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<p>Researchers organize the world around them into categories. Their choices in categorizing a phenomenon of interest are never only determined by the area under consideration: there is flexibility in (amongst other things) scientists’ choices of category boundaries, number of categories, and rules for determining category membership. This article treats categorization choices as <i>conventions</i>, and accordingly, develops an information theoretic measure from the philosophy of social conventions to track how much flexibility a researcher has in some given area of categorization. Following work by Brian Skyrms and Cailin O’Connor, the article uses Shannon entropy to define the level of <i>arbitrariness</i> of categorization. It is then argued that two interpretations of arbitrariness are salient for philosophers: a <i>descriptive interpretation</i>, which delivers the amount of consensus in any given area as well as changes in this amount over time; and a <i>normative interpretation</i>, which systematizes philosophical questions on pluralism, i.e., the intuitive notion that some areas of inquiry benefit from there being a variety of ways of categorizing. By discussing categorization as a form of <i>clustering</i>, this article shows that the normative interpretation is related to, but not reducible to, the question of whether the phenomenon under study is a <i>kind</i>. Contrasting the two interpretations, this article shows the importance of distinguishing the degree of consensus on the one hand from the normative degree of arbitrariness on the other. This distinction further motivates quantifying conventionality, as it calls into question the idea that consensus in categorization is always a sign of scientific progress.</p>

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Categorizations qua conventions: measuring the arbitrariness of scientific categorization

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  • 出版模式：

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  • 发表日期：

    2025年8月27日

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  • Rosa W. Runhardt

摘要

Researchers organize the world around them into categories. Their choices in categorizing a phenomenon of interest are never only determined by the area under consideration: there is flexibility in (amongst other things) scientists’ choices of category boundaries, number of categories, and rules for determining category membership. This article treats categorization choices as conventions, and accordingly, develops an information theoretic measure from the philosophy of social conventions to track how much flexibility a researcher has in some given area of categorization. Following work by Brian Skyrms and Cailin O’Connor, the article uses Shannon entropy to define the level of arbitrariness of categorization. It is then argued that two interpretations of arbitrariness are salient for philosophers: a descriptive interpretation, which delivers the amount of consensus in any given area as well as changes in this amount over time; and a normative interpretation, which systematizes philosophical questions on pluralism, i.e., the intuitive notion that some areas of inquiry benefit from there being a variety of ways of categorizing. By discussing categorization as a form of clustering, this article shows that the normative interpretation is related to, but not reducible to, the question of whether the phenomenon under study is a kind. Contrasting the two interpretations, this article shows the importance of distinguishing the degree of consensus on the one hand from the normative degree of arbitrariness on the other. This distinction further motivates quantifying conventionality, as it calls into question the idea that consensus in categorization is always a sign of scientific progress.