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Concept as Vessel and Concept as UseVasso Kindi

“‘Concept’ is a vague concept,” Wittgenstein says (RFM, 433). Vague-

ness is usually taken to be a defect compared to an abstract and absolute

ideal of exactness which has been held in high esteem and dogmatically

adhered to in philosophy. There is no such absolute ideal, Wittgenstein

has said (PI, 88), and vague concepts can very well serve our purposes

despite the fact that we may not be able to apply them unequivocallyin every possible case, especially in cases we call borderline. So, even

if ‘concept’ is a vague concept, i.e., even if we cannot sharply deter-

mine it by an analytical definition, it does not follow that it is useless.

The problem with the concept of ‘concept’, however, is not so much

that it may be vague as that there have been different ways of under-

standing it. It is the contention of the present paper that a particular

way of understanding concepts, i. e., understanding concepts as entities

in the form of vessels, which has dominated contemporary philosophy,

has significantly contributed to the development of certain philosophical

problems, such as the problem of incommensurability, which dissolve

once we adopt a different understanding of concepts, namely, under-

standing concepts as uses of words in their sites. The aim of the paper

is to defend this latter approach which suggests a corresponding histor-

ical study of concepts. I will begin by a short overview of the entity idea

of concepts; I will present the concept as use approach and show how

certain philosophical problems dissolve once this approach is adopted. I

will consider a number of difficulties associated with understanding con-cepts as uses of words and close with a discussion of the implications this

way of thinking about concepts has for their historical study. I argue that

historians and philosophers who study concepts should not aim at iden-

tifying a recurrent common core (the content of the vessel) but rather

concentrate on the particular uses of concept-words in a semantic

field which also involves other concepts.

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1. Concepts as Sharply Delineated Entities

In the history of philosophy the term ‘conceptum’ was used in connec-

tion to, and sometimes interchangeably with ‘idea’ and ‘notion’. Leib-niz, for instance, writes: “By ‘term’ I understand not a name, but a con-

cept (conceptum), i. e. that which is signified by a name; you could also

call it a notion, an idea” (cited in Hacking 1982, 186)1. ‘Concept’ was

the product of conception which, in the seventeenth century, consisted

in abstracting ideas and notions from sensible experience (Caygill 1995,

119).

In contemporary philosophy, concepts are typically taken to be ei-

ther mental entities (mental representations) or abstract objects like the

Fregean senses2. The former view, the one about mental representa-tions, has not been very popular in the early, at least, philosophy of sci-

ence of the 20th century, because of its possible psychologistic and sub-

jectivist implications. The latter, the one about abstract objects, has been

more persistent. In this latter case, concepts are considered to be defini-

tion-like, descriptions of properties which help us identify the objects

that fall under them3. Concepts, in that sense, are “ring-fenced” in Wil-

1 According to Hacking (1982, 186) translators commonly render Leibniz’s notioas concept. Caygill (1995, 118 f), in his Kantian dictionary, says that the term asa substantive, “does not appear in the philosophical vocabulary before the lateseventeenth century; prior to this it meant a ‘provisional sketch’ of a legal docu-ment or agreement, or even a poetic conceit. It was first used in a logical andepistemological context by Leibniz.” In fact, the term conceptum appears muchearlier, for instance, in the works of Ockham, Suarez and Descartes.

2 Of course, sense and concept are distinct terms for Frege. Frege uses concepts topick out the referents of predicates. C. I. Lewis advances the view that despitehistorical evolution and change, concepts are similar to Platonic ideas (Frege

1956, 269). For an overview and presentation of what concepts are taken tobe in psychology and philosophy see Machery 2009.

3 This is the so-called “classical theory of concepts” (Machery 2009, 77– 83).Against this theory, there developed, mostly in psychology, other theories of concepts, namely, (1) the prototype theory, according to which a concept rep-resents typical properties of a category which are embodied in a prototype, (2)the exemplar theory of concepts, according to which concepts are sets of exem-plars each one of which is a body of knowledge about an individual member of a class and (3) the theory of concepts according to which concepts are theories(or parts of theories) which can explain the properties of the category members(ibid., 83–108). I am not going to discuss these theories of concepts since theydeal with cognitive processes involving concepts and do not bear on whatplayed out in the history of philosophy of science and is at stake in this

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language of concepts lends itself to the metaphysics of idealism (Carnap

1969, 10). The logical positivists’ concern in general was to cleanse con-

cepts from the “metaphysical and theological debris of millennia” (Hahn

et al. 1996, 334; 339) which had clung to them from ancient time. Car-nap’s concepts are mere knots in a system of structural relations and have

only formal, structural properties. This means that they belong to an

empirically uninterpreted calculus and acquire content by means of

bridge principles which connect them to experience and the world

(cf. Feigl 1970, 6).

