DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2020-3-430-437
Definitions of scientific and semiscientific concepts in philosophy through the example of the «innateness» concept
Ilya Yu. Bulov
Ph.D. Student
Institute of Philosophy, Russian Academy of Sciences,
12/1, Goncharnaya st. Moscow, 109240, Russia;
e-mail: bulovilya@gmail.com
ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7212-2395
In this article, the author tries to find the best strategy of defining scientific and semiscientific concepts in philosophy. In the first part of the article, the main types of definitions are analyzed. The author dived into the details of each of them and found explicative and ameliorative definitions to be best suited for scientific and semiscientific concepts. The ameliorative method, however, appears to be slightly more preferable because it provides us with more theoretical tools for philosophical analysis. The second part of the article demonstrates the advantages of the ameliorative method using the «innateness» concept as an example. The author has chosen «innateness» because it has plenty of various definitions in science and philosophy today. If such a complex case can be solved with the ameliorative method, then we may conclude that this method is productive. The author found the ameliorative analysis of «innateness» to be a rather fruitful method of work with the mentioned concept. Therefore, the ameliorative approach to formulating definitions is concluded to be the most appropriate for philosophers and scholars when working with scientific and semiscientific concepts.
Keywords: definition, concept, ameliorative analysis, explicative definition, innateness.
References
Bateson, P. (1991). Are there principles of behavioural development? The Development and Integration of Behaviour, ed. by P. Bateson. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, pp. 19–39.
Belnap, N. (1993). On rigorous definitions. Philosophical Studies: An International Journal for Philosophy in the Analytic Tradition. Vol. 72, no. 2/3, pp. 115–146. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/bf00989671
Carnap, R. (1959). Znachenie i neobkhodimost’. Issledovanie po semantike i modal’noy logike [Meaning and necessity: a study in semantics and modal logic]. Moscow: Inostrannaya Literatura Publ., 384 p.
Copi, I., Cohen, C. and McMahon, K. (2005). Introduction to logic. 12th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Prentice Hall Publ., 640 p.
Flanagan, O. (1992). Consciousness reconsidered. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 256 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/2112.001.0001
Goodman, N. (1983). Fact, fiction, and forecast. 4th ed. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 131 p.
Griffiths, P. (2001). What is innateness? The Monist. Vol. 85, no. 1, p. 70–85. DOI: https://doi.org/10.5840/monist20028518
Gupta, A. (2019). Conscious experience: A logical inquiry. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 440 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvckq55t
Haslanger, S. (2012). Resisting reality: social construction and social critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 512 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892631.001.0001
Kripke, S. (2010). Vitgenshteyn o pravilakh i individual’nom yazyke [Wittgenstein on rules and private language: an elementary exposition]. Moscow: Kanon+ Publ., 256 p.
Locke, Jh. (1985). Ob imenakh substantsiy [Of the names of substances]. Lokk D. Sochineniya: v 3 t. [Locke Jh. Works: in 3 vols]. Moscow: Mysl’ Publ., vol. 1, pp. 496–529.
Novaes, C. (2020). Carnapian explication and ameliorative analysis: a systematic comparison. Synthese. Vol. 197, iss. 3, pp. 1011–1034. Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11229-018-1732-9 (accessed 21.10.2019). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-018-1732-9
Oleynik, P. (2017). Stipulyativnyy kharakter printsipa Yuma [Stipulative character of Humes’s principle]. Vestnik Tomskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta Filosofiya. Sotsiologiya. Politologiya [Tomsk State University Journal of Philosophy, Sociology and Political Science]. No. 40, pp. 81–88. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17223/1998863x/40/8
Prinz, J. (2002). Furnishing the mind: concepts and their perceptual basis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 358 p. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/3169.001.0001
Quine, W. (1963). From a logical point of view. New York: Harper Publ., 184 p.
Robinson, R. (1950). Definition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 216 p.
Rosenthal, D. (1993). State consciousness and transitive consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition. Vol. 2, iss. 4, pp. 355–363. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1006/ccog.1993.1029
Received 07.04.2020
For citation:
Bulov I.Yu. [Definitions of scientific and semiscientific concepts in philosophy through the example of the «innateness» concept]. Vestnik Permskogo universiteta. Filosofia. Psihologia. Sociologia [Perm University Herald. Philosophy. Psychology. Sociology], 2020, issue 3, pp. 430–437 (in Russian). DOI: https://doi.org/10.17072/2078-7898/2020-3-430-437