| Kommentar |
Inhalte:
In 1985, the philosopher Bernard Williams coined the term “thick concept” that contains both evaluation and non-evaluative description. The thick concept becomes an important topic for discussion in moral philosophy. It has also received increasing attention in other areas of philosophy such as epistemology, aesthetics, metaphysics, philosophy of law, etc. This seminar aims at understanding the nature of a thick concept and its combination of evaluative and descriptive contents. To this end, there are several questions that should be raised and addressed: How and to what extent are thick concepts of philosophical importance? What do we mean by evaluative content and descriptive content? How are the evaluative and descriptive contents supposed to relate in a thick concept? Are those thick concepts fundamentally or inherently evaluative, as the semantic view maintains (Simon Kirchin)? Or are they only accidentally or unnecessarily evaluative, as shown in the pragmatic view (Pekka Väyrynen)? What is the difference between thick concepts (such as courageous, cruel), thin concepts (such as good and bad) and descriptive concepts (house, red)? Is it a difference in kind or only a difference in degree? Can we (always) separate the contents of a thick concept or its elements into different conceptual contents (evaluative content and descriptive content), as the separationists uphold? Or the evaluative and descriptive conceptual content of a thick concept is united in one way or another, and cannot be separated, as the non-separationists maintain? |
| Literatur |
Kirchen, S. (2017) Thick Evaluation, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
S. Kirchin, S. (ed.) (2013) Thick Concepts, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Väyrynen, P. (2013) The Rude, the Lewd, and the Nasty: A Study of Thick Concepts in Ethics, Oxford: Oxford University Press. |