The requirement of sharp boundaries in both Frege and the positi-

vists (a qualification should be made here about Neurath who eventually

came to realize that the empirical basis of science cannot involve con-

cepts sharply delineated) makes concepts sharply discrete and turnsthem into some kind of vessel or receptacle (an expression found in

Wittgenstein; RFM, 295)5, which awaits to be filled with content

from the soil of experience. They resemble empty shells. Actually, the

term concept itself derives from the Latin verb concipere which means to

take in, to receive, to contain, to hold, to grasp6. An apposite description

5 Even the term ‘Porosität’ (porosity), used by Waismann in relation to empiricalconcepts, invokes the picture of a porous vessel. According to Hacker (1996,

164), the Oxford logician W. C. Kneale, translated Waismann’s Porositt der Be- griffe as open texture.

6 According to Caygill (1995, 118) “The German word for concept – Begriff – translates the past participle of the Latin verb concipere: to take to oneself, totake and hold.” Gadamer (1992, 20) also discusses Begriff in the sense of grasping(cf. Wrathall 2004, 456 f, for a similar discussion by Heidegger). The Italianphilosopher Mario Periola (1995, 122 f) juxtaposes concept and Begriff: “Twen-tieth-century philosophy is accustomed to regarding the term ‘concept’ as thetranslation of the German word Begriff , which gained broad currency in philo-sophical thinking precisely because of the speculative complexity with which

German philosophers, from Kant onwards, enriched it. So it may be that wesay ‘concept’, but think Begriff: what tends to escape us is the fact that the for-mer word, of Latin origin, has a semantic orientation that is the precise oppositeof that of the German word. Begriff links the act of intention etymologically tothe verb greifen, meaning to take, in the sense of reaching out and seizing. In theLatin term conceptus, the act of intention is etymologically derived from con-capio, meaning to take, in the sense of gathering in, receiving. To conceivetherefore does not mean to appropriate anything, but rather to make roomfor it: it is not the act of a subject that takes an object, but the disposition toreceive something from the outside that comes, occurs, arrives.” Mauro Car-bone (2004, 47), who cites Periola, says: “[C]onceptus differs from Begriff inthe following way: while the etymon of the latter, via the verb greifen, refersto grasping (the exact English equivalent of greifen), the etymon of the former

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edge is forever inadequate to the fullness of the reality to be known”

( James 1996, 78). Yet, he still operated with a notion of concepts

that sees them as static moulds or templates. Active life and novelty es-

capes them since concepts, in James’s words, are “post mortem prepara-tions, sufficient only for retrospective understanding” (ibid., 99). This

morbid figure of speech is in the same line as Nietzsche’s who claimed

that “the great edifice of concepts displays the rigid regularity of a

Roman columbarium” (Nietzsche 1999, 85). Hacking (1983, 1) also

followed Nietzsche and said that philosophers turned the dynamic his-

torical process of science, a process of becoming and discovering, into a

mummy, unwrapping the cadaver only around 1960.

Now, one might say that this is the business of philosophy: namely,

to dehistoricize and mummify. Philosophers do know that the practicesthey study are dynamic and evolve in history but they choose to “rep-

resent a theory quick frozen at one momentary stage of what is in fact a

continually developing system of ideas” (Hempel 1970, 148). Hempel

and the logical positivists knew very well what actual science was like

but they were not interested to describe it. Their logical reconstructions

had absolutely nothing to do with the actual practice of science as the

positivists themselves recognized: “It should be stressed and not merely

bashfully admitted that the rational reconstruction of theories is a highly

artificial hindsight operation which has little to do with the work of the

creative scientist” (Feigl 1970, 13). And Carl Hempel maintained that

“the standard construal was never claimed to provide a descriptive ac-

count of the actual formulation and use of theories by scientists in the

ongoing process of scientific inquiry” (Hempel 1970, 148). Note that

Hempel speaks only of ‘theory’; that was what science was all about

for philosophers at the time.

So, the standard view of concepts takes them to be ring-fenced, that

is, well-defined and circumscribed, some kind of entity in the form of vessel to be filled with content.

2. Concepts as Uses of Words

A different approach, found in Wittgenstein’s work and advocated by

Ian Hacking, takes concepts to be uses of words in their sites. According

to Wittgenstein, “a concept is the technique of using a word” (Wittgen-

stein 1988, 50) and when we consider a concept what we consider is theapplication of the relevant word (PI, 383). Hacking sees concepts as

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“molded by history,” as “historical entities whose form and force has

been determined by their past” (Hacking 1990, 358).9

Concepts are words in their sites … If one took seriously the project of

philosophical analysis, one would require a history of the words in their sites, in order to comprehend what the concept was. (Hacking 1990, 359)

