Philosophy Research Seminar series
The Problem of Conceptual Scope and the Philosophy of Trust (coauthored with Caroline Hendy and Jenny Munt)
Abstract: The goal of this talk is to outline a novel concern with some forms of conceptual analysis in social philosophy. We call it the problem of conceptual scope. In social philosophy, we use concepts to analyse phenomena in the social world. Sometimes those phenomena will have a wider distribution than the concepts used to analyse them. In such cases, it seems we are not justified in generalising analyses that use those concepts to the phenomena as a whole. Our example of the problem comes from the philosophy of trust. In this literature, it is considered important to distinguish trust from mere reliance. Typically this is done via another distinction: that between betrayal and disappointment. We argue that the scope of the betrayal/disappointment distinction does not match the scope of the phenomenon of trust, and hence that analyses using the distinction cannot be generalised. We outline two ways of addressing the problem, and draw some lessons from our analysis.