Conceptual Exploration
Mr Wills- Adapted from notes provided by Professor Phil Cam
Adapted from notes written by Professor Phil Cam
Conceptual Exploration
• The aim of this presentation is to provide students with tools which are
useful for concept clarification. This is an important step in the process of
analysing arguments or developing one’s own arguments. There is a sense in
which some philosophical issues are simply matters of concept confusion.
1. Individuals and Kinds
• We begin to conceptualise an individual thing by thinking of it as a thing of
some kind. Frankenstein is a villain. To think of him as a man is the most
obvious way but he can also be thought of as an robot, a zombie or a
synthetic human being. It is easy to relate individual things with which you
are acquainted to one or another kind of thing by way of classification.
2. Less and More General Kinds
• Students need to be aware that kinds of things are also examples of more
general kinds of things, as in a canoe being a kind of boat-boats being the
more general kind of thing and canoes being the less general kind of thing.
Categorising , distinction making, definition and a good deal of reasoning
depend on relations between more and less general kinds.
3. Division and Classification
In giving examples of kinds of living things, we are likely to mention animals and plants. We need note, however, that giving examples of living
things is not the same as dividing up living things into their various kinds. For example
•
•
A fairy tale is a story involving fantasy or magic, as in Cinderella
Birds don’t have to have wings. For example, penguins are birds and they don’t have wings.
Here fairy tales are the general kind of which Cinderella is used as an illustrative example; and penguins are given as an example to substantiate the
claim about birds. (one might argue that penguins flippers are wings, but that is another matter.)
By contrast division involves distinguishing between the various kinds of things that fall under a more general kind so as to sort them into
categories. Thus the distinction between animals and plants provides a division between different kinds of living things.
Living Things
Animals
Plants
Division and Classification
While this results in an elementary classification scheme, the process of classification is actually the inverse of division. To classify
something, as we have already seen, is to assign it to a more general kind. In terms of the example, we classify animals and plants when
we place them under the category of living things.
Living Things
Animals
Plants
• The inverse relationship between classification and division allows us to move between these conceptual operations
as we do with addition and subtraction in arithmetic. Learning to employ the elementary operations of classification
and division is also as basic to learning to think conceptually as is mastering addition and subtraction in learning to
think mathematically. Simple and there is much that can be built on them.
Division: Games
Board
Games
Games
Checkers
Snakes
and Ladders
Poker
Card Games
Snap
Tennis
Ball Games
Football
Card Games
Snap
Poker
4. Distinctions
The conceptual structure of logical division is the starting point for both distinction making and classical definition. Let
us begin with distinctions by drawing on the same example of Snap and Poker’ from the division diagram that we
started for games.
Having identified as precisely as possible the general kind of thing with which they are dealing one needs to work out
how to work out how to distinguish the particulars in question from one another-how, among card games, for example,
to distinguish the particulars from one another- how among card games, for example, to distinguish between ‘snap’ and
‘poker’. Here it needs to be stressed that they are not looking for incidental differences. While there are many
differences between ‘snap’ and ‘poker’, those dealing with the object of the game and how to achieve it are the essential
ones. In Snap you win by ending up with all the cards in the pack, whereas in poker you win by having a stronger hand
than the other participants. To collect cards in snap you have to be the first to call ‘Snap’ when a card is played of the
same value as the one already on display, whereas in poker you are assigned 5 cards and can swap cards once to see if
you can get a stronger hand.
Distinctions
Slippers and shoes
Plane and helicopter
Tunnel and Cave
Hopping and jumping
5. Definition
• We now turn to the traditional way of constructing an definition that goes back to Aristotle. On Aristotle’s way of
doing things, definition involves identifying the general kind to which something belongs and the distinctive feature
of features that mark it off from other things of that kind. Thus, a mother is a female (distinctive feature) parent
(general kind), just as Snap is a card game (general kind) in which you try to be the first player to call “Snap” when
someone's card if the same value as one that has already been played (distinctive feature).
• It is easy to see that this way of thinking about definition is related to the operations of classification, division and
distinction making. You first classify whatever you are trying to define under a more general kinds. Then you
identify what is distinctive about it by contrast with other thing in that category or division.