Although Hacking speaks of entities whose shape has evolved over time,

he clearly de-reifies concepts by explicitly equating them to the use of

words in their sites (Hacking 1990, 359). From his perspective, studying

concepts implies going over a large collection of detailed historical facts

involving the use of the relevant words. It is what he calls the “Lockean

imperative” (Hacking 1990, 354), a mandate which directs us “to take a

look” at history. One may assume that resort to history (the historicalfacts of the words’ uses) may take the form of a genealogical account

or of some kind of biography which traces the vicissitudes of a word’s

life. A biographical approach may imply a hypostatization of con-

cepts—as if concepts are entities which have a life that evolves—,

while a genealogical investigation into the origins of things may be

taken as an attempt to vindicate current concepts by illustrating their

pedigree (cf. Geuss 2009) or destroy them by “exposing the contingent

and ‘shameful’ origins of cherished ideas and entrenched practices”

(Bevir 2008, 264). Hacking does not go down this road. He is much

more influenced in his retrospective accounts of concepts by a Foucaul-

dian understanding of genealogy which highlights difference, contin-

gency and discontinuity in order to serve the purpose of criticism.

Hacking says that he is interested in displaying the possibilities and

the accidents in the course of the concepts’ history in view of discour-

aging grand unifying accounts (Hacking 1990, 345).

One crucial question is whether, by resorting to the history of con-

cepts, one is doing history rather than philosophy. Hacking denies it:“To use history for the understanding of philosophical problems is not

9 Cf. Kierkegaard in The Concept of Irony: “Concepts, like individuals have their histories, and are just as incapable of withstanding the ravages of time as are in-dividuals. But in and through all this they retain a kind of homesickness for thescenes of their childhood” (Kierkegaard 1966, 47). One may also consider theview noted by the philosopher Morton White that only concrete substanceshave histories; abstract entities have natures (White 1945, 322). If conceptsare not taken to be abstract entities, then, under this view, they can surelyhave histories. Versions of this view can be found in Vico, Augustine and Or-tega y Gasset (Kelley 2005, 234).

Concept as Vessel and Concept as Use 29





to resign one’s birthright to be a philosopher in the Present-Timeless

mode” (Hacking 1990, 362). The Present-Timeless mode of doing phi-

losophy shows no historical sensibilities and yet, Hacking thinks, it may

take advantage of the histories of concepts in order to address the phil-osophical issues it deals with. The way concepts have been transformed

and developed may give us a better understanding of philosophical

problems and then, perhaps, help us solve or dissolve them. In Hack-

ing’s view it is unimportant whether this delving into empirical facts

is labeled history, anthropology or microsociology. Nothing fits, he

says, but these investigations, together with the scholars who practice

them, are “co-opted” into philosophy (1990, 356). Foucault advances

a similar view. He advocates a “historicophilosophical practice” in

which historical contents are not prepared by historians and offered“ready-made” to philosophers. He insists that it is a practice in which

“philosophical labor, philosophical thought and philosophical analysis

[is put] into empirical contents” (Foucault 1996, 391).

In what follows I want to argue for two things: first, that the ‘con-

cept as use’ approach, which involves the resort to history in the sense

articulated above, helps us avoid or dissolve certain philosophical prob-

lems which have preoccupied us for a very long time. These problems

have emerged in philosophy of science because there prevailed, I con-

tend, the static, entity idea of concepts we have just described. Secondly,

I will show what the concept as use approach implies for historically un-

derstanding concepts.

3. Solving Philosophical Problems

I will consider three examples of philosophical problems which can be

dissolved if we understand concepts as the use of words in their sites:incommensurability, the scheme-content distinction and the issue of

hidden entities.

William James, well before Kuhn discussed incommensurability,

captured what it means: “‘Incommensurable’ means that ‘you are always

confronted with a remainder’” (James 1996, 62). When we compare

two magnitudes by using a unit as a common measure, and the division

is not perfect (i.e., it yields a remainder), then the two magnitudes are

incommensurable. Kuhn and Feyerabend introduced the concept of in-

commensurability in philosophy of science and used it dialectically, i.e.,against the defenders of the so-called received view. Feyerabend showed

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that reduction and explanation cannot be carried out as conceived by

the positivists since concepts differ irreducibly (i.e., reducing one to

the other will leave a remainder) while Kuhn criticized the view that

concepts (or a core in concepts) survive(s) unaltered the deep changesin the history of science. Both philosophers maintained that if theoret-

ical concepts cannot be reduced to neutral or shared observation state-

ments (the common core and common measure), then, historically dis-

tant concepts, or concepts from different theories, cannot be mapped

onto each other without remainder. They are incommensurable.

