An Explication of ‘Explication’

Abstract

It is generally agreed that the method of explication consists in replacing a vague, presystematic notion (the explicandum) with a precise notion (the explicatum) formulated in a systematic context. However, Carnap and others who have used this and related terms appear to hold inconsistent views as to what constitutes an adequate explication. The central feature of the present explication of ‘explication’ is the correspondence condition: permitting the explicandum to deviate from some established “ordinary-language” conventions but, at the same time, requiring that the explicatum correspond (via an effective translation) to the chosen “definitive intension” of the explicandum. (In effect, the first stages of an explication provide an informal characterization of a vague and possibly inconsistent language convention.) The present account of explication contrasts sharply with that sketched by Quine in Word and Object (although Quine accepts a correspondence condition of a sort). The terms ‘explication1’ and ‘explication2’ are used to indicate these quite different senses of the term. In Kaplan's terminology, explication1 is intended to remedy “external vagueness” while explication2 is intended to remedy “internal vagueness.”

A Note on the Relation Between Formal and Informal Proof

“…The first explicit, algebraic definition seems 14 Quine (1960), §53. 15 This distinction comes close to what Joseph F. Hanna calls explication 2 , and explication 1 in Hanna (1968). Hanna, however, seems to mean that with explications of type 2 one clarifies what an object really is, and we think this is a mistake.…”

“…20 See Carnap (1950), pp. 5f., and Hanna (1968), who is not inclined to call this kind of introduction of terms or concepts into a scientific language explication at all. In chapter 1, §4 Carnap (1950), Carnap discusses explications of classificatory, comparative and quantitative concepts, which he all reckons as legitimate.…”

Explicating ‘Explication’ via Conceptual Spaces

“…First, explicating 'explication' could consist in formally or informally giving a specific method for substituting a certain explicandum with a certain explicatum. This is the sense in which Hanna proposed his explication of 'explication' (Hanna 1967) and Brun recently gave us a recipe for explication (Brun 2016(Brun , 2017). Hanna's explication is a formal procedure, Brun's is stated as an informal method but both try to explicate 'explication' as a specific (formal/informal) procedure for replacing a particular reading of explication and its desiderata.…”

Philosophical methods under scrutiny: introduction to the special issue philosophical methods

“…Quine demanded that explication should replace conceptual analysis in many parts of philosophy (Quine 1960). However, apart from a brief debate between Strawson (1963) and Carnap (1963), the method of explication was only sparsely employed (Hanna 1968;Craig 1990;Boniolo 2003;Maher 2007) until recently. Within the past couple of years, however, its popularity rose (e.g., Brun 2016), especially within epistemology (e.g., Brendel 2013; Olsson 2015; Eder ms.) and philosophy of science (e.g., Schupbach and Sprenger 2011;Justus 2012;van Riel 2014;Schupbach 2017).…”