeated “prior scepticism about the possibility of putting forward a coherent concept of gender.”
The ‘one-drop rule’ refers to the idea that race is typically thought of in terms of biological essences, such that if a person has even one Black ancestor, he or she is Black, for example.
Haslanger has recently endorsed the interdisciplinary approach being argued for here. Haslanger (2020, 7) asserts that “the social critic embraces the normative dimension of philosophical theorizing, and also relies crucially on empirical research”.
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Wakil, S. Experimental Explications for Conceptual Engineering. Erkenn 88, 1509–1531 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-021-00413-w
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10670-021-00413-w