Now, one can make such a claim, that is, speak of remainder and

lack of common measure in relation to concepts and theories, only if

concepts are taken to be well-defined and ring-fenced. Nancy Nerses-

sian makes the same point: “[The classical view of concepts] is partly re-sponsible for the famous problem of incommensurability of meaning

between scientific theories” (Nersessian 1985, 180). Concepts need to

be understood as determinate and sharply bound entities if they are

going to be rigorously compared. David Hull concurs:

In order for two theories actually to contradict each other, they must bepresented in complete, totally precise, possibly axiomatized form with allmeanings sharpened to a fine point by sufficient conceptual analysis.Only then can the two theories be shown to be incommensurable. (Hull

1992, 470)10

If, on the other hand, concepts are seen as variably used words in time,

as being open, flexible and fluid, incommensurability would not have

the bite it now has. It wouldn’t make sense in the first place to make

the analogy with mathematical incommensurability which requires as-

sessment and exact comparison by a common measure. One could

still note deep differences between concepts (that is, between particular

uses), but these would not imply the problems that incommensurability

was taken to give rise to. Let’s take, for instance, the issue of rationality.According to the critics of incommensurability, if one acknowledges ir-

reconcilable differences between concepts of different conceptual net-

works, then one cannot judge whether the transition from one network

to another is rational. This conclusion follows and makes sense only if

rationality is understood as resembling a logical inference, that is, as a

methodical procedure involving sharply defined stable concepts and co-

gent arguments built around them. If the transition from one network

10 Of course, here Hull confuses contradictory theories with incommensurabletheories.






to the next is indeed represented in the form of an argument, then, of

course, the concepts involved would have to be the same, in order for

the argument to work. We would have fallacies of equivocation if, be-

cause of incommensurability, the words remained the same and theconcepts (in the form of entities) signified by them differed radically.

In this case, the transition from one network to the next, represented

by these arguments, would not, of course, be deemed rational. But if

concepts are not well-defined entities but particular uses of words,

the move from some uses to others takes place in a stretch of time amidst

a wealth of possibilities. Then, the rationality of transition is not judged

by considering reconstructed abstract arguments involving sharply de-

fined, entity-like concepts, but by attending to the particular circum-

stances of word use in order to assess the actual considerations and op-tions in the range of possibilities available to the scientists. From this

perspective the concept of rationality itself is not captured by an abstract

ideal but it is variably adjusted with application.

Incommensurability arises as an issue when concepts are seen as dis-

tinct islets and conceptual schemes as the circumscribed domes on

which concepts are pinned. Only when concepts are seen in such a

way, as well-determined and closed, can we say that they do not

match and are, therefore, incommensurable. When concepts splinter

into various uses, difference in application does not immediately

imply incommensurable concepts in the standard sense of the term.

Every application of a word in an extended practice of use differs some-

what from the others despite the fact that several of these different uses

are taken to form one concept. For instance, we apply the term ‘chair’

to different objects of different shape and material and we have the con-

cept of chair. Whether a new application can be assimilated to older

uses, and so taken to form with them one concept, or whether it can

be taken as the beginning of a new, radically different course of use,is a complicated matter which can only be judged, not unequivocally,

and usually retrospectively, by careful and patient research of the rele-

vant practice. This radically different course will be paved by uses of

the relevant term that will, again, differ somewhat between them and

may eventually lead to the formation of a new concept. Will this new

concept be incommensurable to the old? If concepts are understood

as extended in time and consisting of particular uses of words, incom-

mensurability is hard to apply. Where is the common measure and

the remainder, where are the well circumscribed entities to be com-pared? Incommensurability made sense as a polemical term against the

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view which saw concepts as clear-cut entities subsisting, fully or parti-

ally, through time. Against this view, incommensurability highlighted

incongruity (no common measure between entities that did not

match) and steered us away from sameness and continuity to radicalchange of meaning. If the entity view of concepts is given up, however,

incommensurability is not anymore an eye-opener. When introduced

by Kuhn and Feyerabend, it was a concept that was simultaneously rev-

elatory and upsetting because it unveiled deep differences in meaning

which passed unnoticed by those who concentrated on identity and

which could not be accommodated in the standard narratives of pro-

gressive scientific development. But once this understanding of concepts

is left behind, incommensurability, if ever invoked, simply means a

more serious case of deviance in use. This is not as alerting as beforesince, in the concept-as-use approach, every use is different, even if

slightly, from the others and so radical difference is only a matter of de-

gree. What is more, when concepts are seen as uses of words, attention

is drawn to what agents do rather than to the role of concepts in logical

inference. This means that the threatening implications of incommen-

surability (for instance, the danger of irrationality) are assuaged since

now the rationality of the transition from one state of affairs to the

next is not a matter of adherence to an absolute standard requiring same-

ness of meaning (as it would have been the case if the transition were

depicted as a logical inference) but is rather judged against the particular

circumstances in which the agents acted. An analyst, such as an historian

or a philosopher, would have to ask whether the scientists under study,

given what they knew at the time, the problems they were facing, the

options available to them, etc., made a reasonable or rational choice.

The transition becomes a practical rather than an abstract theoretical

issue.

