Categorizations qua conventions: measuring the arbitrariness of scientific categorization.
Researchers organize the world around them into categories. Their choices in categorizing a phenomenon of interest are never only determined by the area under consideration: there is flexibility in (amongst other things) scientists' choices of category boundaries, number of categories, and rules for...
| Publicado en: | Philosophical Studies Vol. 182; no. 11/12; pp. 3181 - 3202 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Dec2025
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=189532726&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 189532726 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00318116 4L8 jtl: Philosophical Studies issn: 00318116 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2025 vid: 182 iid: 11/12 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 189532726 10.1007/s11098-025-02395-9 ppf: 3181 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 1MB tig: atl: Categorizations qua conventions: measuring the arbitrariness of scientific categorization. aug: au: Runhardt, Rosa W. affil: https://ror.org/016xsfp80 Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University, P.O. Box 9103, Erasmusplein 1, 6500 HD, Nijmegen, The Netherlands su: Philosophers Social development Pluralism Scientists Skyrms, Brain sug: subj: Philosophers Social development Pluralism Scientists Skyrms, Brain keyword: Categorization Conventions Measurement Philosophy and Religious Studies Philosophy Scientific concepts Social conventions ab: Researchers organize the world around them into categories. Their choices in categorizing a phenomenon of interest are never only determined by the area under consideration: there is flexibility in (amongst other things) scientists' choices of category boundaries, number of categories, and rules for determining category membership. This article treats categorization choices as conventions, and accordingly, develops an information theoretic measure from the philosophy of social conventions to track how much flexibility a researcher has in some given area of categorization. Following work by Brian Skyrms and Cailin O'Connor, the article uses Shannon entropy to define the level of arbitrariness of categorization. It is then argued that two interpretations of arbitrariness are salient for philosophers: a descriptive interpretation, which delivers the amount of consensus in any given area as well as changes in this amount over time; and a normative interpretation, which systematizes philosophical questions on pluralism, i.e., the intuitive notion that some areas of inquiry benefit from there being a variety of ways of categorizing. By discussing categorization as a form of clustering, this article shows that the normative interpretation is related to, but not reducible to, the question of whether the phenomenon under study is a kind. Contrasting the two interpretations, this article shows the importance of distinguishing the degree of consensus on the one hand from the normative degree of arbitrariness on the other. This distinction further motivates quantifying conventionality, as it calls into question the idea that consensus in categorization is always a sign of scientific progress. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Philosophical Studies is a copyright of Springer, 2025. All Rights Reserved. item: Philosophical Studies holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2025 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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