(tried to post a substantive comment before but it was lost looks like) interesting article- I hadn't come across the view that validity is a thick concept before. It's a cool idea!
On evaluational flexibility, here's a thought I had while walking in the park this afternoon: it seems like for at least many thick concepts, the evaluation involved in deploying the concept has a specific tone or flavour. To think of something as *gross*, for instance, involves evaluating it not just as *bad*, but specifically as *worth recoiling from* (i.e., not just *fitting for disapproval* but *fitting for disgust*). Likewise, maybe to call something *elegant* involves evaluating it as fitting for a suite of tonally specific affective and attentional responses (calm? serene appreciation? admiration of form? etc.) that register positively to one's audience if they agree that that suite of responses is fitting and negatively if they do not. The flexibility comes in where people diverge on what responses they take to be fitting to what objects.
"Basically, the separationism/non-separationism debate boils down to whether it’s possible — in the abstract, on reflection — to separate the evaluative aspect of a thick concept from its evaluative aspect."
“The relationship between the descriptive and evaluative content is a thick concept like DIM-WITTED is exactly the same as the relationship between the descriptive and evaluative content in a thick concept like DUNDERHEAD — indeed, on separationism, the relationship between descriptive and evaluative content is the same in all thick concepts!”
Very cool, I hadn’t thought about Vayrynen in years. Fun stuff!
(tried to post a substantive comment before but it was lost looks like) interesting article- I hadn't come across the view that validity is a thick concept before. It's a cool idea!
On evaluational flexibility, here's a thought I had while walking in the park this afternoon: it seems like for at least many thick concepts, the evaluation involved in deploying the concept has a specific tone or flavour. To think of something as *gross*, for instance, involves evaluating it not just as *bad*, but specifically as *worth recoiling from* (i.e., not just *fitting for disapproval* but *fitting for disgust*). Likewise, maybe to call something *elegant* involves evaluating it as fitting for a suite of tonally specific affective and attentional responses (calm? serene appreciation? admiration of form? etc.) that register positively to one's audience if they agree that that suite of responses is fitting and negatively if they do not. The flexibility comes in where people diverge on what responses they take to be fitting to what objects.
"Basically, the separationism/non-separationism debate boils down to whether it’s possible — in the abstract, on reflection — to separate the evaluative aspect of a thick concept from its evaluative aspect."
*evaluative from descriptive?
“The relationship between the descriptive and evaluative content is a thick concept like DIM-WITTED is exactly the same as the relationship between the descriptive and evaluative content in a thick concept like DUNDERHEAD — indeed, on separationism, the relationship between descriptive and evaluative content is the same in all thick concepts!”
*in a thick concept
"The separationist, seemingly, can explain this phenomenon with too much trouble"
*without