The points of concepts: their types, tensions, and connections

ABSTRACT

In the literature seeking to explain concepts in terms of their point, talk of ‘the point’ of concepts remains under-theorised. I propose a typology of points which distinguishes practical, evaluative, animating, and inferential points. This allows us to resolve tensions such as that between the ambition of explanations in terms of the points of concepts to be informative and the claim that mastering concepts requires grasping their point; and it allows us to exploit connections between types of points to understand why they come apart, and whether they do so for problematic ideological reasons or for benignly functional reasons.

KEYWORDS:

• Concepts
• conceptual point, function or purpose
• point-based explanation
• point-based conceptual engineering
• thick concepts
• ideological function

Notes

1. This is the umbrella term I shall use to designate a family of methods that go by a variety of names, such as ‘paradigm-based explanation,’ ‘practical explication,’ ‘genealogy,’ ‘reverse-engineering,’ ‘conceptual synthesis,’ and ‘function-first epistemology,’ but which all take the point of something as their explanatory basis.

2. See, e.g. Anderson (1999); Craig (1990, 1993, 2007); Dogramaci (2012); Fricker (2016, forthcoming); Gardiner (2015); Greco and Henderson (2015); Hannon (2015, 2019); Henderson (2009, 2011); Henderson and Horgan (2015); Kelp (2011); Kusch (2009); Kusch and Robin (2018a), Kusch (2018b); MacFarlane (2014); Mikkel (2015); Price (1988, 2003); Reynolds (2017); Williams (2002); Williams (2013).

3. See in particular Brigandt (2010); Brigandt and Rosario (forthcoming); Dutilh Novaes (2018); Haslanger (1999, 2000, 2012); Richard (forthcoming); Thomasson (forthcoming). See also Burgess, Cappelen, and Plunkett (forthcoming); Burgess and Plunkett (2013a), Burgess (2013b); Cappelen and Plunkett (forthcoming); McPherson and Plunkett (forthcoming); Plunkett (2015, 2016). For a critical discussion of appeals to the points of concepts in conceptual engineering, see Cappelen (2018, ch. 16), and Thomasson (forthcoming) for a response.

4. See Dancy (1995); Dummett (1959, 1973, 296–98); McDowell (1998a, 1998b, 1998c).

5. See Ertz (2008) for a sustained discussion of the notion of the point or Witz in Wittgenstein’s later philosophy.

6. See, e.g. Dummett (1959, 1973, 295–98). For purposes of exposition, I pass over the subtleties and complications introduced by each of these passages. I give a more nuanced account of the different ideas Dummett conveys in these passages below.

7. See Dancy (1995); Kail (2007, 73–74); Kirchin (2010); Roberts (2011, 2013).

8. A further example is Elizabeth Anderson’s claim that the ‘factual components of thick concepts are selected to track their underlying evaluative point’ (2004, 14).

9. On the paradox of analysis, see Bealer (1982); Beaney (2014); Cobb (2001); Dutilh Novaes and Reck (2017); Earl (2007); Fumerton (1983).

10. To anticipate, I shall argue that what Williams and Dancy mean is that one has to grasp the ‘evaluative point’ of a concept, whereas Dummett means that one has to grasp the ‘animating point’ of the concept.

11. See Barnes (1995, 43).

12. I explore the differences between Fricker’s and Williams’s approach in Queloz (forthcoming-a). Both Williams and Fricker are also concerned with other types of points: on Williams’s (2002, ch. 5) account, the animating point of truthfulness plays a crucial role in facilitating its subservience to its practical point, and Fricker (2016) notes that what animates Communicative Blame is the desire to inspire remorse in the wrongdoer, which is distinct from the practical point of doing so. Thanks to a reviewer for pressing me on this.

13. See Thomasson (forthcoming) for an attempt to adapt Millikan’s approach to the project of conceptual engineering.

14. While my focus here lies on the fact that all these projects share a concern with the practical points of concepts, this broad classification papers over substantial differences in what exactly they take such practical points to be. See Queloz (forthcoming-d) for further discussion of some of these differences.

15. A. W. Moore (1997, 84–89) helpfully distinguishes between a representation betraying a point of view and its being from a point of view. While the latter concerns the nature of a given representation and its role in our thought, the former concerns what informs the production of that representation under particular circumstances – and here, as Moore himself says (89), evaluation is often crucial: ‘a representation that distinguishes between various tonemes betrays the point of view of a Cantonese speaker (or a speaker of some other tone language), a point of view defined, in part, by the interests and concerns that make it worthwhile to classify phonemes in that way’ (84). In Moore’s usage, the fact that a representation betrays a point of view crucially does not entail that it is a representation from a point of view.

16. See Dancy (1995); Scanlon (2003); Williams (1995a, 563; 1995b, 206; 1996, 29; 2011, 157). The same phrase is used by Anderson (2004); Hart (1986, 12); Kirchin (2013).

17. See Thomas (2006, 146) for a nuanced discussion which supports this reading.

18. As we shall see, Dummett also deploys the notion of a point in other ways.

19. See Suits (2005, 48) for why there has to be an animating point of chess analytically distinct from winning.

20. See Ertz (2008, 62–71).

21. This is what Dworkin calls ‘constructive interpretation.’ See Dworkin (1986, 2006) and Brink (2016) and de Graaf (2015) for further discussion.

22. See Sellars (1997) and Brandom (2000, 63–66, 2015, 101–2).

23. See, e.g. Brigandt (2010); Harman (1987).

24. I use the contrast between concept application and concept use to mark the difference between (i) the question whether a concept applies on a given instance and (ii) the question whether we think or should think in these terms at all. When Oscar Wilde, upon being asked by the judge whether he denied that his novel was blasphemous, replied that ‘blasphemy’ was not one of his words (Montgomery Hyde 1973), the exchange turned on this distinction between concept application and concept use.

25. See Queloz (2017, 2018a, 2018b, forthcoming-a, forthcoming-b, forthcoming-c, forthcoming-d).

26. See also Queloz and Cueni (Manuscript).

27. As elaborated by McDowell (1998c, 68–69); Wiggins (1976).

28. Another example might be the use of concepts of purity by fascist movements as described by Jason Stanley (2018).

29. See, e.g. Anghie (2007, 292); Bell (2016); Koskenniemi (2005); Mills (1998); Moyn (2010); Pagden (1995); Pitts (2005).

30. There are further important questions in this area which I leave aside here, but which an effective use of point-based explanation for the purposes of ideology critique would have to raise, such as: How does the practical point of the concept fare, not just by the lights of its animating point, but all things considered? Whose needs and purposes does the concept serve, and are these needs and purposes we want to see satisfied? Thanks to a reviewer for raising these issues.

31. See Williams (2002, 59).

32. As exemplified by Williams’s Truth and Truthfulness, which is an instrumental vindication of intrinsic valuing that turns on understanding why there is a benign functional divergence of points in the concepts Williams discusses under the broad heading of truthfulness; see Queloz (2018b).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Swiss National Science Foundation (CH) [P0BSP1_162025].