Evaluating Models of Conceptual Change

Date

2022

Authors

Handby, Edmund

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Abstract

A particular and important feature of our understanding of political concepts is their capacity to change. The meaning we associate with certain concepts will change over time and across different historical contexts. Our contemporary concept of political representation, for example, has changed since the seventeenth century, and has varied in its use in English and American political theorising respectively. In order to better understand this process, historians of ideas have advanced various models of conceptual change. These models seek to both identify instances of change, as well describe the underlying reasons that conceptual change occurs. Some of the foremost of these models are Arthur Lovejoy's 'Great Chain of Being', historical contextualism, and genealogy. Each approach emphasises different methodological elements to account for how conceptual change occurs. A review of these approaches, however, illustrates that they each have their own set of merits and shortcomings. The foremost of these shortcomings largely revolves around the difficulty in identifying what exactly is changing when it comes to 'conceptual change'. Conceptual change might well be concerned with changes in concepts, yet in some instances, the particular term changes, in others, the world is changing. The capacity of existing approaches to conceptual change to distinguish what exactly is changing is, in some respects, limited. In this Thesis, I evaluate these foremost existing models of conceptual change to determine the extent of their merits and their shortcomings. In doing so, I assess their ability to capture and identify what exactly is changing: the term, the concept, or the world. Having done so, I set out a number of elements a coherent model of conceptual change requires, and a set of shortcomings to avoid. In order to address these elements, I draw on principles from the philosophy of language, including semantic externalism and Saul Kripke's causal theory of reference, to advance an original model of conceptual change. The resulting externalist model of conceptual change captures the benefits of existing approaches, while avoiding their shortcomings. This approach will have the capacity, therefore, to identify what exactly is changing. I then illustrate how the externalist model can be applied with reference to the concept of political representation. I conclude with a broad assessment of the implications of the approach, as well as address some potential limitations.

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