6. Conceptual Opposition
Opposites provide a familiar way in which we often conceive of things. Conceptual opposition categorises things in
what we may call ‘black and white’ terms. This answer is ‘right’. That answer is ‘wrong’. This student is well behaved.
That student behaves badly. Categorising things in this way is different from thinking in terms of what we might call
‘shades of grey’, where we may say that this answer is better than that one, or that someone’s behaviour has improved.
It is conceived as categorical rather than comparative. This is not to condemn black and white conceptions, plainly
sometimes an answer in a test is right and other answers are wrong. The point is to be mindful of whether the situation
calls for categorical or comparative judgement. That requires us to be aware of the terms in which we conceive of the
situation.
Look for examples of where something is being conceived in categorical or comparative terms.
We need to be careful not to confuse conceptual opposition with what is called dichotomous division.;
Dumbbells
Good
Nice
Kind
Honest
Thoughtful
Well Behaved
Polite
Bad
Nasty
Cruel
Dishonest
Thoughtless
Naughty
Rude
Dichotomous division
Games
Board
Games
Not Board
Games
Card
Games
Not Card
Games
Ball Games
Not Ball
Games
Here games are first divided into those that are board games and those that are not. Then the remainder
is divided into those that are card games and those that are not and so on. In this case it is easy to see
that ‘Board games” are not opposite in the way ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ are opposites, any more than ‘card
games’ and ‘games’ that are neither card games not board games’ are opposites. Problems can arise for
the unwary, however, due to the fact that X and not-X can be opposites. Take ‘fair’ and ‘not fair’ or
‘correct’ and ‘not correct’ for example. ‘not fair’ means ‘unfair’ and ‘not correct’ means incorrect’, which
are opposites of ‘fair’ and ‘correct’, respectively. They are unlike ‘small’ and ‘not small’ or ‘tall and ‘not
tall’. The opposite of small is large, just as the opposite to tall is short and something or someone can be
not small without being large or not tall without being short.
7. Comparisons
As noted categorical judgements contrast with comparative ones. It is the contrast between saying that someone’s
conduct is ‘good’ and saying that it is ‘better’. To say that someone’s conduct is good is to categorise it as such , whereas
to say that it is better is to say that it is more acceptable than other conduct with which it is compared.
See Exercise in notes
You should also introduce superlatives, as in tallest, roundest, quickest earliest and silliest. While many comparisons
are a matter of degree, superlatives mark extremities. For instance, the silliest behaviour is that which is silly in the
highest degree, being sillier than all the other behaviour with which it can be compared.
Comparisons
Concept: Speed
Like
lightening
Rocket
Race
Trot
March
Walk
Slowest
Plod
It is important to realise that, while the ordering is comparative, each individual word along the line is in itself categorical, as in travelling at snail’s pace
being one category of speed and rocketing along being another. We also sometimes divide a scale in such a way that small differences of degree are treated
as different in kind. A certain amount of noise in the room may be acceptable, but there is a level when it becomes unacceptable, for example, and while a
mark of 50 is conventionially a pass, 49 is a fail.
Dawdle
•
Crawl
Just as we can assemble families of words using conceptual opposition in Dumbbells, so we can arrange vocabulary under a concept using differences of
degree Consider the concept of speed. Where we refer to ‘slow’ and ‘fast’ in making categorical judgments, we use the words ‘slower’ and ‘faster’ in
making comparative judgments. Admittedly, we sometimes treat ‘slower’ and ‘faster’ as two categories. As in a racehorse breeder singling out the faster
horses from the slower ones. Or a teacher distinguishing the slower learners from the faster ones. Even so, comparisons usually admit of many shades or
degrees, and so it is with regard to speed. This enables us to assemble our vocabulary along an ordinal scale. The easiest way to do this is to draw a line and
place ‘slowest’ at one end and ‘fastest’ at the other. The line then represents a bridge between the slowest and the fastest- or between whatever opposing
superlatives are appropriate for the concept in question.
