EXPLICATE
What to Explicate?
To explicate is to make clear or plain for the purposes of comprehension. Since explication refers to the process of clarification, be clear about what you are trying to elucidate. As mentioned in the notes to other operators, don’t explicate an indicator if your goal is to clarify a measure (or visa versa). There are two notorious processes of this kind – conflation, in which separate issues are treated as just one; and, misdirection, in which one points to the wrong thing due to ignorance, or in order to mislead.
Why to Explicate?
Both the ancient philosophical tradition and modern pragmatism have assumed that making some issue, or topic, or question clear, because such explication would assist in productive reasoning and/or effective decisions/choices. This is often true, but contrary to both ancient philosophy and modern pragmatism, it is NOT always true. Sometimes confusion, or “muddying the waters” can be just was the person intends. Deviousness!
When to Explicate?
Clarify an issue (or whatever) when the results achieved will be worth the effort expended. This is “benefit-cost analysis” applied to reasoning – it is the essence of Herbert Simon’s concept of satisficing. All such cognitive activity takes a certain amount of time and effort – if the result is worth that time and effort, then it is a good investment of your attention, but otherwise you are wasting your cognitive resources.
Whether to Explicate?
There are (at least) two senses in which explication might be “worth it”. One would be judged on the basis of the outcome – see the previous section. The other would be if the activity gave some intrinsic satisfaction to the person, regardless of it wider implications. So if the results were worth it in the sense of an extrinsic goal achieved, or if the intrinsic satisfaction made the activity gratifying anyway, then clarify. If not, don’t bother.
How to Explicate?
If the exercise is over an important issue, use the MindMap Methodology (as found in the Introduction). If there isn’t the time, or other constraints apply, do an intuitive version in your head. Either way, you will be deconstructing (decomposing the concepts into their component parts) and reconstructing (reassembling the components in some more insightful way). Discuss it; use a dictionary, thesaurus, encyclopaedia, or other reference.
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