lllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllHilllllllll aim we ‘5‘ 31293 10421 9500 This is to certify that the thesis entitled A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF CONCEPT AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE SOCIAL STUDIES presented by Robert D. Aumaugher has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree injecondeducation and Curriculum 0. ,gmag it? EEQMZL: ajor professor [hue November 10, 1978 0-7 639 LIBRARY was” I" . © 1978 ROBERT DALE AUMAUGHER ll ALL RIGHTS RESERVED A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF CONCEPT AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE SOCIAL STUDIES By Robert D. Aumaugher A DISSERTATION Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Department of Secondary Education and Curriculum 1978 ABSTRACT A PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS OF THE CONCEPT OF CONCEPT AND ITS APPLICATION IN THE SOCIAL STUDIES By Robert D. Aumaugher There is in various fields much interest in the teaching of concepts. This is especially so in the social studies. Understand— ing what is involved in the teaching of concepts is dependent upon there being an understanding of what a concept is. While most social studies theorists see the necessary priority of such understanding, their accounts of what a concept is are limited and relatively superficial. Furthermore, their accounts are often conflicting. Also, social studies theorists usually turn to the work on concepts by psychologists for aid in getting clear what a concept is. Little appeal is made to the thinking of philosophers and in particular to the thinking of Ludwig Wittgenstein. This dissertation looks afresh at what a concept is and at how a concept should be taught. The particular view delineated stems from the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein, maintaining that concepts do not necessarily mark off essential, common, defining features. It is argued that the view delineated has greater utility in the social studies than the views currently promulgated by social studies theorists. Robert D. Aumaugher There are three substantive chapters. Chapter II develops, from the work of Wittgenstein, a particular view about what concepts are and some techniques for use in analyzing and teaching concepts. Chapter III illustrates the use of those techniques by applying them to an analysis of the concept of justice. Included in Chapter III is a summary of an analysis of the concept of concept--i.e., an analysis of what a concept is. Chapter IV appraises the views of Barry K. Beyer and of Maurice P. Hunt and Lawrence E. Metcalf, contemporary social studies theorists, regarding what concepts are and how concepts should be taught. Their views are contrasted with that of the dissertation. Particular criticisms are brought to bear on their views. There is also discussion of how the view of the dissertation avoids those criticisms, thus rendering it a more useful view than the others. The final chapter makes suggestions for further deliberation and investigation. To Peg, friend and mate, you are for me the heart of the Good Life. To my mother, father, and sister for all that you have done. ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank the members of my committee for their continued and patient direction of my efforts regarding the creation of this work. They are George Ferree, George Barnett, Keith Anderson and Lewis Zerby. My relationship to these men was not only student to profes- sor but also was and is friend to friend. It is to their credit and a sign of educational progress that they are able to properly main— tain both sorts of relationship. I especially thank my chairman George Ferree. I could not have found better guidance through the labyrinth of philosophical thinking. I thank also my other friends and acquaintances for their contributions to the completion of this work. I particularly thank Cara Vaughn not only for typing the dissertation,‘but also for her very able assistance in directing the production of final copy. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF FIGURES Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . II. WITTGENSTEIN AND CONCEPTS Wittgenstein and What a Concept Is . Wittgenstein and the Concept of Game The Concept of Game and Other Concepts: The. "Look and See" Injunction . Concepts and a Term' 5 Use in the Language Wittgenstein and the Use of the Term "Use" Wittgenstein and the Ways of Mapping a Concept Mapping a Concept: Two General Consider- ations . . . . . . . . . Mapping a Concept: Particular Techniques III. THE CONCEPT OF CONCEPT An Illustration of the Analysis of Concepts Preliminary Comment Regarding the Mapping of. the Use of the Terms "Justice" and "Concept" . An Illustration of the Analysis of a Concept--Mapping the Use of the Term "Justice" . The Concept of Concept--A Summary of the Use of . the Term Concept . IV. THE CONCEPT OF CONCEPT AND THE SOCIAL STUDIES . Beyer on Concepts . . Preliminary Comments on Beyer' s View Beyer' s View of What a Concept Is and of How. a COncept Should be Taught . Beyer' s View of Forming a Concept of Landscape. . . . Difficulties with Beyer' s View iv Page vi 51 55 68 73 76 76 80 82 86 Chapter Mapping the Use of "Landscape" . . Comparison with Beyer' s View and Further Appraisal . . Hunt and Metcalf on Concepts . Beyer and Hunt and Metcalf Contrasted. Hunt and Metcalf on What a Concept Is . . Hunt and Metcalf on How to Teach Concepts Difficulties with Hunt and Metcalf's View Differences Between Hunt and Metcalf' s View . and the Map of Use View and Further Appraisal . . . V. SUMMARY SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY LIST OF FIGURES Figure Page 1. The Diagram of Beyer's Image of a Concept of Decision Making . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8l 2. The Diagram Representing Beyer's Mental Image of a Concept of Landscape . . . . . . . . . . 