Carnap, Explication, and Social History

Abstract

A. W. Carus champions Rudolf Carnap's ideal of explication as a model for liberal political deliberation. Constructing a linguistic framework for discussing social problems, he argues, promotes the resolution of our disputes. To flesh out and assess this proposal, I examine debate about the social institutions of marriage and adoption. Against Carus, I argue that not all citizens would accept the pragmatic principles underlying Carnap's ideal. Nevertheless, explication may facilitate inquiry in the social sciences and be used to create models that help us to understand past disputes. This latter application reveals explication's potential for refining the social histories that inform contemporary political discourse.

Carnap meets Foucault: conceptual engineering and genealogical investigations

“…But as argued in (Carus 2008) and (Dutilh Novaes 2020), extending the method of explication beyond these domains is in fact very much in the spirit of Carnap's own political views. In a recent paper (Pearson 2017), Pearson focuses precisely on marriage from the point of view of Carnapian explication. He sums it up thus:…”

“…It is well known that marriage as an institution has undergone numerous changes over the centuries, for example when marriage and love became strongly associated-a very recent phenomenon indeed, apparently dating to the eighteenth/nineteenth century (Coontz 2006). The push towards legalizing same-sex marriage in a number of countries in the last decades led to lively 'metalinguistic disputes' on what the core meaning of marriage should be (Pearson 2017). Those opposing same-sex marriage contended that joining a man and a woman in matrimony is a necessary condition for marriage, without which the very concept does not apply (especially given the presumed goal of reproduction).…”

Carnapian explication and ameliorative analysis: a systematic comparison

“…Following this strategy, philosophers often reject social constructionist analyses, suggesting that they change rather than capture the meaning of the kind terms. 22 Another recent example is (Pearson 2017) on the concept of marriage. Pearson also offers an illuminating critical discussion of Carus' interpretation of Carnap's ideal of explication as a model for liberal political deliberation.…”

“…Indeed, there is an important difference of background between the two approaches; while Carnapian explication is embedded in Enlightenment ideals (broadly understood as associating knowledge with liberation and emancipation (Pearson 2017)) and the Vienna Circle's 'scientific world conception' (Romizi 2012), Haslanger is influenced by the critical theory tradition of the Frankfurt School (among other influences, in particular feminist thought). As is well known, the Frankfurt School authors were themselves fierce critics of the Vienna Circle's alleged 'scientism ' (O'Neill and Uebel 2004), and of Enlightenment ideals more generally (Horkheimer and Adorno 1972).…”