Scientific activities strongly depend on concepts and classifications to represent the world in an orderly and workable manner. This creates a trade-off. On the one hand, it is important to leave space for conceptual and classificatory criticism. On the other hand, agreement on which concepts and classifications to use, is often crucial for communication and the integration of research and ideas. In this paper, we show that this trade-off can sometimes best be resolved through conceptual governance, in which scientific institutions set a collective conceptual standard, and that voting can be a reasonable way to implement that governance. Voting is a means to aggregate among conflicting values, preferences and priorities that often underpin conceptual or classificatory debates, all while signaling ongoing disagreement. We also discuss how the legitimacy of the voting process and its outcome can be ensured.

科学活动强烈依赖概念和分类来以有序且可行的方式表示世界。这就产生了一种权衡。一方面，为概念和分类批评留出空间很重要。另一方面，就使用哪些概念和分类达成一致通常对于交流以及研究和思想的整合至关重要。在本文中，我们表明，这种权衡有时可以通过概念治理得到最好的解决，其中科学机构设定集体概念标准，而投票可以是实施该治理的合理方式。投票是一种聚合相互冲突的价值观、偏好和优先事项的手段，这些价值观、偏好和优先事项往往是概念性或分类性辩论的基础，同时也表明了持续存在的分歧。我们还讨论了如何确保投票过程及其结果的合法性。