84 vi CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Concepts . . . are the basis of all thinking and know- ing. (Teachers sometimes say that thinking is impossible without facts. It is more to the point to say that think- ing is impossible without concepts.) Maurice P. Hunt and Lawrence E. Metcalf, Teaching High School Social Studies What we have to mention in order to explain the signif- icance, I mean the importance, of a concept, are often extremely general facts of nature: such facts as are hardly ever mentioned because of their great generality. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations There is a voluminous literature on concepts. A portion of that literature is devoted to the teaching of concepts to and the formation of concepts in children. Interest in the teaching of concepts is in part a result of the belief that it is through our concepts that we order, perceive and understand the world (reality). Such ordering, perceiving and understanding is assuredly necessary for us to function at all. As such, concept learning and formation is critical in the education of anyone. The concepts an individual holds or has affect the kinds of beliefs held, and subsequently the kinds of action taken, and ultimately the kind of life led. With such basic concerns at stake, it is not surprising that there is so much interest in the teaching and forming of concepts. 1 Indeed, among those concerned with writing about and teach- ing social studies, there is currently much advocacy of and debate about concept-oriented curricula. According to Glen L. Crane, in an article entitled, "The New Social Studies: Recent Attempts to Implement It" (in the January 1974 issue of The Social Studies), During the 1960's . . . more than forty projects were begun (to get the social studies out of the pre-Sputnik dark ages. The object of the new plans was to bring the con- cept and inquiry methods into the social studies; hence, the New Social Studies. In 1965, the Syracuse University Social Studies Curriculum Center “. . . identified and described a number of concepts that may be taught in the social studies classroom.“2 (A report of the Center's project may be found in Roy A. Price et al., Major Concepts for the Social Studies.) In New Approaches to the Teaching of Social Studies: A Report of the Eleventh Yale Conference on the Teaching of Social Studies April 15 and 16, 1966, there is a section entitled 3 "Conceptual Teaching in the Social Studies" by Bertha H. Davis. Verna S. Fancett in 1968, in Verna S. Fancett et al., Social Science Concepts in the Classroom, further discussed the Syracuse project.4 The staff of the Social Studies Curriculum Center at Carnegie-Mellon University (as reported by Edwin Fenton et al. in A High School Social Studies Curriculum for Able Students: Final Report of USOE Project--HS 041 and H-292, 1969), ". . . has identified six types 5 of concepts involved in the social studies." In 1971, the National Council for the Social Studies issued Bulletin No. 45 entitled Concepts in the Social Studies, edited by Barry K. Beyer and Anthony '6 N. Penna. Most recently Fred M. Hechinger in an article entitled "Waxworks History" (in the May, 1976 issue of Saturdpy Review), questions the Organization of American Historians' critical stance towards . . Nebraska's report that its new approach to history, emphasizing "concepts" rather than "facts" is based on the assumption that this will "better prepare the students to understand and cope with the modern world."7 Though certainly not exhaustive, this sample of social studies literature on teaching concepts indicates the extent and currency of discussion about the teachinglyfconcepts in the social studies. It can be seen from this sample that educators writing about the social studies have two major concerns. One is that of arguing for concept-oriented approaches to teaching the social studies. The other is that of identifying and describing particular social studies concepts. These concerns are certainly laudable. However, arguments finrconcept-oriented curricula and the identification and description of particular social studies concepts are dependent upon there being an understanding of what a concept is. This understand- ing is not an arbitrary priority, nor merely a good idea procedur- ally. It is a logical priority, that is, there must be a concept of concept had before there can be further understanding and discrimi- nation. While most social studies theorists see the necessary priority of understanding what a concept is, their accounts of what a concept is are limited and relatively superficial. Furthermore the accounts they do give are often conflicting. The following is a sample from the literature of some of these accounts: 5. A concept is a mental image of something. The "some- thing" may be anything--a concrete object, a type of behavior, an abstract idea. This image has two basic dimensions--the individual components of the concept as well as the relationships of those components to each other and the whole.8 The concept is not a verbalization but rather an abstract awareness of the general attributes of a class. We . . . find it next to impossible to express the abstract attributes that allow us to consider such different animals (dogs) members of the same class.9 A concept is an abstraction--an idea generalized from particular cases.10 The staff of the (Syracuse University Social Studies) Curriculum Center has used as a working definition (of concept) the following composite statement drawn from the literature. A concept is --an individuals (sic) own way of making meaning of things he has experienced. --a mental image which assists a person in classify- ing his experiences, and which continually changes as his experiences accumulate. —-an abstraction or general idea in the mind of a person which represents a class or group of things or actions having certain qualities or character- istics in common. --a synthesis of a number of things an individual has experienced and conclusions he has drawn about his experiences. --represented by a verbal symbol which indicates the real content of the insights and meanings the word evokes in the mind of an individual.11 A concept is a general idea, usually expressed by a word, which represents a class or group of things or actions having certain characteristics in common. Concepts give order and meaning to experience. For example, the concept "horse" connotes a group of animals with certain readily identifiable common characteristics. Unfortunately social studies con- cepts are not always so easy to define as this example. 