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A Frame-Based Approach for Operationalized Concepts

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EPSA15 Selected Papers

Part of the book series: European Studies in Philosophy of Science ((ESPS,volume 5))

Abstract

Frames were developed in cognitive psychology in order to represent conceptual and empirical knowledge in a graphical and intuitive way. In the philosophy of science, frames were adopted as a tool for analyzing scientific concept formation, conceptual change, and incommensurable conceptual taxonomies. Most of the frame analyses developed so far are concerned with prototype concepts or family resemblance concepts. In this paper, I will argue that frames can be used to represent and analyze operationalized concepts that are determined with respect to certain test conditions and test results. As an advantage of frame-based representations of operationalized concepts, it will turn out that frames can represent the operationalization of a concept and the empirical consequences entailed by the operationalization of that concept.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Additionally, Andersen and Nersessian (2000) use frames or frame-like structures in order to represent normic and nomic concepts in the sense of Kuhn (1993/2010). Normic concepts are concepts like liquid, gas, planet, and star that are learned by ostension and “which in their use allow for exceptions in the generalizations usually satisfied by the referents” (Andersen and Nersessian 2000, S225; Kuhn 1993/2010, 316). On the contrary, nomic concepts are determined by scientific laws and do not allow for exceptions (Andersen and Nersessian 2000, S229; Kuhn 1993/2010, 316f.). Andersen and Nercessian (2000, S230–S232) represent normic concepts as family resemblance concepts and for nomic concepts Andersen and Nersessian (2000, S232–S237) propose a combination of a partial frame representing problem situations and a meaning-schema representing certain properties of the nomic concepts that are to be analyzed. However, the schema is not a frame determining nomic concepts, but a graphical illustration of certain properties of nomic concepts that looks similar to a frame. To sum up, normic concepts are a certain kind of family resemblance concepts while nomic concepts do not yet have a complete frame-based representation.

  2. 2.

    There are operationalized concepts the content of which is also given by the background theory in which the concept is embedded. For example, the concept mass is embedded in the second axiom of Newtonian mechanics. However, in this article I focus on the operationalization of scientific concepts.

  3. 3.

    Frames can have a recursive structure. That is, a value v of a frame can be further specified by an additional attribute that takes v as its domain and a set of further values as its range. However, for the aim of this article we do not need recursive frames. Therefore, we keep the definition of a frame as simple as possible. Def-F comes very close to what Barsalou and Hale (1993, 98) call a simple frame.

  4. 4.

    Note that I presuppose a narrow view of definitions as conjunctions of properties. Other kinds of definitions – for example, a definition by a disjunction of properties – will not be discussed in this article.

  5. 5.

    Note that according to Bridgman’s (1927) operationalist point of view, the meaning of a scientific concept shall always be determined by only one single operationalization. However, this point of view is challenged for the following two reasons: First, in several scientific disciplines there are scientific concepts that are multiply operationalized and, second, the explanatory power of operationalized concepts increases with the number of operationalizations for each concept as the example following in the main text shows.

  6. 6.

    Of course, for the concept mass, there are still more operationalizations i.e. mass measurement by conservation of momentum in collision experiments.

  7. 7.

    Note that the empirical generalization of the constraint of Fig. 17.1 expressing (17.3) is not entailed by the definitions (17.1) and (17.2), but is independent of (17.1) and (17.2).

  8. 8.

    The following examples are taken from Cook and Newson (1996, 55–57) and Haegeman (1994,20).

  9. 9.

    The symbol “*” designates the unacceptability of the clause that follows the symbol.

  10. 10.

    Since the publication of Chomsky and Lasnik (1977), constructions of this kind have usually been referred to as that-t filter violations. However, in this paper we use the original notion of Perlmutter (1971) that, in accordance with Gilligan (1987, 105), is assumed to address the same grammatical phenomena.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Philosophy, Carl von Ossietzky Universität Oldenburg, 26111, Oldenburg, Germany

    Stephan Kornmesser

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  1. Stephan Kornmesser
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Correspondence to Stephan Kornmesser .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Michela Massimi

  2. University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Jan-Willem Romeijn

  3. University of Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Nordrhein-Westfalen, Germany

    Gerhard Schurz

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Kornmesser, S. (2017). A Frame-Based Approach for Operationalized Concepts. In: Massimi, M., Romeijn, JW., Schurz, G. (eds) EPSA15 Selected Papers. European Studies in Philosophy of Science, vol 5. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53730-6_17

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