Increasing a concept’s intension can increase, not shrink, its extension

Evidence

So with real data we can see that by increasing intension from two dimensions to four we increase extension half the time from 10 or 11 welfare states to the 13 welfare states that result from the application of the “at least 2 out of 4” rule. — Gary Goertz, Social Science Concepts, 506

Categorization

• DEEPTHINKING: Directly inverts the folk assumption that more defining criteria must yield fewer cases — here more dimensions yielded more welfare states in half the tests.
• XREF: Pays off the ladder-of-generality argument set up at location 501, and speaks to the ‘less is more’/‘more is less’ framing in this literature.