Abstract
This paper applies conceptual engineering to deal with four objections that have been levelled against operationalism in psychology. These objections are: (i) operationalism leads to harmful proliferation of concepts, (ii) operationalism goes hand-in-hand with untenable antirealism, (iii) operationalism leads to arbitrariness in scientific concept formation, and (iv) operationalism is incompatible with the usual conception of scientific measurement. Relying on a formulation of three principles of conceptual engineering, I will argue that there is a useful form of operationalism that does not fall prey to these four objections.
Highlights
Conceptual engineering and operationalism are linked by content and by history
The four objections I consider are: (i) operationalism leads to harmful proliferation of concepts, (ii) operationalism goes hand-in-hand with untenable anti-realism, (iii) operationalism leads to arbitrariness in scientific concept formation, and
5 I will argue against objection (iii), which concerns the alleged anything goes -nature of operationalist concept formation, by appealing to principle (a), which states that concept formation involves the balancing of epistemic values
Summary
Conceptual engineering and operationalism are linked by content and by history. In terms of content, both are concerned with the appropriate formulation of (scientific) concepts. While Carnap did not contribute explicitly to these debates, he seems to have been on the radar when operationalism was formulated and adopted in psychology (Stevens, 1935) Notwithstanding these connections and similarities (which certainly do not exhaust the relevant historical links), conceptual engineering and operationalism have had very different trajectories in academic research, and within philosophy. The approach was reportedly named already in the 1990s (Creath, 1990), and something like it has probably been around way before Carnap explicated explication, it is only in the last decade or so that conceptual engineering has become a popular topic in metaphilosophy One reason for this might be that philosophers have been more interested in analyzing concepts than revising them (or at least it has been common for philosophers to conceive of their activities in these terms).
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