Overview
In the philosophy of science, explication refers to the process of creating precise and logically consistent definitions for fluid and ambiguous concepts.
In Logical Foundations of Probability (1950), Rudolf Carnap proposed four principles for explication:
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Similarity: new definitions or formulations for a concept should map onto similar old ones
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Exactness: definitions should have strict logical or mathematical expressions
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Fruitfulness: new definitions and concepts should be useful in ways that old ones are not
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Simplicity: between competing concepts or definitions that satisfy the other criteria, choose the simplest option
A basic example of explication is the concept of “temperature.” We might say something is warm and cold to create prescriptions for daily life, like “drink warm water in the mornings to clear your sinuses” or “take cold showers to boost your metabolism,” but we can’t test the validity of these recommendations until we properly define what “warm” and “cold” mean. “Temperature” as a concept allows us to directly reference the kinetic energy of a group of particles and compare it to another, so we can set thresholds for what’s considered “warm” vs “cold.” We can go back as far as Aristotle’s breakdown of the physical world to see the observation that many binary scales are actually measuring a single property rather than two different ones, such as cold being the absence of heat or lightness being a lack of weight. Explicating these concepts into something like “temperature” which can be approaches through standardized measurements is a relatively recent practice. Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit introduced the mercury thermometer and a standardized scale for using it in 1724, followed by Anders Celsius proposing another scale in 1742.
Substance use disorders (SUDs) have always been particularly tricky to explicate. Even the term SUD is subject to one day being replaced with another that might step away from the implications of the word “disorder,” which necessarily involves some concept of ordered or moderated use.