Conceptual Analysis

Conceptual analysis is kind of like giving definitions:

Conceptual Analysis: A description of constituent properties of a complex property or relation.

Some complex property is usually built up of simpler properties. An example of a conceptual analysis is:

X is a triangle = df. X is a shape with exactly three angles and straight lines in Euclidean space.

This is more than a definition is picking out some properties of a property. Also, = df. means by definition. Another example:

X is a bachelor = df. X is an unmarried man.

Here a conceptual analysis is:

  1. Non-circular, the analysis refers to properties that aren’t the same thing as itself.
  2. It tries to include everything it intends to include and exclude what it intends to not exclude. It tries to pick out the properties that do this. (It’s not possible to have one condition without the other).

Conceptual analysis helps you:

  1. Understand reality: reality contains things with properties, and conceptual analysis picks out properties.
  2. Identify Criterion: helps you find criteria that picks out different kinds of things.
  3. Eliminate Ambiguity and Confusion: Allows you to clearly explain what a concept is.
  4. Sort Through Theoretical Commitments: helps you figure out what you believe and roots out weird concepts.

There are a couple of distinctions:

  1. Criterion: A guide to finding something.
  2. Analysis: what something essentially is. It is necessarily true, applies to all things, is eternally true, and is true even if no one adopts it.

For instance, a clear drinkable liquid is a criterion for water, but h2o is an analysis of water. Someone who goes out on a lot of dates is a good criterion for a bachelor, but an unmarried man is an analysis of a bachelor.

Concepts go on until you hit primitives:

Conceptual Primitives: concepts we intuitively understand.

We need some rules for treating something like a primitive:

  1. Very clear you are pointing out instances of the property.
  2. There are repeated failures of analyzing a concept (unanalyzable).
  3. There are only a few primitives.

If you give a million definitions and the concept is clearly present as a real thing, then it’s a candidate for a primitive.

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