Variants of concept analysis

Beyond this general distinction of the elementary forms of concept analysis in terms of the analysis of paradigmatic elements (concepts/ constructs/ ideas) and syntagmatic items (pieces of language/ discourse), which, in practical terms, cannot be extricated and separated from one

another, there are further distinctions in terms offormal and informal concept analysis as well

as idiosyncratic conceptions that seem to grow from the interactive nature of the two basic forms and the indeterminacy of theconcept of concept. There are also distinctions of forms of concept

analysis according to the many different types of constructs posited, whereby each construct could be associated with a dedicated mode of analysis.

Here, we could provisionally distinguish formal and informal concept analysis, whereby the

former plays at best a token or auxiliary role in the present work ((5.4.2.3), (8.2.2.4)), and

analysis by synthesis, which is the main idea to be gradually developed in the work.

1.2.4.1 Formal and informal concept analysis

Even where a case can be made for a purely empirical or a purely speculative form of concept analysis, there remains the question of what form the analysis itself is to take in terms of the

language used. As stated, a language is a necessity; the question merely comes down to the choice of conducting the analysis in an informal (i.e. natural) or a formal language.

Here we should note the observation that the construct concept analysis spans the whole

spectrum from formal, mathematical12 _{or logical analysis (e.g. as “mathematization of concept} and concept hierarchy [that] activates mathematical methods for conceptual data analysis and knowledge processing” Ganter, 1999) to the elicitation of memories in ethnographic historical studies (or the “meaning structure of person’s [...] lived experience”, as in Weber, 2004; Levering, 200213_).

It is noteworthy that natural language is believed to be more general than any formal language (Glanville, 1982). This means that anything that can be formulated in a formal language can be formulated in a natural one. The reverse is also stated, explicitly on the example of formal logic, by Sowa, 1999. A further discussion falls outside the scope of the present chapter though the consequences of such choices will be given some thought in (7.1.1.1). Let it suffice that the formulation of some problem or phenomenon in a natural language is thought to precede

its formulation in a formal language (for mathematical systems theory, see Bertalanffy, 1968a,

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Given this motivation, a context forphilosophical terminographywill be set up experimentally and conceptually in Chapters (4) and (5), while reflections on subjects as contexts are to be set down in the Chapters (6) and (7).

12_{Kageura’s (2002) study presents an example of this kind; while “folk wisdom” suggests that an “interpretative”}

methodology could ignore such ideas, other examples (like that ofsentiment analysis(8) show that “positivist” or formal approaches draw on a repository of descriptive vocabulary which is in principle applicable also outside of this context. From a conceptual point of view, different methodologies do not present separate worlds without any overlap or interface.

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Levering regards concept analysis as an empirical method, which would technically qualify it to fall into the “positivist” spectrum from a methodological point of view; here we find the reverse interpretation to be also applicable.

p. 24). This implies that a translation is required; it should be the case for terminological concept analyses in particular, since a statistical preparation of lexical data should entail some

interpretation of what this data is thought to signify. On the reverse, the invention of formal

criteria could be seen as an attempt to articulate a conceptual structure that needs to analyzed before its technical operationalization.

1.2.4.2 Other mixed forms: analysis by synthesis

Therefore, different interpretations can be applied to the concept of concept analysis and these

will then produce a predominantly empirical or conceptual reading as a matter of degree, espe- cially when they resonate with further methodological assumptions and socio-historicalcontin- genciesboth in the researcher and the data as researchers construct them (i.e. conceptualize the

data, or make “distinctions in the flow of experience”, von Glasersfeld, above).

Here, we make a distinction between the (meta-)theoretical aspects ofconcept analysis, which

are treated as a cornerstone of our basic methodology, and considerations on the nature of the

praxeology of philosophical terminography (4), which as a larger experimental methodology is

invested in the understanding of subject-driven requirements to be inducted in the following ((2), (3)).

We only mean to establish the baseline in terms of the interaction of language and thought in the present chapter; Levering’s (2002) considerations can be taken as the starting point. In the explanation of concept analysis as an “empirical method”, some limitations, goals, and related

ideas are foregrounded:

[W]e not only seem to speak different languages, but even to live in completely different worlds. [...] These are the aspects of the language-context that one can lose

in the concept analysis of thick concepts. The outcome of language analysis always seems impoverished compared to the riches of language. [...] concept analysis itself is

not poetry, but, yes, it hasits eye open for the poetic elements in language. Concept

analysis isargumentative, it isnot evocative. It tries toexplicate the evocative elements in language. It tries to answer the questions of which feelings are evoked by those words and how it is possible that these words evoke those feelings. Such questions

can only be answered by referring to the context. [...] concept analysis resembles phenomenological analysis. [...] In the area ofphenomenology, one ishardly concerned with a true reality which would be found behind the phenomenological reality. [...]

concept analysis not only provides us withinformation about language, but also with information about the (social) reality. In the analysis of language, experience itself has a part to play from the beginning.

This form of concept analysis applied to thick concepts (or analytical thick description) will,

at its bare minimum, aim to “bring out” value judgments, while formal concept analysis will

probably be applied to technical concepts and yield a list or network of is aandhas arelations (comparable to the E/R model, a simple ontology which serves to organize terminological data in the first place when such data are kept in a database storage; Neubauer 2008). With regard to the questions asked by Weber (2004) with regard to the institutional “social realities” researchers experience, the latter is superficially more likely to produce insights that fit this query.

However, mapping out the network of texts, organizations and people involved in the con- struction of a discourse to better illustrate its spread and distribution – an endeavor that would proceed by means of the visualization of quantitative data and formal analysis, (Athenikos and

Lin, 2009) – can lend some illustrative and explanatory power to the qualitative analysis. Thus, the one type of analysis is probably not a replacement for the other.

It can be argued that in practice, conceptual analyses would often involve an element of

synopsis or synthesis (Vidal, 2007) which leads to the production of syntagmatic material to

communicate (about) the analysis and its results. This can be consideredanalysis by synthesis

(Beaugrande and Dressler, 1981, ch. 3, § 32). A more detailed presentation of this idea and the underlying motivations for suggesting it for the praxeology of philosophical terminography will

however be presented in chapter (4). Here, we are still concerned with articulating the premises – or the minimal “conceptual inventory” – that enables such cumulative considerations.