Taking Conceptual Analyses Seriously

Abstract

We do not take the conceptual component of our science as seriously as we take the empirical component. The reason for this failure to take conceptual analyses seriously is partially historical. Beginning with 19^th-century positivism, followed by early 20^th-century neo-positivism, and later conventionalism or instrumentalism the Cartesian paradigm dictated the avoidance of any deep conceptual analyses. The reason is also partially due to inertia. Beginning in the 1950s the rules concerning “good science” underwent transformational changes, and these new rules brought conceptual analyses into science as constitutive such that the conceptual and the empirical form a relational indissociable complementarity. However, the structure of our PhD training programs generally continues to hold on to the outmoded anchors of neo-positivists and conventionalists doctrines. The author argues for the redesign of graduate training with the aim of moving toward a parity between training in conceptual components and training in methods/statistical components of science.