Disentangling and Shapelessness

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin
Keyword(s):  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Famous Argument ◽  
David Wiggins

This chapter considers a second anti-separationist strategy, namely the thought that if one separates thick concepts into thin evaluation and nonevaluative, descriptive content, as separationists think, one is erroneously committed to thinking that the latter can in some way map onto the evaluative concept that one is analysing such that one can predict novel uses of that concept. This anti-separationist argument is often called the ‘disentangling argument’, something that is reliant on the ‘shapelessness hypothesis’, and is associated with John McDowell and David Wiggins, among others. This famous argument and hypothesis are laid out in great detail. The upshot is that the argument does not work as traditionally given, although a weaker version may have some attraction. Overall it is argued that nonseparationists should pursue a different anti-separationist strategy.

How a critical Humean naturalism is possible: Contesting the Neo-Aristotelian reading

2020 ◽  
pp. 019145372094841
Author(s):  
Martin Hartmann
Keyword(s):  
David Hume ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
David Wiggins

Ethical naturalists such as Philippa Foot, John McDowell or Sabina Lovibond have critically distinguished their version of naturalism from the version ascribed to David Hume. This article defends Hume’s naturalism against this criticism in constructing a more plausible version of it. The article briefly delineates John McDowell’s reading of Hume in his well-known ‘Two Sorts of Naturalism’. Based on Nietzsche, the article then offers the concept of ‘historical naturalism’ as alternative to McDowell’s reading, concentrating in particular on the charge of Hume’s naturalism being narrowly empiricistic. The concept of historical naturalism will be contrasted with David Wiggins’ Humean variant of vindicatory naturalism. In conclusion, Annette Baier’s suggestion of reconstructing Hume’s naturalism as critical is taken up and elaborated upon. While the spirit of Baier’s approach is adopted, its application to the problem of deeply entrenched sexism will be treated as overly optimistic.

Thick Evaluation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin
Keyword(s):  
Bernard Williams ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
Jonathan Dancy ◽  
Radical Nature ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
The World ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
Dividing Line

Having dismissed two other anti-separationist strategies, this chapter presents the best way of attacking separationism and articulating nonseparationism. It is denied that thick concepts can be split into thin evaluation and nonevaluative descriptive content by showing that thick evaluation is itself a basic and fundamental response to the world. Evaluation cannot be reduced to stances that are merely pro or con, as separationists do, because doing so results in a strange view of the world. This idea is elaborated in many ways: the proposal’s radical nature is revealed since the notion of the evaluative is shown to stretch further than one might think; it is suggested that there is no obvious clear dividing line between evaluative and nonevaluative concepts; there is a final discussion of evaluative flexibility; and two worries from Chapter Two are met. Work by Jonathan Dancy, Philippa Foot, Gilbert Ryle, and Bernard Williams is discussed.

What are Thick Concepts?

2011 ◽  
Vol 41 (1) ◽  
pp. 25-49 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matti Eklund
Keyword(s):  
Good Sense ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Thick Concept ◽  
Fundamental Distinction

Many theorists hold that there is, among value concepts, a fundamental distinction between thin ones and thick ones. Among thin ones are concepts like good and right. Among concepts that have been regarded as thick are discretion, caution, enterprise, industry, assiduity, frugality, economy, good sense, prudence, discernment, treachery, promise, brutality, courage, coward, lie, gratitude, lewd, perverted, rude, glorious, graceful, exploited, and, of course, many others. Roughly speaking, thick concepts are value concepts with significant descriptive content. I will discuss a number of problems having to do with how best to understand the notion of a thick concept. Thick concepts have been widely discussed in the metaethical literature. But some important problems concerning what thick concepts are supposed to be have not been squarely addressed even in the most systematic of these discussions. Here I want to highlight these problems.

scholarly journals Thick Evaluation

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin
Keyword(s):  
Everyday Life ◽  
Full Length ◽  
Separate Component ◽  
Descriptive Content ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Linguistic Conventions ◽  
Evaluative Terms

We use evaluative terms and concepts every day, in talk of ethics, aesthetics, politics, and when we discuss common-or-garden issues. We call actions right and wrong, teachers wise and ignorant, and children annoying and angelic. Philosophers place evaluative concepts into two camps. Thin concepts, such as goodness and badness, and rightness and wrongness have evaluative content, but they supposedly have no or hardly any nonevaluative, descriptive content: they supposedly give little or no specific idea about the character of the person or thing described. In contrast, thick concepts such as kindness, elegance, and wisdom supposedly give a more specific idea of people or things, yet given typical linguistic conventions thick concepts also convey evaluation. Kind people are often viewed positively while ignorance has negative connotations. The distinction between thin and thick concepts is frequently drawn in philosophy and is central to everyday life, but is rarely discussed in detail. In this full-length study, Simon Kirchin discusses the distinction, highlighting key assumptions, questions, and arguments, many of which have gone unnoticed. He argues for a ‘nonseparationist’ account of thick concepts: although they may have different aspects, such concepts cannot be split into separate component parts of thin evaluation and nonevaluative content as many suppose. In doing so Kirchin argues for a novel account of evaluation itself.

