Table Of ContentCONCEPTUAL CHANGE
SYNTHESE LIBRARY
MONOGRAPHS ON EPISTEMOLOGY,
LOGIC, METHODOLOGY, PHILOSOPHY OF SCIENCE,
SOCIOLOGY OF SCIENCE AND OF KNOWLEDGE,
AND ON THE MATHEMATICAL METHODS OF
SOCIAL AND BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES
Editors:
DONALD DAVIDSON, Rockefeller University and Princeton University
JAAKKO HINTIKKA, Academy of Finland and Stanford University
GABRIEL NUCHELMANS, University of Leyden
WESLEY C. SALMON, Indiana University
CONCEPTUAL
CHANGE
Edited by
GLENN PEARCE and PATRICK MAYNARD
The University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada
D. REIDEL PUBLISHING COMPANY
DORDRECHT-HOLLAND / BOSTON-U.S.A.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 72-93270
ISBN-13: 978-90-277-0339-2 e-ISBN-13: 978-94-010-2548-5
001: 10.1007/978-94-010-2548-5
Published by D. Reidel Publishing Company,
P.O. Box 17, Dordrecht, Holland
Sold and distributed in the U.S.A., Canada, and Mexico
by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Inc.
306 Dartmouth Street, Boston,
Mass. 02116, U.S.A.
All Rights Reserved
Copyright (j) 1973 by D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht, Holland
Softcover reprint of the hardcover lst edition 1973
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, by print, photoprint, microfilm,
or any other means, without written permission from the publisher
to Julius Weinberg
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION IX
KENDALLL. WALTON/ Linguistic Relativity 1
PAUL ZIFF/ Something About Conceptual Schemes 31
ROMANE CLARK/ Prima Facie Generalizations 42
ROBERT W. BINKLEY / Change of Belief or Change of Meaning? 55
WILFRID SELLARS/ Conceptual Change 77
KEITH LEHRER/ Evidence, Meaning and Conceptual Change:
A Subjective Approach 94
STEPHAN KORNER/ Logic and Conceptual Change 123
JOSEPH s. ULLIAN/ Some Comments on Professor Korner's
Paper 137
DON ALD HOCKNEY / Conceptual Structures 141
NORETT A KOERTGE/ Theory Change in Science 167
HILAR Y PUTNAM/ Explanation and Reference 199
ROBERT BARRETT/ Referential Indeterminacy: A Response to
Professor Putnam 222
N. L. WILSON/ On Semantically Relevant Whatsits: A Semantics
for Philosophy of Science 233
GENERAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 246
INTRODUCTION
During Hallowe'en of 1970, the Department of Philosophy of the Univer
sity of Western Ontario held its annual fall colloquium at London, On
tario. The general topic of the sessions that year was conceptual change.
The thirteen papers composing this volume stem more or less directly
from those meetings; six of them are printed here virtually as delivered,
while the remaining seven were subsequently written by invitation.
The programme of the colloquium was to have consisted of major
papers delivered by Professors Wilfrid Sellars, Stephan Korner, Paul Ziff
and Hilary Putnam, with shorter commentary thereupon by Professors
Robert Binkley, Joseph Ullian, Jerry Fodor and Robert Barrett, respec
tively. And that is the way it happened, with one important exception: at
the eleventh hour, Sellars and Binkley exchanged roles. This gave Binkley
the rather unusual and challenging task of providing a suitable Sellarsian
answer to a question not of his own asking - for Binkley's paper was
written under Sellars' original title. Sellars' own contribution to the vo
lume is perhaps more nearly what he would have presented as main
speaker than a direct response to Binkley. However, it has seemed best,
on balance, to attempt no further stylistic accommodation of the one
paper to the other; their mutual philosophical relevance will be evident in
any case. The editors would here like to extend special thanks to both
Sellars and Binkley for their extraordinary efforts under the circumstances.
Although participants in the colloquium were encouraged to take a
free hand in their several approaches to the theme of conceptual change,
a number of points of contact have emerged - some anticipated, some
happy surprises. Since the final arrangement of the book has been made
as much with an eye to these points of contact as to the format of the
original programme, a word or two by way of editorial comment is here
in order.
Undergoing a change of mind is no uncommon thing; yet not every
such change will count as a conceptual change. Perhaps the first question
one ought here to ask is simply what conceptual changes are. A character-
x INTRODUCTION
ization often enough heard these years is this: a conceptual change is a
change in one's conceptual scheme, or - if this is different - one's language.
More impersonally, one also hears talk of changes in the conceptual
scheme (the language) of science. (It is controversial whether one ought
to identify conceptual schemes with languages; but it is safe enough to
say that conceptual changes show up as changes in language.) Underlying
the notion of conceptual change, then, are (at least) two basic questions:
What is a conceptual scheme? and, What constitutes a difference among
conceptual schemes? In 'Linguistic Relativity', Kendall Walton addresses
himself to these two questions, attempting to say something about the
former by way of the latter; his paper has been placed first primarily
because of its concern with fundamentals.
