Investigating the Concept of a Concept
What is your idea of a “concept”?
I envision this story as a “seed story” — the seed of an ongoing, communal investigation into our concept of a concept. At the end of this brief introduction, I will ask you what you think a concept is.
What is the meaning of the word ‘concept’? The word apparently derives from the Latin verb ‘concipere’, meaning ‘to take in and hold’, or ‘to conceive’, or ‘to become the mother of’. But while the history of the word is suggestive, it hardly answers the questions we pose today, as we try to understand, explain, and grasp the meaning of our concept of a concept.
In this story, I will distinguish between using a word to express or refer to something (with double quotation marks, as in saying or writing “concept”), referring to the word itself (with single quotation marks, as in the word ‘concept’), and referring to the concept employed (with angle brackets, as in <concept>). The topic of this article is therefore the concept of <concept>.
One place to start is examining the acquisition or learning of a concept. When do we say that a child has acquired or learned any particular concept? Let’s consider three examples.
Example 1: the concept of the number <ten> (or numerically, <10>). We normally say “she has the concept of 10” only after the child has become reasonably adept at counting to 10, and only after she has learned the practice of counting 10 things. Later, she refines her concept of 10 by being able to correctly perform arithmetic practices, such as addition and multiplication. She understands <10> much better when she knows that “10 x 2 = 20”. And after she no longer makes grammatical mistakes using the word ‘ten’ in common sentences.
Example 2: the concept of <friend>. As a child gets older, meets more people, and has more experiences, we can begin to say, “she understands what it is to be a friend”. Here again, there are practices that we normally associate with being a friend to someone, and practices that we consider antithetical to being someone’s friend. Learning what those practices are, and learning how to be a friend, is rather complicated. Over time, we notice that she makes true assertions about friends, and she knows how “true friends” do not act. She uses the word ‘friend’ grammatically in making those assertions.
Example 3: the concept of <electron>. In school, most children today learn about electrons at some point. They learn to make true statements about electrons, such as “electrons are negatively charged”. They learn that some grammatical statements about electrons are nonsense, such as “electrons are red” or “all electrons taste sweet” — asserting such things shows that she has not yet acquired the concept of <electron>. The young person may later go on to work in science laboratories or with technical equipment, and she may learn many practices associated with tracking electrons, or with isolating electrons for quantum computing.
Considering these examples, let’s tentatively list a few things we consider true when we describe a person as possessing a concept. First, she can perform at least basic practices associated with the concept. Second, she knows at least basic true statements about things referred to with that concept. Third, she can spot at least basic nonsensical statements about such things, even when the statement is grammatical. Fourth, “having a concept” seems to be a matter of degree — a person can refine her concept over time, as she has more experience with things named by the concept. There are probably other features we can add to this list, but these will do for now.
Now, look back over what we have just done. Wittgenstein, in his later years, would have called the above a “philosophical investigation.” And about 2,500 years ago, Socrates in Athens might have had a form of such a discussion. I say “a form of,” because while Socrates undoubtedly had concepts (we would say, using our concept of <concept>), I doubt that he had our concept of <concept>, and he certainly did not have the concept of <electron>. Also, at the time of Socrates, Plato struggled to articulate his concept of <Idea> or <Form>—we still try to understand Plato’s concept.
In short, our inquiry has been around for a long time, although in various forms.
So, what is our concept of <concept>? Rather, I should ask, “What currently is my concept of a <concept>?”, because I realize that I will refine it more over time.
My answer at the moment: “My concept of <concept> has multiple dimensions, is semi-structured, and is somewhat mysterious. But it involves being able to perform relevant practices, including the practice of making statements with the word ‘concept’ that most people in my community consider both sensible and true.”
(I used the word ‘mysterious’ in my answer because the concept of <concept> induces a sense of wonder in me. But the concepts of <mysterious> and <wonder> will have to wait for another day.)
I am calling this story a “seed story”—the seed of an ongoing investigation into the concept of <concept>. As part of this investigation, I invite you to answer the same question: “What is your concept of a concept?”
With your responses and those of others, and with my replies, we can together develop an account of the meaning of our word ‘concept’.
This investigation will take us into topics such as “reference,” because don’t we use concepts to refer to things in the world? And into topics such as dictionaries, because aren’t dictionaries in some sense lists of our concepts?
But rather than my simply writing my thoughts about such topics, I invite us to conduct this investigation together.
What do you think a concept is? What is your meaning when you use the word ‘concept’?