Snail’s
pace
•
Fastest
8. Analogy
• Analogies are comparisons that depend on different things being alike in some way. Things can be alike because they
share a property or properties that place them in the same category. Thus, Snakes and Ladders and Checkers are alike
in being board games, and 7 and 5 are alike in being odd numbers. These things are alike because they are examples
of the same general kind, which makes this simple form of analogy equivalent to classification.
Board Games
Snakes and
Ladders
Checkers
Odd Numbers
5
7
Analogy
•
In addition to what the two things in each case have in common, there is an obvious difference between them, which would make the exercise equally
good for a distinction-making. In dealing with elementary analogy, however, we focus on what things have in common. Indeed, when things are said to be
analogous because they share a significant property the differences between them are often without interest. Consider customary comparisons, such as
being as quiet as a mouse or as cute as a button. The things compared need to have no significant features in common other than the one in question.
•
Let us proceed to the classical analogy, which takes the form ‘A is to B as C is to D’. For example, ‘mother is to daughter as father is to son.’ The parallel is
easy to see. A mother is a parent of her daughter as a father is a parent to his son. They are parent-child relations, or more exactly, same –sex parent –child
relations. This can be represented in a familiar way.
•
Many other cases fit this pattern, as in ‘ in is to out as up is to down’ (they are both opposite directions) The left hand is to the right hand as p is to q’ (they
are both mirror images of one another) and ‘letter is to word as word is to sentence (they are both part-whole linguistic relations)
Parent-child relations
Mother and Daughter
Father and Son
Analogy
• We cannot always analyse classical analogies in so simple a fashion. Consider ‘A pair of crutches is to a walking stick
as a pair of glasses is to a monocle’. The pattern if two-to-one is obvious, as is the fact that all the things mentioned
are aids. But in this case we do not have a general term or relation that captures the comparison. Still, we can set out
the parallel between these pairs by first identifying the general kind to which each pair belongs and then comparing
the specific features that distinguish the members from on another. In this case, the general kinds are walking aids
and vision aids, and the distinguishing feature is he number of supports or lenses that the aid provides. We can use
division diagrams to represent this.
Walking Aids
With two supports
Crutches
Vision Aids
With one support
Walking stick
With two lenses
Glasses
With one lens
Monocle
Analogy
• This is nothing more than distinction-making carried out in parallel. It
provides another illustration of how different tools of conceptualisation
employ the same basic operations – in this case classical analogy can provide
a challenging exercise for students who have already mastered distinction
making.
9. Multiple Criteria
•
Two and a half thousand years ago, Socrates tried to discover criteria that are common to all cases of judging that something is good, just, brave or
beautiful. In other words, he attempted to discover the nature of the general kind to which all things in such categories belong. Plato’s Dialogues show
Socrates striving but failing to reach this goal. This may be because there is no criteria that apply to all the cases to which such complex and contestable
concepts are applicable. As the 20th century philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein has it, the criteria that govern the application of such concepts may vary
from one case to another, the cases being related by nothing more than a ‘family resemblance.’
•
Young people can begin to discover the criteria to which we appeal in using common ‘family resemblance’ concepts by examining a variety of scenarios
with which they are familiar. If the concept were ‘fairness’, for example their task in each case would be to determine whether what happened was fair or
not fair and why that is so. By examining the reasons that they give for their judgements they can uncover the criteria that govern the application of the
concept in a range of circumstances.
•
As with many of the judgements that we make in life, judgements regarding fairness are often contestable. While there are cases where we would generally
agree that something was fair or not fair, there are others where the matter may not be hotly contested, and not just because of self-interest or bias. This
can be because various factors weigh somewhat differently with different people or people view the situation from different points of view. When it
comes to conceptual exploration, however, the objective is not so much to achieve general agreement about particular cases, as to become clear about the
criteria that apply.
Summary
A concept clarification might involve any of the
following;
Individual and Kinds
Conceptual Opposition
Less and More General Kinds
Comparisons
Division and Classification
Analogy
Distinction
Multiple Criteria
Definition
Exercise
• Do a concept clarification on “Persons” Apply
each of the 9 steps in order to clarify the concept.