In a paper delivered to the
Aristotelian Society on 12 March 1956,
[1] Walter Bryce Gallie (1912–1998) introduced the term
essentially contested concept to facilitate an understanding of the different applications or interpretations of the sorts of abstract,
qualitative, and
evaluative notions
[2] — such as "
art" and "
social justice" — used in the domains of
aesthetics,
political philosophy,
philosophy of history, and
philosophy of religion.
Garver (1978) describes their use as follows
Simply put, an essentially contested concept is one where there is widespread agreement on an abstract core notion itself (e.g., "fairness"), whilst there is endless argument about what might be the best instantiation, or realization of that notion.[4]
They are "concepts the proper use of which inevitably involves endless disputes about their proper uses on the part of their users",[5] and these disputes "cannot be settled by appeal to empirical evidence, linguistic usage, or the canons of logic alone ".[6]
