Essentially Contested Concept - Identifying The Presence of A Dispute

Identifying The Presence of A Dispute

Although Gallie’s term is widely used to denote imprecise use of technical terminology, it has a far more specific application. And, although the notion could be misleadingly and evasively used to justify "agreeing to disagree", the term offers something more valuable:

Since its introduction by W.B. Gallie in 1956, the expression "essentially contested concept" has been treated both as a challenge and as an excuse by social theorists. It has been treated as a challenge in that theorists consider their uses of terms and concepts to be in competition with the uses advocated by other theorists, each theorist trying to be deemed the champion. It has been treated as an excuse that, rather than acknowledge that the failure to reach agreement is due to such factors as imprecision, ignorance, or belligerence, instead theorists point to the terms and concepts under dispute and insist that they are always open to contest — that they are terms and concepts about which we can never expect to reach agreement.

The disputes that attend an essentially contested concept are driven by substantive disagreements over a range of different, entirely reasonable (although, perhaps, mistaken) interpretations of a mutually-agreed-upon archetypical notion, such as the legal precept "treat like cases alike; and treat different cases differently", with "each party to defend its case with what it claims to be convincing arguments, evidence and other forms of justification").

Gallie speaks of how "This picture is painted in oils" can be successfully contested if the work is actually painted in tempera; while "This picture is a work of art" may meet strong opposition due to disputes over what "work of art" denotes. He suggests three avenues whereby one might resolve such disputes:

1. Discovering a new meaning of "work of art" to which all disputants could thenceforward agree.

2. Convincing all the disputants to conform to one meaning.

3. Declaring "work of art" to be a number of different concepts employing the same name.

Otherwise, the dispute probably centres on polysemy. Here, a number of critical questions must be asked:

• Has the term been incorrectly used, as in the case of mistakenly using decimated for devastated (catachresis)?
• Do two or more different concepts share the same word, as in the case of ear, bank, sound, corn, scale, etc. (homonymy)?
• Is there a genuine dispute about the term's correct application that, in fact, can be resolved?
• Or, is it really the case that the term is an essentially contested concept?