The second example of problem which loses its grip if we under-stand concepts not as vessels but as uses of words is the scheme-content

distinction. It is usually believed that, against an undifferentiated stuff,

one identifies and interprets phenomena by having access to some

model (for instance, a concept) in one’s mind or in a third realm. Con-

cepts serve as frames to give shape to our blind experience. Davidson,

who attacked this conception as the third dogma of empiricism, attrib-

uted it to Kuhn, among others, and proceeded to show that given this

dogma, one cannot make sense of alternative conceptual networks (Da-

vidson 1984, 9; 12). Kuhn, however, who defended the possibility of different conceptual schemes, did not endorse the third dogma. He






did not believe that empty moulds, the concepts, are filled with expe-

rience. Rather he insisted that learning to use words in particular con-

texts offers us simultaneously knowledge of the world:

When the exhibit of examples is part of the process of learning terms like‘motion’, ‘cell’, or ‘energy element’, what is acquired is knowledge of lan-guage and of the world together. (…) In much of language learning thesetwo sorts of knowledge—knowledge of words and knowledge of nature— are acquired together, not really two sorts of knowledge at all, but two facesof the single coinage that a language provides. (Kuhn 2000a, 31; cf. Kuhn1977, 253)

In acquiring and learning a language, we do not have access to a tem-

plate—the concept—which allows us to connect words and things.

Rather, we acquire concepts practically by employing words in partic-ular circumstances and, thus, learn words and things together. As Cavell

put it: “In ‘learning language’ you learn not merely what the names of

things are, but what a name is; not merely what the form of expression

is for expressing a wish, but what expressing a wish is; not merely what

the word for ‘father’ is but what a father is” (Cavell 1979, 177). So, if

one follows Kuhn and Cavell in upholding that language and the

world are learned together, and that concepts are not empty vessels to

be filled with formless content from the world, then, the scheme-con-

tent distinction cannot really be drawn and the subsequent problems

Davidson noted do not arise. Davidson showed that the very idea of a

conceptual scheme is incoherent given the third dogma of empiricism,

i. e., the scheme-content distinction. But if this distinction is challenged

by rejecting the understanding of concepts as receptacles, the problem of

making sense of conceptual schemes dissolves.

Another issue which would be dealt with differently if concepts

were seen as flexible and tied to practice is the hidden entities issue.

Hidden entities seem problematic because, being hidden, they do notallow us to secure, across time, reference and meaning, in the entity

sense of the term. But if we see concepts as formed in the use we

make of the relevant concept-words, that is in their employment in par-

ticular research situations and activities, what can be called their episte-

mic functions, then, hidden entities concepts do not present any special

difficulties in comparison to other concepts. We do not form concepts

by reading off what is already there, but we form concepts by develop-

ing language for certain purposes. “Having a concept never means being

able to recognize some feature we have found in direct experience; themind makes concepts,” says Peter Geach (2001, 40) who has persistently

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criticized the doctrine he calls “abstractionism,” i.e., the view that “a

concept is acquired by a process of singling out in attention some one

feature given in direct experience” (ibid., 18). He says that “abstraction-

ism is wholly mistaken; that no concept at all is acquired by the sup-posed process of abstraction” (ibid., 18). One of the arguments he

gives is that the same features can very well respond to different con-

cepts, for example, ‘red’ and ‘chromatic color’. So, if we take concepts

to be learned in practice, that is, by employing words in certain situa-

tions, then we do not have the particular problem of accounting for

the way a concept-word refers to a hidden, as opposed to a visible, en-

tity, for concepts are not formed by observing the entities concept-

words apply to. Of course, the metaphysical issues relating to hidden en-

tities (for instance, whether the entities refer to by the concept-wordsexist or not) do not go away.

I have maintained that a particular conception of concepts, i.e., the

one which takes concepts to be concave entities and sees them as well-

circumscribed, is responsible for certain problems that have pre-occu-

pied us in philosophy of science. If we see concepts differently, as

uses or techniques(Wittgenstein 1988, 50), as instruments which direct

and express our interests (PI, 569 f), these problems do not arise.

4. Confronting Difficulties of the ‘Concept as Use’ Approach

Are there any disadvantages if we take concepts to be the use of words

in their sites? There are certainly problems which need to be addressed:

1. How stable are the concepts that are formed by using linguistic ex-

pressions? Does the meaning of words change as we go from prop-

osition to proposition (PO, 67)? Are concepts always evolving, al-

ways in a state of flux?2. We may say, with Wittgenstein, that there is “transition” (LWPP I,

932) with every new application of words, a “gradual sloping of

concepts” (LWPP I, 765). But is there also some radical break?

Do revolutions occur in the use of concepts? Wittgenstein says

that “[t]here is a continuum from an error to a different kind of cal-

culation” (RC III, 293). Does this mean that it is arbitrary or that it

depends on the community of language users whether a particular

move is mistaken or revolutionary?






