Meaning in Science, Evaluative Scientific Concepts, and the Fact-Value Separability of Mixed Social Science

I am proposing to examine, in detail, Hilary Putnam's claim that the 'irreducibly evaluative' content of our evaluative concepts makes empirical

social scientific inquiries into those concepts 'fact-value inseparable.' In so doing I will develop a taxonomization of the different senses in which science can be 'fact-value inseparable.'

To facilitate the clear development of this taxonomization I will develop an explicit theory of meaning, specifically for science, using normative

inferentialist semantics. I will also draw on the philosophical literature on the quantification of knowledge to develop formal models illustrating

how questions, and answers to them, can have 'degrees of irreducibly evaluative informational content.' These models will help to make precise what might otherwise seem to be vague and therefore unserious claims about fact-value separabillity.

I will apply these ideas to a series of detailed case studies on the measurement of evaluative concepts from different ends of a spectrum of

evaluative informational content. In so doing, I will expect to partially vindicate, and crucially clarify, Putnam's argument.

This analysis has the potential to (1) facilitate methodological reflection and adjustment which can help make empirical inquiries into evaluative

concepts more transparent and useful, and (2) show how we can respond to claims which exaggerate the 'fact-value inseparability' of social science, in a way that potentially promotes undue scepticism about social science.