Oh, but then why have a special word for success to the purpose of rational inquiry? To my ear “fitness” seems like something general we could say about anything, as in it’s “fitness for X”, like “fitness for rational inquiry” or “fitness for convincing others”.
The term I introduced is “fittingness” not fitness. Fittingness is meant to evoke both fit, as in whether a pair of shoes fit my feet, and also fitting, as in “that is a fitting word choice for this sentence”. It is possible that there is another term which would be a better label for the underlying concept. If you have suggestions for alternatives I would love to hear them.
I think it’s important that the word is specific, not general. As you point out, we could use a general term qualified with a lengthy phrase like: “success with respect to concept formation in the context of rational inquiry,” but that clunker is difficult to sprinkle throughout an argument. The advantage of a single term to encapsulate an important idea should be obvious. Nobody suggests we should replace the term truth with the phrase, “success with respect to belief in the context of rational inquiry.” Moreover, the metaphorical associations of fit and fitting give a clue about what this kind of success actually involves. It involves concepts fitting the structures found in reality, without implying the unsustainable idea that we can know what the natural structures are in advance of inquiry. We can size a shoe without knowing our foot size in advance, just by trying on lots of different shoes until one fits.
I admit that the concept I call fittingness is not often used at present. Indeed I believe in present discourse fittingness is often muddled either with truth or instrumental usefulness. This precise muddle leads to difficulties in understanding how Kuhnian paradigm shifts (or pre-paradigmatic science) can be understood as legitimate expressions of rational inquiry. I didn’t do more than hint at such problems in the post, maybe I’ll write another post about this.
The point of my post is to diffuse these muddles and make it easier to appeal to fittingness on the regular. I want it to be a part of our ready-to-hand conceptual repertoire as rationalists, in the same way that we have easy access to terms like truth, probability, evidence, etc. I make a case for why this would be of benefit in the section titled, “Why is this Distinction Important?” If you don’t find that section convincing please let me know what you see as the specific shortcomings and I will try to address them.
Oh, but then why have a special word for success to the purpose of rational inquiry? To my ear “fitness” seems like something general we could say about anything, as in it’s “fitness for X”, like “fitness for rational inquiry” or “fitness for convincing others”.
The term I introduced is “fittingness” not fitness. Fittingness is meant to evoke both fit, as in whether a pair of shoes fit my feet, and also fitting, as in “that is a fitting word choice for this sentence”. It is possible that there is another term which would be a better label for the underlying concept. If you have suggestions for alternatives I would love to hear them.
I think it’s important that the word is specific, not general. As you point out, we could use a general term qualified with a lengthy phrase like: “success with respect to concept formation in the context of rational inquiry,” but that clunker is difficult to sprinkle throughout an argument. The advantage of a single term to encapsulate an important idea should be obvious. Nobody suggests we should replace the term truth with the phrase, “success with respect to belief in the context of rational inquiry.” Moreover, the metaphorical associations of fit and fitting give a clue about what this kind of success actually involves. It involves concepts fitting the structures found in reality, without implying the unsustainable idea that we can know what the natural structures are in advance of inquiry. We can size a shoe without knowing our foot size in advance, just by trying on lots of different shoes until one fits.
I admit that the concept I call fittingness is not often used at present. Indeed I believe in present discourse fittingness is often muddled either with truth or instrumental usefulness. This precise muddle leads to difficulties in understanding how Kuhnian paradigm shifts (or pre-paradigmatic science) can be understood as legitimate expressions of rational inquiry. I didn’t do more than hint at such problems in the post, maybe I’ll write another post about this.
The point of my post is to diffuse these muddles and make it easier to appeal to fittingness on the regular. I want it to be a part of our ready-to-hand conceptual repertoire as rationalists, in the same way that we have easy access to terms like truth, probability, evidence, etc. I make a case for why this would be of benefit in the section titled, “Why is this Distinction Important?” If you don’t find that section convincing please let me know what you see as the specific shortcomings and I will try to address them.