Chapter 3: Concepts

Encountering Philosophy

Travis Joseph Rodgers

In the previous chapter, we’ve examined arguments and beliefs. The key takeaway was that we can use the skills of argumentation to evaluate our beliefs. Good arguments will support conclusions that we should, ceteris paribus, believe. If we can find only bad arguments for a conclusion but good arguments for an opposing conclusion, then we should, ceteris paribus, try to jettison that bad belief. One of the major stumbling blocks to effective evaluation of arguments is shoddy terminology. Consider two people arguing about whether something is just (in the sense of justice). After going back and forth a bit, it becomes clear that neither of them has a clear sense of what justice is or entails. How can we expect to arrive at good beliefs about justice if we lack a clear sense of what justice is? In this article, I walk through a view of what concepts are and how we can find clear concepts for our arguments.

Conceptual Analysis

Start with the etymology of “concept.” From the Latin conceptum, a concept is a think that is “grasped together.” A concept is a discrete sort of thing we can think about. In the café where I’m currently sitting, there is a chair, coffee, and humans. Chair, coffee, and human are concepts. Humans can do things like sit in chairs and drink coffee. Sitting and drinking are concepts.

We identify concepts in language by a word or phrase. We can even combine concepts to make more complex concepts. For instance, number is a concept. So are small, smaller, and smallest. And so is prime. We can combine these to create a concept: the smallest prime number.

Now we can think about what it would mean to apply that label “smallest prime number” to something and to do so accurately.

Target Concept: the smallest prime number.

Condition 1: Must be a number.

Condition 2: Must be prime.

Condition 3: There cannot be anything that meets conditions 1 and 2 and is smaller.

When we analyze a concept, we break it down into its most fundamental attributes. We’re trying to identify two things. We want to find all the necessary attributes of that concept. We call these things necessary conditions. We also want to find sufficient conditions. When we add these two things together, we’re trying to find the “individually necessary, jointly sufficient” conditions. Let’s explore these two types of conditions.

Necessary Conditions

Suppose it’s true that all Xs are Ys. It could be that all people eligible for the office of President of the US are at least 35 years of age. Meeting the age requirement is a necessity of being eligible. So, if you’re under 35, you are ineligible. A necessary condition of being a prime number is being divisible only by 1 and the number itself.

Note that just because a condition is necessary for X, that doesn’t mean that it’s sufficient for Y. In other words, sometimes meeting a necessary condition of X isn’t enough to make you an X. For instance, many people are 35 or older but are not eligible for the office of President of the US. That’s because there are other necessary conditions, like being a natural born citizen. What do we call a condition that is “enough” to qualify us? A sufficient condition.

Sufficient Conditions

All Ys are X, if Y is sufficient for X. In other words, being Y is enough for being X. If we know someone is eligible for the office of President of the US, that person is at least 35 years old and a natural-born citizen. On the other hand, being eligible for that office is not necessary for being 35+. Many people are 35+ and ineligible for the office. Their failure to meet a necessary condition is why they have insufficient qualifications.

Three Results of Conceptual Analysis

When we analyze a concept, we’ll generally find one of three results. Either we’ll find a set (a collection) of individually necessary (each one is required) and jointly sufficient conditions of that concept, like in the prime number example. Or, we’ll fail in one of two ways.

An analysis might fail because of inconsistency. What are the necessary conditions of “Triangle Circle?” I suppose it must be a square and a circle. Are these characteristics consistent? In other words, can something have both these characteristics (in the same way, at the same time)? No. Triangle – inscribed angles = 180 degrees. Circle – inscribed angles = 360 degrees. It is impossible to have both those characteristics, so “triangle circle” fails to identify a real concept.

A second sort of failure might result from ambiguity. A word or phrase may correspond to multiple concepts. Consider the word “bank.” A boundary of a body of water is a bank. So is a financial institution. There are no necessary and sufficient conditions that apply to both sorts of things. So, we have failed to identify one and only one concept. We can fix this sort of analysis by specifying which of the concepts (not words) we are seeking.

Concepts That Matter

So far, so good for uncontroversial stuff, but let’s return to our example of justice. “Justice requires fairness,” someone might say. One response is to ask, “Oh, yeah?” When we do this, we’re asking whether the claim in question is true. This is a call for sufficient evidence.

What if instead someone asks, “So what?” This person is asking why it matters. Why should I care about your concept of justice? This isn’t a call for proof. It’s a call for explication, for an explanation of the significance. Sometimes, knowing why someone wants to know helps us analyze a concept. Why do people wonder whether humans have free will? Perhaps because a concept of free will can help us determine whether we should hold people responsible for their actions. That seems important. Perhaps the same goes for justice. We want to know how we should treat others. Fairness seems relevant.