Relatively Inescapable Concepts
Inquiry
Can we draw deep metaphysical conclusions about non-linguistic reality by relying purely on facts about language? In Idealism and the Harmony of Thought and Reality, Thomas Hofweber gives an affirmative answer. He appeals to what he calls inescapable concepts, concepts that humans cannot rationally dispense with, for the purpose of rational inquiry. His paradigm inescapable concepts include logical concepts (AND), semantic concepts (TRUTH), and normative concepts (OUGHT). He argues that such concepts must apply to reality, independently of further non-linguistic facts. In this paper, I argue that Hofweber’s theory both overgenerates and undergenerates inescapable concepts. In response to these problems, I propose that we adopt a more flexible notion of inescapability. According to the functionalist account of inescapable concepts, inescapability applies primarily to families of concepts. A family of concepts is inescapable if and only if you cannot rationally jointly replace every member of that family of concepts, for the purposes of rational inquiry. Individual concepts are only inescapable relative to a family of concepts individuated by a conceptual function. By taking concepts to be relatively inescapable, we make the theory of inescapable concepts more plausible and thereby show that we can genuinely bridge the language-metaphysics gap.