3. Sometimes we may be inclined to say that two different concepts are

attached to the same sign (for instance, ‘bank’) but in other cases we

would rather say that different uses make up a single concept. Witt-

genstein, for instance, says that understanding poetry and understand-ing empirical sentences make up a single concept of understanding. In

the case of ‘is’, however, Wittgenstein makes a different pronounce-

ment. He says that he prefers to say that the term ‘is’ has two different

meanings rather than two different kinds of use and so, the term can

be considered to name two different concepts (‘is’ as copula and ‘is’ a

sign for identity). How do we make these pronouncements? Are

there “essential and non-essential differences among the uses? This

distinction,” Wittgenstein says, “does not appear until we begin to

talk about the purpose of a word” (LWPP II, 2).Wittgenstein, in addressing these issues, laid emphasis on the decisions

we are led to make: “I reserve the right to decide in every new case

whether I will count something as a game or not” (PG, 117). He main-

tained that the concepts we have and use are not dictated by the world.

Do not believe that you have the concept of colour within you because you look at a coloured object—however you look. (Any more that youpossess the concept of a negative number by having debts.) (Z, 332)

Would it be correct to say our concepts reflect our life? They stand in themiddle of it. (LWPP II, 72)

Then is there something arbitrary about this system? Yes and no. It is akinboth to what is arbitrary and to what is non-arbitrary. (Z 358)

[P]erhaps one thinks that it can make no great difference which concepts weemploy. As after all it is possible to do physics in feet and inches as well as inmetres and centimetres; the difference is merely one of convenience. Buteven this is not true if, for instance, calculations in some system of measure-ment demand more time and trouble than it is possible for us to give them.

(PI, 569)Wittgenstein’s point is that we do not make arbitrary whimsical deci-

sions as regards the concepts we use; rather, we take huge responsibility

in the moves we make which are constrained and influenced by our in-

teraction with the world, by our education and training, by our purpos-

es and interests11. “We are playing with elastic, indeed even flexible con-

11 Brigandt (this volume) and Steinle (this volume) unpack, with concrete exam-ples, the significance of goals associated with the use of concepts. Brigandt saysthat specific investigative and explanatory aims underlie the use of concepts andshows, concentrating on concepts from biology, how epistemic goals result in

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cepts. But this does not mean that they can be deformed at will and

without offering resistance, and are therefore unusable ” (italics in origi-

nal, LWPP II, 24).

So, if concepts are understood as elastic, as being “dragged away”(Wilson 2006, 330) from their initial implementation to new territories

and different directions because of our diverse interests and aspirations,

then their historical investigation should track the complicated paths of

their development and should not aim to anachronistically discover (or

construct) some pristine fixed crux which invariably appears through

time. Concepts may better be seen as “the delicate filigree of patchwork

arrangement” (ibid., 368) which unfolds, driven by contingent applica-

tion, on the rough ground of practice.

5. Studying Concepts Historically

How we understand concepts affects the way we study them historical-

ly. If concepts are understood as vessel-like entities which contain a core

(the necessary and sufficient conditions of proper application) that sur-

vives intact in the course of time, what we are after when we study

them historically is to identify this core in every occurrence of the con-cept-words under study. This is how we are supposed to ensure that we

are talking of the same concept. If, however, we understand concepts as

uses, no such core is to be found. Every use is different, even if slightly,

from others and the unity of the concept is secured not by some com-

mon element but by the practice in which the concept lives. The lan-

guage users treat certain uses of the concept-words as belonging togeth-

er. The effort of the historian, under this understanding of concepts, is

to understand, learn and describe the uses of words in their sites. The

result of such effort is less emphasis on recurrent identity and more at-

tention to difference.

Some scholars, having recognized that no common core is to be

found intact in the various uses of concepts, have resorted to Wittgen-

stein’s notion of family resemblance in their effort to salvage some ele-

semantic variation and semantic change. Steinle explicitly calls concepts toolswhich enable specific tasks. He presents the story of the concept of magneticpole and maintains that if one is interested in the role of concepts in scientificpractice, one should take into account the goals that shape them and the goalsthey serve.






it is assumed that certain features, either the overlapping similarities

which are not common to all the individuals under a concept or the

ones that comprise the necessary and sufficient conditions that are pres-

ent in all the instances to which the concept applies, are there in theworld awaiting to be recognized and picked up. It is believed that ob-

jective common features are what set limits to the application of our

concepts15. But similarities cannot be recognized irrespective of our in-

terests and purposes. “What resemblances we are going to count as fam-

ily resemblances, cannot be determined simply by looking at the objects

themselves. (…) there is nothing about chess, cricket and patience that

makes us call them games; any more than there is something about real

and imaginary numbers which makes us call them numbers” (Tessin

1996, 65). “People call certain things games for certain purposes andnot for others (Beardsmore 1992, 142). Similarities are recognized and

established by following rules. “The use of the word ‘rule’ and the

use of the word ‘same’ are interwoven” (PI, 225). Following rules is

not an independent condition for recognizing similarities nor is recog-

nizing similarities a condition for following rules. The two go together:

We recognize similarities to continue to apply a rule and we need to be

led by a rule to recognize similarities.

