Vanguardia Program

Video lecture # 9
Name: Christian Coronel Tenesaca

 In the development of science, concepts play an important role; what are

concepts, and why do we need them?

Definition answers ‘what’, rather than ‘why’, questions. Also a concept is an idea of
something formed by mentally combining all its characteristics or particulars; a
construct. We need the concepts because are integral to every argument; they
address a basic question of research: “what are we talking about?”

Concepts get in the way of clear understanding when the same concept is employed
with a different meaning in different intellectual traditions, or when different fields
use different concepts to denote what is in fact the same thing.

 For science, what are properties of good concepts?

o Resonance: fit with the established meaning of a term or phenomenon;

sometimes neologisms are unavoidable and desirable, but it is best to use
these sparingly.
o Domain: the language community and the empirical terrain embraced
should be clear.
o Consistency: the meaning of a concept should be consistent throughout a
work or domain.
o Differentiation: A concept cannot be internally coherent unless it is
distinguishable from other concepts.
o Discrimination: A good concept has clearly demarcated boundaries. The key
is to specify carefully how a concept fits within a larger semantic field
containing neighboring concepts and how it differs from these other
concepts.