(1) Introduction to Descriptive Claims

(2) Review types of descriptive claims

(3) First step in evaluation: concepts

(1) Descriptive claims: varieties and link to causal claims

(2) Concepts and Why we need them

(3) From concepts to observable traits (Variables)

(4) Making measurements

(1) "Russia is a democracy."

(2) "58% of countries worldwide are democracies."

(3) "Countries in Western Europe are more democratic than those in Eastern Europe."

(4) "Democracies have been backsliding (becoming less democratic) since the election of Donald Trump"

• What is the first thing we need to know to begin evaluating these claims?

(1) "Russia is a democracy."

(2) "58% of countries worldwide are democracies."

(3) "Countries in Western Europe are more democratic than those in Eastern Europe."

(4) "Democracies have been backsliding (becoming less democratic) since the election of Donald Trump"

We need to know what it is to be a "democracy" or to be "democratic".

"The election of Donald Trump led countries around the world to become less democratic."

• To evaluate this causal claim, we need to answer some descriptive claims (more on this later) and some definitions.

First step:

We need to be able to classify phenomena/things/events into types.

A useful definition:

In social science we discuss "cases", not in the legal sense, but in this sense:

case:

a specific individual, organization, entity, event, or action, existing in a specific time and place.

We are often interested in identifying what general categories this specific case belongs to, what is its "type".

At a general level:

concepts: abstract or general categories that we (humans) apply to particular cases/instances. They abstract away from the highly specific, complex, and often unique features of reality.

• this definition is incomplete, more to come

Our thought and our language is rooted in concepts!

Abstraction comes at a price

For example:

• "Chairs"
• Proper names of people
• Proper names of countries: e.g. "Syria"