Resilience: Some Philosophical Remarks on Defining Ostensively and Stipulatively
Thorén, Henrik LU and Persson, Johannes LU
(2015)
In Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy
11(1).
p.64-74
- Abstract
- Although contentious, the concept of resilience is common in sustainability research. Critique of the concept have often focused on the content of the concept. In this paper we focus on another feature of concepts, namely how they are defined. We distinguish between concepts that are ostensively defined, that aim to point to some phenomena, and stipulatively defined concepts, where the content of the concept is given in the definition itself. We argue that although definitions themselves are similar across many different disciplines where resilience is used?most notably psychology and ecology?they differ in how. This has interesting consequences for how different disciplines can be connected and integrated. Notably, integration on basis of... (More)
- Although contentious, the concept of resilience is common in sustainability research. Critique of the concept have often focused on the content of the concept. In this paper we focus on another feature of concepts, namely how they are defined. We distinguish between concepts that are ostensively defined, that aim to point to some phenomena, and stipulatively defined concepts, where the content of the concept is given in the definition itself. We argue that although definitions themselves are similar across many different disciplines where resilience is used?most notably psychology and ecology?they differ in how. This has interesting consequences for how different disciplines can be connected and integrated. Notably, integration on basis of ostensively defined concepts turn on sharing the extension (the phenomena itself) of the concept, but not necessarily the intension (the definition), whereas integration on basis of stipulatively defined concepts work in the opposite way. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/4529918
- author
- Thorén, Henrik
LU
and Persson, Johannes
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2015
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- interdisciplinarity, sustainability science, resilience
- in
- Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy
- volume
- 11
- issue
- 1
- pages
- 64 - 74
- publisher
- Proquest
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:84928993256
- ISSN
- 1548-7733
- project
- LUCID - Lund University Centre of Excellence for Integration of Social and Natural Dimensions of Sustainability
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- ae83c62d-a061-441d-8803-b9f3888f66ec (old id 4529918)
- alternative location
- https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/15487733.2015.11908140
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 14:30:27
- date last changed
- 2022-10-12 23:23:07
@article{ae83c62d-a061-441d-8803-b9f3888f66ec,
abstract = {{Although contentious, the concept of resilience is common in sustainability research. Critique of the concept have often focused on the content of the concept. In this paper we focus on another feature of concepts, namely how they are defined. We distinguish between concepts that are ostensively defined, that aim to point to some phenomena, and stipulatively defined concepts, where the content of the concept is given in the definition itself. We argue that although definitions themselves are similar across many different disciplines where resilience is used?most notably psychology and ecology?they differ in how. This has interesting consequences for how different disciplines can be connected and integrated. Notably, integration on basis of ostensively defined concepts turn on sharing the extension (the phenomena itself) of the concept, but not necessarily the intension (the definition), whereas integration on basis of stipulatively defined concepts work in the opposite way.}},
author = {{Thorén, Henrik and Persson, Johannes}},
issn = {{1548-7733}},
keywords = {{interdisciplinarity; sustainability science; resilience}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{1}},
pages = {{64--74}},
publisher = {{Proquest}},
series = {{Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy}},
title = {{Resilience: Some Philosophical Remarks on Defining Ostensively and Stipulatively}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/4009714/5431097.pdf}},
volume = {{11}},
year = {{2015}},
}