Related Ideas

Review these ideas and then go back to the main thread.

In 1956, the philosopher W. B. Gallie wrote a paper called “Essentially Contested Concepts.” He pointed out that some concepts – like democracy or social justice – seem to be the subject of endless dispute. He tried to define one important class of such concepts and understand their nature. In his words:

... I shall try to show that there are disputes, centred on the concepts which I have just mentioned, which are perfectly genuine: which, although not resolvable by argument of any kind, are nevertheless sustained by perfectly respectable arguments and evidence. This is what I mean by saying that there are concepts which are essentially contested, concepts the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users.

Gallie offered five criteria for identifying contested concepts.

In order to count as essentially contested, in the sense just illustrated, a concept must possess the four following characteristics: -- (I) it must be appraisive in the sense that it signifies or accredits some kind of valued achievement. (II) This achievement must be of an internally complex character, for all that its worth is attributed to it as a whole. (III) Any explanation of its worth must therefore include reference to the respective contributions of its various parts or features; yet prior to experimentation there is nothing absurd or contradictory in any one of a number of possible rival descriptions of its total worth, one such description setting its component parts or features in one order of importance, a second setting them in a second order, and so on. In fine, the accredited achievement is initially variously describable. (IV) The accredited achievement must be of a kind that admits of considerable modification in the light of changing circumstances; and such modification cannot be prescribed or predicted in advance. For convenience I shall call the concept of any such achievement "open" in character.

These seem to me to be the four most important necessary conditions to which any essentially contested concept must comply. But they do not define what it is to be a concept of this kind. For this purpose we should have to say not only that different persons or parties adhere to different views of the correct use of some concept but (V) that each party recognizes the fact that its own use of it is contested by those of other parties, and that each party must have at least some appreciation of the different criteria in the light of which the other parties claim to be applying the concept in question. More simply, to use an essentially contested concept means to use it against other uses and to recognize that one's own use of it has to be maintained against these other uses. Still more simply, to use an essentially contested concept means to use it both aggressively and defensively.

Gallie did not think that the disputes surrounding these concepts could be successfully resolved, but he did think that there was value in recognizing the fact that these concepts were essentially contested. Thus, he wrote:

Recognition of a given concept as essentially contested implies recognition of rival uses of it (such as oneself repudiates) as not only logically possible and humanly "likely ", but as of permanent potential critical value to one's own use or interpretation of the concept in question; whereas to regard any rival use as anathema, perverse, bestial or lunatic means, in many cases, to submit oneself to the chronic human peril of underestimating the value of one's opponents' positions. (p. 193.)

Some authors have suggested that we can use Gallie's definition of an essentially contested concept as a framework for analysis. We can do that by taking each element in Gallie's definition and asking how it applies to a specific concept such as justice or democracy. We might, for example, try to identify the internal elements that make the concept complex. Or we might ask whether different people evaluate those elements differently and which elements are assigned more or less weight by which people. If we go through such an analysis, at the very least we will end up with a much better understanding of our differences.

If the concept of justice is essentially disputed, and if our ideas about property are embedded in our ideas about justice, then our disputes over the nature of property will not end soon (if ever). Even so, perhaps we can learn to respect other people's views and stop demonizing each other.

Reference: Quotations taken from W. B. Gallie “Essentially Contested Concepts” in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series, Vol. 56 (1955 - 1956)