Place, U. T. (1992d). The role of the ethnomethodological experiment in the empirical investigation of social norms, and its application to conceptual analysis. Philosophy of the Social Sciences, 22, 461-474. doi:10.1177/004839319202200403
[Abstract]It is argued that conceptual analysis as practiced by the philosophers of ordinary language, is an empirical procedure that relies on a version of Garfinkel's ethnomethodological experiment. The ethnomethodological experiment is presented as a procedure in which the existence and nature of a social norm is demonstrated by flouting the putative convention and observing what reaction that produces in the social group within which the convention is assumed to operate. Examples are given of the use of ethnomethodological experiments, both in vivo and as a thought experiment, in order to demonstrate the existence of otherwise invisible conventions governing human social behavior. Comparable examples are cited from the writings of ordinary language philosophers of ethnomethodological thought experiments designed to demonstrate the existence of linguistic conventions.
[References]  [Talks]  [1 citing publications]  [12 referring publications by Place]  [1 reprinting collections]  
Download: 1992d The Role of the Ethnomethodological Experiment in the Empirical Investigation of Social Norms, and its Application to Conceptual Analysis.pdf

Place, U. T. (1994e). Conceptual analysis as the empirical study of linguistic conventions: Some implications for behavior analysis [Conference presentation at the Twentieth Annual Convention of the Association for Behavior Analysis, Atlanta, Georgia, May 29th 1994].
[Abstract]In a recent paper (Place 1992), the writer has argued that conceptual analysis, as practised by the philosophers of the 'ordinary language' school, is an empirical study of the linguistic conventions to which a speaker must conform if what she says is to be understood by (i.e., is to effectively control the behavior of) any competent interpreter of the language, dialect or technical code she is using. Since conformity to social norms and conventions is maintained by the avoidance of the aversive consequences of failing to do so, the only way to demonstrate unambiguously the existence of such a norm or convention is to perform an ethnomethodological experiment (Garfinkel 1964) in which the putative norm or convention is deliberately flouted so that the actual social consequences of so doing can be observed. Because of the social disruption and hostility towards the experimenter which such an experiment is liable to incur, in practice most such investigations take the form of a thought experiment in which the researcher invites the reader to imagine or recollect from her own past experience the consequences of flouting the convention in question. Though the consequences of flouting linguistic conventions are less serious, the reluctance of philosophers, in their professional capacity, to engage in any form of practical activity has ensured that the methodology of conceptual analysis is likewise that of the ethnomethodological thought experiment. In this case the existence of a linguistic convention is demonstrated by constructing a sentence which flouts the putative convention, and then asking the reader to consider how she would react, if confronted by such a sentence in the course of ordinary conversation. Provided the linguistic conventions which are studied in this way are universal in the sense that some version of them is to be found in every natural language, conceptual analysis so conceived can provide valuable insights into (a) the different ways in which language is used to control the behavior of the listener (pragmatics), (b) the way in which sentences are used to depict or represent segments of environmental reality, possible future events and states of affairs as well as actual past and present ones, (semantics) and (c) the nature of the reality thereby depicted (metaphysics). In relation to behavior analysis, conceptual analysis has important implications for the study of verbal behavior, for an understanding of the relation between our ordinary psychological language ("folk psychology") and the language of behavior analysis on the one hand and the language of physiology on the other, and for an understanding of some of the concepts, such as the concepts of 'cause' and 'effect' which are fundamental to the enterprise of empirical science as a whole.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1994e Conceptual Analysis as the Empirical Study of Linguistic Convention - Some Implications for Behavior Analysis.pdf

Place, U. T. (1995c). Conceptual analysis as the empirical study of linguistic convention [Conference presentation abstract]. Proceedings of the British Psychological Society 1995, 143.
[Abstract]Recent developments such as connectionism in the field of artificial intelligence and selectionism in the neurosciences point away from a conception of the rules of language as a set of formal principles genetically inscribed onto the brain's equivalent of a hard disk and towards the notion that they are social conventions acquired and maintained by the error-correcting practices of a linguistic community. These developments should lead to a revival, not only of an empiricist/behaviourist linguistics, but also of conceptual analysis conceived as the empirical investigation of linguistic convention, using as its research tool Garfinkel's ethnomethodological experiment in which the putative convention is deliberately flouted so that the social consequences of so doing can be observed or, in the case of a thought experiment, imagined. Some implications of such a revival for our conception of the role of the philosopher in relation to psychology are examined. It is suggested that in order to explain how a "grammatical investigation" (Wittgenstein 1953) can throw light on the structure of reality, we need to invoke a combination of Frege's (1891/1960) "function and argument" analysis of the sentence and Wittgenstein's (1921/1961) "picture theory" of its meaning. This theoretical underpinning shows us how conceptual analysis construed as an empirical investigation of linguistic conventions can yield (a) a conception of mental life as proceeding from mental activity/process through an instantaneous mental event to a mental disposition, and (b) an argument against the existence of abstract objects such as the mind and its faculties.
Keywords: picture theory of meaning
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 1995c Conceptual Analysis as the Empirical Study of Linguistic Convention.pdf

Place, U. T. (1996m). Metaphysics as the empirical investigation of the interface between language and reality. Acta Analytica,11(15), 97-118.
[Abstract]The rules of syntax and semantics on conformity to which linguistic communication depends are construed as social conventions instilled and maintained by the error-correcting practices of a linguistic community. That conception argues for the revival of conceptual analysis construed as the empirical investigation of such conventions using the ethnomethodological thought experiment as its primary research tool, and for a view of metaphysics as the empirical study of the interface between utterances and the reality they depict.
[References]  [Talks]  [2 referring publications by Place]  
Download: 1996m Metaphysics as the Empirical Study of the Interface between Language and Reality.pdf

Place, U. T. (2000e). Behaviorism as an ethnomethodological experiment: Flouting the convention of rational agency. Behavior & Philosophy, 28(1/2), 57. www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/27759404.pdf
[Abstract]As interpreted here, Garfinkel's "ethnomethodological experiment" (1967) demonstrates the existence of a social convention by flouting it and observing the consternation and aversive consequences for the perpetrator which that provokes. I suggest that the hostility which behaviorism has provoked throughout its history is evidence that it flouts an important social convention, the convention that, whenever possible, human beings are treated as and must always give the appearance of being rational agents. For these purposes, a rational agent is someone whose behavior is controlled by a logically consistent body of means-end beliefs ("rules" in Skinner's terminology) and complementing desires which between them provide a basis for predicting how the individual will behave and for suggesting what arguments will persuade the agent to modify his or her beliefs and the behavior based upon them. The behaviorist flouts this convention by suggesting that its fictional character makes it unsuitable for the purposes of scientific explanation of behavior. The hostility that this suggestion provokes is evidence of the importance attached by the verbal community both to preserving a consistent and rational connection between what is said and what is done and presenting it as part of the natural order of things.
[References]  [Talks]  
Download: 2000e Behaviorism as an Ethnomethodological Experiment.pdf