Explication

Short note

Note needs to be developed and expanded.

Explication is the refinement of an inexact or ambiguous concept with a more precise and/or useful concept ¹.

This is a normative act, in that it applies value judgements about what properties a concept should have and what uses it ought to serve. The judgement can be context- or domain-specific and result in a significant transformation of an everyday concept.

Philosophers have argued over the conditions necessary for a successful explication. These include the aforementioned increase of clarity and utility, but also a requirement that the new concept be substitutable for the old concept, while preserving sufficient continuity of meaning.

Im everyday terms, milk is a white drink. A food scientist can refine the concept of milk further; for example, milk is an oil-in-water emulsion that appears opaque because the oil droplets (and casein) scatter light. Although the scientist’s account is more precise, it is still continuous with the ordinary concept of “milk”. A new term is not required in this case. Both child and scientist alike understand the instruction “drink your milk”.

Armed with their particular definitions, scientists can do useful things, like identify milk as the structural inverse of butter (a water-in-oil emulsion). In this sense, explicating a concept can help us think what was previously unthinkable.