Ziff's overriding concern is to understand understanding. Specifically,
he asks how it is that we succeed at communication in spite of the con
stant presence of a virtually unending set of possible failures. Consider
an example: "A cheetah can outrun a man". But what about a cheetah
encumbered by a heavy weight? It seems unquestionable that we under
stand the initial remark and, indeed, agree with it, subsequent thoughts
of encumbered cheetahs notwithstanding. Ziff concludes that success in
this depends to a large extent upon the adoption of a certain form of
'representation' or 'projection', and that what form this takes depends
upon one's conceptual scheme. Whether someone else understands us
depends on his conceptual scheme and the extent to which he can appre
ciate the form of representation employed.
Jerry Fodor was disinclined to publish his commentary upon Ziff's
paper; however, Romane Clark's contribution, though self-contained,
serves admirably to fill this gap. Clark offers an account of what he calls
"prima facie generalizations" (taking Ziff's cheetah-sentence and other
examples as instances), which he ties to the theory of subjunctive con
ditionals in an interesting way. He also sketches a general semantic theory
- akin to the semantic techniques of the Hintikka-Kripke sort - in terms
of which to understand the logic of prima facie generalizations, the main
lines of which were developed earlier in collaboration with Binkley.
The papers of Binkley and Sellars, already mentioned, deal with the
question of whether conceptual change is to be thought of in epistemic or
semantic categories - whether, that is to say, what has changed are cer
tain beliefs or certain meanings. Being ornery, they of course conclude
INTRODUCTION XI
that it is both. The interest of these two papers lies not so much in the
conclusions per se as in the ground covered getting there.
However we finally describe what changes during conceptual change,
the mere fact of such change has significant epistemological implications;
not the least important are its implications for the notion of evidence.
Keith Lehrer attempts to develop a theory of evidence which explains
how conceptual change can alter the content of, and inferences from,
what we count as evidence.
With Korner's paper we come to a more detailed account of the struc
ture of a conceptual scheme, what Korner calls its "logico-categorial"
structure. Taking certain extensions of classical and intuitionistic logic
as primary illustrations, he gives special consideration to the sources of
pressure toward conceptual change, and to the various ways in which
such changes can be accommodated or resisted. Ullian's commentary is
in the classic symposiast's mode, focussing mainly on difficulties for Kor
ner. Chief among these is the intelligibility of the notion of alternative
logics (as opposed, say, to different formal systems) seeming, as it does, to
suggest a vantage point outside one's conceptual scheme from which to
pass judgment.
The question of logical pluralism comes in for further discussion in the
next contribution, albeit with a rather different notion of conceptual
structures in view. Indeed, it is the major business of Donald Hockney's
paper to develop a theory of conceptual structures which can take account
of a variety of types of theoretical difference, and, hence, theoretical
change. The development is by way of contrast with views of Quine and,
though motivated largely by an interest in physical theories, has applica
tions to logic as well as to natural languages.
The thorny question of how to characterize scientific theories, their
criticism and evolution, is continued by Noretta Koertge, who attempts to
give an account of scientific change which is a faithful, if idealized, de
scription of actual scientific development as well as a rational analysis
of methodological decisions in science - and all this while doing justice
to the historical phenomena underscored these days by such writers as
Kuhn and Feyerabend.
If Korner's treatment of theoretical change is etiological, Putnam's is
morphological. A main objective of the latter's contribution is to sketch
a theory of meaning which allows for the apparent facts that (a) concepts
XII INTRODUCTION
which are not strictly true of anything may nevertheless refer to something,
and that (b) concepts in different scientific theories may refer to the same
things. Following Shapere, Putnam calls terms for such concepts trans
theoretical. The key ingredient in the theory is the thesis that the semantic
import of such terms depends primarily upon their reference; that, in
turn, is fixed chiefly by the fact that users of these terms are, or are 'causal
ly linked to', individuals in a position to introduce them, and not by
anyone's knowledge of necessary and sufficient conditions of their appli
cation. Development of this idea - which Putnam acknowledges to draw
heavily upon Kripke's work on proper names - is applied inter alia to
physical magnitude terms and natural kind words. Much of the last part
of the paper is devoted to criticism of positivistic theories of science
which Putnam sees as involving an "idealist" theory of meaning, anti
thetical to his own position.
Barrett's reply challenges an assumption which he takes to be funda
mental to Putnam's entire programme: namely, that the referentiality of
the key theoretical terms here in question can be determined at all.
Specifically, Barrett argues that Putnam's 'causal' theory is designed only
to identify the referents of referring expressions, but in no way helps us to
discover which expressions are referential in the first place. Into this
breach N. L. Wilson steps; in his own unique style, he proposes a semantic
theory in which he attempts to retain the centrality of the role of reference
(his term is "significance"), but dissociated from the Kripke-Putnam
'causal' theory.
An extensive bibliography of recent works bearing on the subject of
conceptual change completes the volume. The editors thank Joseph and
Donna Pitt for their patient and thorough work constructing this biblio
graphy on an open-ended topic.
The editors thank O. M. Hitchins and Janice Hall for contributions to
the organization of the colloquium, Frances Aird, Linda Palmer, Alice
Smith, and Pauline Campbell for preparation of the manuscript. Publica
tion of this volume has been assisted by a subvention from the University
of Western Ontario, to which we also express gratitude for support of the
colloquium series.
G. PEARCE
P. MAYNARD