The notion of family resemblance should not be taken as a sugges-tion to do empirical work and find out whether a particular concept is a

family resemblance concept or not. We should not, that is, look for cer-

tain characteristics which, resembling each other across instances, mark

off the family resemblance concepts. Wittgenstein used the notion of

family resemblance to combat an essentialist understanding of concepts,

i.e., to show that the unity of concepts is not secured by identifying

some necessary and sufficient characteristics. But, in my view, he was

equally opposed to the idea that the unity of concepts is secured instead

by identifying distributed similarities, overlapping and criss-crossing. Itis not the world which fixes our concepts. They are not formed by ab-

15 M. Forster, for instance, seems to be saying that a family resemblance term is“warranted in its applications not by any single common feature but insteadby various features which are related in a criss-crossing or overlapping manner,and which moreover fail to be expressible in any statement of non-trivial essen-tial necessary and sufficient conditions for the term’s applications” (Forster 2010, 76). As I will explain later, in my view, the application of a generalterm is not warranted by objective similar features in the individuals towhich it applies, by the following of rules which establish the proper use of the relevant terms.






stracting from the world, they do not reflect the world, they do not

even reflect our life; they stand in the middle of it (RC III, 392).

They are part of it, they participate in shaping it.

Those who connect family resemblance concepts to particular sim-ilarities which are either projected or considered objective, sometimes

fear that family resemblance cannot explain how two instantiations of

a concept, at the extreme ends of an extended historical period, may

share no common characteristic and yet belong to the same concept.

J.-M. Kuukkanen (2008), for instance, has this view and, to solve the

problem, he proposes that all concepts have a core which all instantia-

tions must satisfy in order to belong to “the same concept.” He believes

that an intelligible history of thought requires the postulation of stable

units, which comprise an invariable set of features across historical peri-ods. “[I]f we wish to write histories of ideas or concepts, we have to as-

sume that there are invariable ideas or concepts in history after all”

(Kuukkanen 2008, 367). He thinks that this is the only way we can

make sense of conceptual change. Change requires something to remain

unchanged and, in order to be able to speak of change, and not replace-

ment, we need to postulate an invariable core. This is to assume that the

unity of concepts is secured, objectively or conventionally, by a set of

core properties captured by a definition. But I do not think that the

identity of concepts through time will be saved by hypostatizing them.

A different approach, such as Wittgenstein’s, rejects the idea that the

unity of concepts is secured by the essentialist supposition of an invar-

iable core. Wittgenstein’s rule-following considerations are supposed

to show that even if we had such an essentialist definition, which

would serve as a rule dictating correct application, this definition

would not have guaranteed the non-arbitrary subsumption of instances

under concepts. The definition can be variously interpreted and only

practice can secure the correct application of a rule.Rejecting essentialism, that is the pursuit of a fixed core of proper-

ties present in all instantiations, does not mean that one should go after

similarities (family resemblances) that connect, in a chain-like manner,

the instantiations that fall under a concept. Overlapping similarities,

which are supposed to be detected and read off from the world, are

not better suited to account for the unity of concepts. The unity of con-

cepts assumed or proposed by historians or philosophers who study the

history of concepts, has to be illustrated and argued for and, in border-

line cases, can very well be contested. That is, historians and philoso-phers, after they learn the language they study, need to make a case

Vasso Kindi40





for a common or varied use based on the circumstances and texts they

examine. The unity, development and change of concepts are the re-

sponsibility of those who employ them and those who try to understand

them.It should be noted that Wittgenstein’s considerations concerning

rule-following and family resemblance apply to both ‘closed’ and

‘open’ concepts. It is usually maintained that closed concepts are defined

by necessary and sufficient conditions while open ones are rather ex-

plained by offering examples of application16. Definitions and examples,

however, can equally be variously interpreted, which means that closed

concepts are not better off compared to the open ones in terms of how

they are applied17. For Wittgenstein, all concepts are open in a certain

sense, namely, in the sense that any new application can extend a con-cept to new territories without jeopardizing its unity and proper appli-

cation18. Cavell captures this idea of extension or projection to a new

16 Dirk Schlimm (this volume), talking about mathematical concepts, distinguishesbetween a Fregean and a Lakatosian account of concepts. Fregean concepts arefixed and sharply determinate and, so, adequate to enter proofs and logical in-ferences while Lakatosian concepts are open and flexible, in the sense that theycan evolve, be transformed, stretched or contracted. The former are introduced

by a descriptive characterization while the latter via a paradigm. In my view,Lakatos’ understanding of open concepts differs from the one I attribute toWittgenstein. In Lakatos’ case, concepts are open when, as they evolve, be-come, for instance, more inclusive. This means that their defining characteris-tics and their definitions change. In Wittgenstein’s case, concepts are open notbecause their definitions are enriched but because the way they are applied isnot determined by a definition even if a definition is available.

