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That's a rather strange question. Perhaps it seems that way to me because I am settling in nicely into analytic philosophy, and overarching conceptual frameworks are very much out of fashion in that sphere. Such frameworks have well-understood problems, and well-understood problems are of no interest to analytic philosophers. What takes its steads are projects, which are substantially different from conceptual frameworks and which I recommend wholeheartedly. Whereas a conceptual framework is a given from which further analysis ensues, a project is a goal towards which one works, by hook or by crook, as long as the goal is not undermined. It is through the rise and fall of various projects that the field of analytic philosophy advances. Some people make it their project to justify a conceptual framework, but that is an extremely problematic task, for any conceptual framework. Much more common, but not much less ambitious, is to make a broad claim about some quality shared by some type of phenomenon, like philosophic behaviourism's claim that all human actions are a complex set of dispositions to act in certain ways in certain situations, nothing more and nothing less, a project which failed comprehensively in a very instructive manner.
It's easy to see how such a broad, ambitious project can be very similar to a conceptual framework, but it's normally a confusion to see it as such. If I might be as brave to say so, I'd claim that most any example of the use of a conceptual framework is an example of this type of confusion. It's the mark of what Marx would often and impolitely call a 'vulgar economics', and which in turns marks a lot of spillt ink as 'vulgar Marxism', for instance, to take what is an attempt to give an informative explanation as an immutable law to which all else must fall in accord. In the example of what Marx had in mind, consider someone accepting Malthus' theory of population growth, which is fine, and then dismissing some fact solely because it is not in line with what Malthus says, which assuredly is not fine, since refusing to accept counterexamples to your assumptions on the ground of your assumptions is simply circular reasoning. Another term that comes to mind is 'magical thinking' - because I believe X, it must be that phenomena 1 through whatever will fall in accord with X. This is simply wrong, but is a hard fault to avoid at times. So much for the strengths and weaknesses of conceptual frameworks.
My first reaction to your question is to recommend you read Immanuel Kant's The Critique of Pure Reason, or a comprehensive study of the same. It'll put you on the right track, and keep you fruitfully occupied for a month or two. I recommend the Norman Kemp Smith translation.
It's less a manual and more a general account of systems of conceptualisation. Just as well, because nobody really understands everything Kant says. It is also, possibly, one of the most important books in the Western intellectual tradition. One way of describing Kant's project is that he attempts to show how human life is an expression of a particularly human form of reason, a type of which any individual person's reasoning is a token. It's a pretty extreme claim, but it has legs like few other things. I recommend the text, because, if there is value to what Kant is saying, it clearly indicates that something that is one or many conceptual frameworks, or some degree of the same, is at work at every level of our cognitive activity in every cognitive activity undertaken by a human being. I find this independently plausible, because I have always felt that the world is a very thin thing, is something that is spotwelded together by its audience to match whatever plan they might have at hand at the moment. When I say world, I mean the world of experience, which is the only thing I think we have any access to. |
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