Georg Brun: A Reconception of Concept and Conception
Social scientists, political scientists and philosophers hotly debate key notions such as inclusion, democracy, and autonomy. This raises challenges: how can we defend alternative accounts of democracy etc. without talking past each other? can there be reasonable disagreement about democracy etc., and if yes, how? A popular strategy uses Rawls’s distinction between concepts and conceptions. We can share the concept of, e.g. justice, but still debate different interpretations of it by proposing principles that constitute different conceptions of justice. Adherence to the conceptual ‘core’ ensures that we mean the same thing by “justice” and that the proposed conceptions are conceptions of justice. I argue that this idea is attractive but ultimately not viable, because it rests on problematic assumptions about how concepts fix meanings. As an alternative, I suggest the method of reflective equilibrium, which replaces the static contrast between a common core and competing conceptions by a dynamic perspective of concept formation. Pre-theoretic language use and commitments provide a common starting point for developing alternative accounts which yield different concepts of, e.g. justice. Reasonable disagreement can result, and talking past each other can be avoided, as long as the resulting accounts can be defended as reasonable developments of the common starting point.
Social scientists, political scientists and philosophers hotly debate key notions such as inclusion, democracy, and autonomy. This raises challenges: how can we defend alternative accounts of democracy etc. without talking past each other? can there be reasonable disagreement about democracy etc., and if yes, how? A popular strategy uses Rawls’s distinction between concepts and conceptions. We can share the concept of, e.g. justice, but still debate different interpretations of it by proposing principles that constitute different conceptions of justice. Adherence to the conceptual ‘core’ ensures that we mean the same thing by “justice” and that the proposed conceptions are conceptions of justice. I argue that this idea is attractive but ultimately not viable, because it rests on problematic assumptions about how concepts fix meanings. As an alternative, I suggest the method of reflective equilibrium, which replaces the static contrast between a common core and competing conceptions by a dynamic perspective of concept formation. Pre-theoretic language use and commitments provide a common starting point for developing alternative accounts which yield different concepts of, e.g. justice. Reasonable disagreement can result, and talking past each other can be avoided, as long as the resulting accounts can be defended as reasonable developments of the common starting point.