Essentially Contested Concepts: The Ethics and Tactics of Argument

Abstract

Since the term was coined by W. B. Gallie,1 the idea of essentially contested concepts has been used to analyze politicai controversies, has been subject to theoretical examination, and has been referred to, because of its immediate phonological appeal, in acts of incantation and as a substitute for argument. It has been theorized about more than used, and appealed to more often than thought about. In fact, the proportion among these three functions is similar to that of many other magical-sounding terms, such as Dialectic and the Free Market, so much so that at least one thinker has recently suggested that the idea of essentially contested concepts has outlived its usefulness.2 It will be my purpose to do some t hing towards reversing those proportions. I hope to show that the apparently theoretical paradoxes and sophisms that emerge almost as soon as the term is mentioned hâve serious practical consequences for how we conduci, and how we should conduci, practical argument. From the beginning, much of the criticism of essentially contested concepts has been directed at an ambiguity in the word essentially, an ambiguity that seems to imply that a theory of essentially contested concepts is self-contradictory. On the one hand, certain disputes appear to be endless, not for accidentai reasons such as the ignorance or malice of the disputants, but because it is essential to the concept argued about that it does not lend itself to either a single definition or to linguistic disambiguation into several distinct concepts.3 On the other hand, though and here is where the ambiguity cornes in that endless dispute must involve a single concept over which the disputants are forever arguing. If not, the debate is pointless, because under those circumstances one could ne ver reach agreement. But once one says what that single concept is, continued debate seems pointless, since a

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