17 For an analysis of this issue see Huff (1981).18 This understanding of openness should be distinguished from Waismann’s ‘open

texture’. According to Waismann, all empirical concepts are open textured be-

cause their definitions cannot be exhaustive, that is they cannot cover all pos-sibilities. “[W]e can never exclude altogether the possibility of some unforeseensituation arising in which we shall have to modify our definition. Try as wemay, no concept is limited in such a way that there is no room for anydoubt” (Waismann 1978, 120). Waismann speaks of open concepts becausethe world may surprise us in unexpected ways. Wittgenstein’s understandingof concepts as open does not depend on how the world behaves. Wittgensteintakes concepts to be open because their application can be extended in waysthat cannot be specified in advance. Yet, this does not imply that their applica-tion is doubtful. For the differences between Wittgenstein’s conception andWaismann’s ‘open texture’ see Baker and Hacker (1983, 170 f). ThomasKuhn, discussing Waismann’s open texture, says that in case we have the bizarrepossibilities that Waismann imagines, we would be forced to change the con-






application when he says that “[a]ll language is metaphorical” (Cavell

1979, 190). What he means is that every new application of a term is

literally a transfer into a new area. The different applications shape the

trajectory of the concept. We can draw strict boundaries if we needthem (PG, 117), but even in these cases our concepts are elastic and

flexible (cf. LWPP I, §§ 246 f; 340).

6. Conclusion

Given an understanding of concepts as open and flexible, the historians,

in tracing the transposition and transformation of concepts, instead of

trying to find either an invariable core that persists in all instances or the overlapping similarities that connect every instance, they should

see concepts as occurring in a field surrounded by others (Wittgenstein

1988, 247)19, as centers of variation20. And when they are interested in

conceptual change, they may adopt, in the same spirit, the perspective of

some kind of intellectual ecology suggested by Toulmin (1970). Toul-

min talks of ‘conceptual populations’ and not of isolated, individual

cept instead of speaking of open texture (Archive, Box 8). Thomas Kuhns Pa-pers, MC 240 box 8. Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Institute Archivesand Special Collections, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

19 Begriffsgeschichte , the history of concepts as it developed in Germany, associatedmost prominently with the work of R. Koselleck, also places concepts in a se-mantic field studying them in relation to social settings and developments. Yet,as critics such as Bevir (2000, 278) have pointed out, Begriffsgeschichte remainscommitted to extracting individual concepts from a synchronic linguistic con-text for diachronic treatment. Citing Pim den Boer, Bevir claims that Koselleckascribes to concepts a “life span” and “vital properties” so that concepts seem to

become “entities that lead a life of their own” (ibid., 279). He also thinks thatKoselleck’s Begriffsgeschichte encourages a form of reductionism by assimilatingindividuals “all too readily to a monolithic langue or mentalité identifiedwith a given social formation” (ibid., 281). In his view, Begriffsgeschichte “isprone to detach concepts from their settings in a way that encourages a neglectof the constitutive role of ideas and beliefs throughout our social life: social for-mations are in some way separated from languages and meanings” (ibid., 282).

20 This is what Wittgenstein says in his manuscripts: “If we were asked … aboutthe essence of punishment, essence of revolution, of knowledge, of cultural de-cline or refined sense of music – we should not try to give something common toall cases, not what they all really are, that is an ideal which is contained in themall; but instead of this examples, as it were centres of variation” (cited in Kuu-sela 2008, 173).

Vasso Kindi42





concepts. These populations develop by processes of conceptual varia-

tion and selective perpetuation (ibid., 564). A given repertory of estab-

lished concepts is surrounded by a pool of conceptual variants, or pos-

sibilities, from which scientists select the ones they will adopt based onvarious, and perhaps conflicting criteria, which may vary from science

to science and from epoch to epoch (ibid., 562). Toulmin’s ecology

connects with Hacking’s, who saw the project of philosophical analysis

as the study of words in their sites. This study is not the study of abstract

entities floating in abstract space in isolation, or in logical relations with

other similarly understood concepts. It is the study of what we do with

words, the study of word uses in concrete practices. The task of histor-

ians and philosophers, then, fulfills the requirement of hard work rec-

ommended by Ian Hacking (1990, 362). Embracing a complex method-ology, they display the networks of possibilities and constraints which

condition the emergence, formulation and change of our concepts

(ibid., 360).

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Theodore Arabatzis, Michael Forster, the contrib-

utors and the editors of this volume for their comments and criticismwhich helped me to improve the paper considerably.

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vasso kindi - concept as vessel and concept as use

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