The Managerial Challenge to Liberalism

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham A. Singer
Keyword(s):  
Political Theory ◽  
Modern Corporation ◽  
Corporate Capitalism ◽  
Famous Argument

This chapter considers the “managerial” approach to the corporation by unpacking Berle and Means’s famous argument about the problems of the modern corporation. This approach is important because it has proven influential in its own right; the “separation of ownership from control” that Berle and Means famously observed, and the resulting power and discretion that managers enjoy, has been an important trope for critics of corporate capitalism. It is also important because it represents precisely the kind of analysis that the Chicago school’s theory of the corporation was meant to counter. The chapter concludes by contextualizing Berle and Means’s account within political theory more generally.

Normative Concepts

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matti Eklund
Keyword(s):  
Positive Answer ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
Normative Concepts ◽  
The Right ◽  
The Way

What is it for a concept to be normative? Some possible answers are explored and rejected, among them that a concept is normative if it ascribes a normative property. The positive answer defended is that a concept is normative if it is in the right way associated with a normative use. Among issues discussed along the way are the nature of analyticity, and there being a notion of analyticity—what I call semantic analyticity—such that a statement can be analytic in this sense while failing to be true. Considerations regarding thick concepts and slurs are brought to bear on the issues that come up.

Reply to Guy Longworth

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Representational Content ◽  
Main Issue ◽  
John Mcdowell ◽  
Half Century ◽  
The Law

Starting in about 2004 John McDowell and I have engaged in a debate. There have been a number of public exchanges, and quite a few more private ones. In my view, some progress has been made (though the debate continues). Others may disagree (the ‘law of diminishing fleas’). I, at any rate, think I have learned from him. Guy Longworth does us both the honour of comparing our debate to one a half century earlier between J. L. Austin and P. F. Strawson. Honours apart, I think he has pointed to an illuminating connection between what I have long thought the main issue and another. If I had been asked what question McDowell and I had been (most centrally) debating, I would have said: it is the question how enjoying an experience of perceiving (e.g., of seeing) can make judging one thing or another intelligibly rational (that last term lifted from McDowell). I have a story to tell which is, in one key respect, sparser than his. To telegraph, he thinks such experience must have (representational) content. I think, not just that it needn’t, but that if it did, we would be cut off from ...

Reply to Nat Hansen

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
John Mcdowell

Hansen is certainly right that the aim of my ‘Travis examples’ is, not to explain anything, but rather to point to a phenomenon. Or perhaps I would not now say so much as that. Over the course of my career I have been very deeply influenced by John McDowell. The main lesson I have taken from him is that the most important ‘result’ in philosophy—one of its most important tasks—is showing (to borrow a bit of McDowellian terminology) how it is ...

Essentially Evaluative?

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin
Keyword(s):  
Opposing View ◽  
Thick Concepts

This chapter continues the account of thick concepts defended in Chapter Six by arguing that such concepts are essentially evaluative. This is opposed to the view that thick concepts are merely nonevaluative concepts that happen, every so often, to convey evaluation through linguistic and other contingent conventions. This opposing view has been best articulated by Pekka Väyrynen. This chapter presents and considers Väyrynen’s arguments for his claim, and the assumptions that lie behind both his own account of thin and thick concepts, and his overall view of evaluation. This chapter ventures that his arguments against nonseparationism do not work and that, in addition, his own position is suspect.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Simon Kirchin
Keyword(s):  
Hilary Putnam ◽  
Bernard Williams ◽  
General Methodology ◽  
Thick Concepts ◽  
History Of ◽  
Philippa Foot ◽  
The Difference

This chapter introduces the distinction between thin and thick concepts and then performs a number of functions. First, two major accounts of thick concepts—separationism and nonseparationism—are introduced and, in doing so, a novel account of evaluation is indicated. Second, each chapter is outlined as is the general methodology, followed, third, by a brief history of the discussion of thick concepts, referencing Philippa Foot, Hilary Putnam, Gilbert Ryle, and Bernard Williams among others. Fourth, a number of relevant contrasts are introduced, such as the fact–value distinction and the difference between concepts, properties, and terms. Lastly, some interesting and relevant questions are raised that, unfortunately, have to be left aside.

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