Hossein Jorjani
First publication: 2026 – 06 – 30
The phenomenon of conceptual scaffolding may be clarified by analogy with coordinate transformations in linear algebra. When moving from one coordinate system to another, a point or vector is represented differently according to the basis in use. To understand the new representation, one must initially map it back onto the old coordinates, so that the relation between the two systems becomes intelligible.
A similar process occurs in epistemology during conceptual or paradigmatic change. A new framework is rarely understood in isolation. It must first be related to familiar conceptual axes before its own internal structure can be grasped. Without such relational mapping, the new vocabulary risks appearing unintelligible, arbitrary, or merely alien.
Bacon’s appeal to analogy with the familiar reflected this need for translational intelligibility. His new method could not simply replace inherited forms of reasoning without first showing how it corresponded to, corrected, or displaced them. Such analogies function as epistemic scaffolding: they allow communication across paradigms while the underlying conceptual coordinates gradually shift.
The analogy has limits, for conceptual change is not always a mere change of representation. Sometimes the objects of inquiry themselves are redefined by the new framework. Yet even then, transition requires mediation. New systems of thought become intelligible not by severing all ties with the old, but by passing through temporary structures of comparison, translation, and analogy.
Hossein Jorjani 