Concepts and Conceptual Change

The paper defines concepts as descriptions of types. Using the intension and extension distinction it suggests that conceptual change can come about in two ways. First, we can learn more about that to which our concept refers and so change our description of it. This might involve discovering characteristics of the object that we thought were true of it but are not in fact true and/or so we realize it has sets of characteristics of which we were originally unaware. The object itself has not changed, just our understanding of it. Thus, our descriptions of the type changes. The intension changes but the extension does not. That is one form of conceptual change. Second, the object itself can change as it develops. So, for example, the possibilities for governing change with technological change and so the object to which the term ‘the state’ refers to changes over time. Correct descriptions of the state will have to reflect those object changes. Here we note, that previous descriptions of ‘the state’ might no longer be appropriate to current states, but might still be appropriate to historical ones. The former descriptions were not incorrect to their original referents, but now need to be modified for current referents. We can either claim we now have a different concept for the modern state or we can see them as the same underlying concept but with a referent that is evolving. Which route we choose might depend on our research question and whether we do comparative static analysis or developmental analysis. These two types of concept change are relatively straightforward for concepts that apply to empirical types. Only relatively straightforward however, since types do include non-actual but potential token examples. For more normative concepts the same distinction in the two forms of conceptual change can occur. We can discover implications of our normative account of which we were previously unaware. Or our description can change as our moral understanding changes perhaps because of new empirical discoveries. At the normative level, these two different types of aspects are often epistemically indistinguishable. The one difference is that we might treat past uses of the concept within historical context as being appropriate for that context, even though our current understanding are judgementally applicable to past contexts. This epistemic indistinction causes problems for any account of conceptual change for normative concepts. The paper concentrates on these problems, focusing on the idea that for normative concepts all we have are rival accounts. Conceptual change does not make sense for normative concepts, only conceptual understanding having different historical moments.