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Concepts
(copyright © 2009 Jesse Butler)
In this course, like any other course in philosophy, certain assumptions must be made inorder for our study to begin. Our most fundamental assumption, that I'll try to made asexplicit as I can in these notes so that we may understand that which most fundamentallyguides our study, has to do with what the text book calls 'concepts'.What is a concept? It's unclear that there are concepts (as certain entities which exist inthe same way physical objects exist). But what is clear, or at least what we must assumeis clear if a beginning is to be made in Introduction to Philosophy, is that talk of “conceptual mastery” makes sense. So what is conceptual mastery? The short answer can be given by an example:An individual (Andy) has conceptual mastery with regard to the predicate 'is a dog' if Andy can successfully sort individuals into dogs and non-dogs. Of course, if Andy isconceptually competent with respect to dogs, then Andy can tell actual dogs he's presented with from actual things he's presented with that are not dogs. But, if Andy isconceptually competent with dogs, he can ALSO tell dogs apart from non-dogs in"counter-factual" or merely imagined situations. That is, if we describe to Andy animaginary or fictional situation in enough detail, then Andy can tell if the imaginarysituation we've described includes a dog.So to have conceptual mastery is to be disposed to have at at least some knowledge aboutthe world and to be able tocommunicate about imaginary situations with others who havesimilar conceptual mastery. Conceptual mastery is something which guarantees that our thoughts and words have a sort of "appropriate" or "accurate" relation to the world wethink and speak about. Necessary and Sufficient Conditions Necessary ConditionsWhat are the conditions under which the concept of being a dog correctly applies tosomething? First off, a thing must be alive or must have been alive at one time for it to beconsidered a dog. Second, the thing must be a mammal.Third, the thing must have (or have had or been disposed to have had under the rightconditions) four legs and a tail. Forth, the thing must not be disposed to perspire, butrather it's tongue must be disposed to evaporate water on a hot day. Each of theseconditions is necessary for the concept of being a dog. In other words, if the conceptDOG applies to something, that thing must (1) be living or have died, (2) must be or have been a mammal, (3) must have or have had four legs and a tail, etc. We might symbolizethe situation in the following way:DOG
being alive or having died
 
DOG
being a mammalDOG
having four legs + a tailIf being alive or having died is a necessary condition for the concept of DOG to apply,then something's being a dog
implies
that that thing is alive or has died. The arrow "
"stands for "implies".Sufficient Conditions Now what is sufficient for the concept of being a dog to apply to something? In other words, what conditions are those that, if they are satisfied by object Z, are such as toguarantee that Z is a dog? One proposal is that each of the necessary conditions (1), (2),(3), ... for being a dog are TOGETHER a sufficient condition. So if something (1) is aliveAND (2) it is a mammal AND (3) it has four legs and a tail AND ...We’d write:(1) AND (2) AND (3) AND ...
DOGif we could fill out (1), (2) , (3), ... well enough we could get a sufficient condition for  being a dog.A way to learn and keep clear necessary and sufficient conditions is remember thefollowing way of symbolizing the situation in which having the property
 P 
1
and property
 P 
2
imply the having of property
 P 
3
. (We use the shorthand "&" for "and").
 P 
1
&
 P 
2
 
 
 P 
3
 From this we know that having
both
 
 P 
1
 
and 
 
 P 
2
is a SUFFICIENT condition for something's having
 P 
3
, and that being
 P 
3
is a NECESSARY condition on somethingwhich has
both
 
 P 
1
 
and 
 
 P 
2
.(Things seem fairly straightforward (simple even) when we're talking about the conceptof being a dog. Things become much more interesting and difficult when we're concernedwith the concept of having a mind, the concept of having free will, the concept of beingthe same person over time, the concept of the good and the concept of God.)The Socratic MethodWe're interested in determining the necessary and sufficient conditions for applications of certain concepts. Unfortunately, things won't be as simple as there they were when wewere searching for the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of theconcept DOG.We try to discover the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of conceptsusing the Socratic method. In the Socratic method, participants in a discussion engage in
 
a dialogue (the procedure is sometimes called a "Socratic dialogue") of a partricular sort.First, someone poses a question such as "What is virtue?" or "What is goodness?" or "When does an individual have a mind?" Someone else, proposes an answer, such as "Athing has a mind when the parts of that thing are of the right sort to perform the functionthat a human brain performs." The first person, says "Well, in that case, if all the starts inthe sky just happened to be arranged in such a way that the structure, structuralorganization and function relative to this structural organization were exactly analogousto the arrangement of neurons in a human brain, would this configuration of stars in thesky have a mind as the person with the brain has a mind?" The conversational partner then says, "Well, probably not ..." And has to think a bit more about how to narrow or otherwise modify the claims he has made about the necessary and sufficient conditionsfor a thing to have a mind.With this sort of question and answer, the participants in a Socratic dialogue work towardfinding the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of certain concepttogether. Two things are necessary for the Socratic method to succeed. First, the participants must work together in a friendly and helpful way: they must work toward theanswer as a team in the
agonistic
spirit. Scorn and derision have no place in a Socraticdialogue; harsh words only make the answer harder to find for everybody involved.Second, each participant must struggle to see problems with any set of necessary andsufficient conditions that are proposed for the application of a certain concept. Mostimportantly, one must examine one's own proposals as critically as (perhaps even moreso) one examines others. It's only by "trying on" a set of necessary and sufficientconditions that we can see why the proposal falls short of what we desire for it.Conceivability and PossibilityThe claim that it's possible for a concept to apply if and only if it's coherently conceivablethat the concept applies is a touchy, hotly contested philosophical position, but we mustassume it as our starting point. We'll say that something is logically possible (it'sexistence leads to no contradiction) if and only if it is
coherently imaginable
(that is, if and only if, it is imaginable by someone who has conceptual mastery of all the relevantconcepts involved in the imagining of this thing).The important thing to notice now is that the set of logically possible things is muchgreater than the set of physically possible things. For example, it's logically possible thatthe speed of light was faster than it actually is. We can see this because we can coherentlyimagine a universe in which light travels twice as fast as it actually does. It's physicallyimpossible for light to travel any faster than it actually does. The actual laws of natureconstrain the speed of light.In Socratic dialogues, we're concerned with the notion of logical possibility (given bycoherent conceivability) rather than any narrower sort of possibility (such as physical or  biological possibility) because we wish to find the necessary and sufficient conditions for the application of concepts. These conditions will span the entire realm of logical
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