6. The verbal expression of a concept is a definition. Some concepts, however, are almost never expressed verbally. Bruner comes closest to our meaning when he defines a concept as a category. He would have us think of a concept as a basket into which we put those objects that belong together because of the attributes they are said to share under a given system of clas- sification. A category includes within it a range of discriminably different items which are treated as if they are the same. For example, many discriminably different wars are placed together in a category called civil war. This is done in accordance with certain criteria. Bruner calls these criteria the defining attributes of a category. A particular war can be classified as a civil war only by first defining civil war according to its attributes, and then showing that the war in question has those attributes.13 7. . . . science invents concepts, which are creative ways of structuring our perception of reality.1 Such accounts of what a concept is are ordinarily all that is given prior to the giving of arguments for concept-oriented curricula and the identifying and describing of particular social studies con- cepts. My view, in contrast, is that the question of what a concept is needs to be gone into in greater depth than that indicated by these accounts. Not only is the work on what a concept is limited and rela- tively superficial, there is also a lack of consensus on just what a concept is. As can be seen from the sample, concepts are said to be "mental images," "abstractions," "syntheses," "general ideas," "categories," and "inventions." Also there is, in the sample, fre- quent reference to these "images," "abstractions," "general ideas," etc. being of a class of particulars,each particular having certain qualities or characteristics in comnon with the others in its class. There are two particular views that seem to be representative of many of the others. One, the view of Barry K. Beyer, is that a con- cept is an invented individual mental image of a class of particulars having a characteristic (or set of characteristics) in common. The other, the view of Maurice P. Hunt and Lawrence E. Metcalf, is that a concept is an invented category whose particulars are chosen according to some system of classification (one of which being having characteristics in common). My view, in contrast, is that neither of these views is an accurate account of what a concept is. What then is a concept? Interestingly enough (and part of the reason for undertaking this dissertation) in the social studies literature there seems to be little appeal to the thinking of philosophers and educational philosophers regarding an answer to the question "What is a concept?" Directly pertinent to this ques- tion is the philosophy of Ludwig Wittgenstein. Not only does Wittgenstein present cogent criticisms of certain traditional attempts to answer the general question "What is an X?" but he pro- vides the basis for a positive account of what a concept is and, perhaps more importantly, certain techniques for employment in answering the general question "What is an X?" Why is it important to understand correctly and fully what a concept is? Clearly, as has been said, we cannot argue for concept-oriented curricula or identify and describe particular con- cepts without doing this prior work. In addition, we cannot answer such questions as: What ought we give students when we teach them a concept? How do we know if a student has attained a concept? What do we look or listen for? What counts as knowing a concept? What are appropriate instructional activities for teaching concepts in the social studies? Different concepts of concept yield dif- ferent, and often incompatible, injunctions for teaching concepts. If Wittgenstein's account is defensible, there would seem to be injunctions different from those now urged by social studies theorists for the teaching of concepts. Thus we cannot afford to take lightly the question of what a concept is. Accordingly, in general terms, it is the intent of this dissertation to delineate a particular view about what concepts are (a view stemming from the thinking of Wittgenstein) and to argue that this view has greater utility in the social studies than the views currently promulgated by social studies theorists. More explicitly the dissertation has three principal objectives. 1. To delineate, following Wittgenstein, a particular view about what concepts are and some techniques, required by that view, for analyzing concepts. This task is undertaken in Chapter II, in two sec- tions. In section one, I will argue that Wittgenstein's example of the concept of game is a counterexample to the view of concepts as being common properties of their particular instances. I will next describe more fully what the concept of game is and what is required to know the concept of game. Following that I will discuss the extent to which other concepts are analogous to the concept of game. I will then argue, following Wittgenstein, that a concept is a term's use in the language and that knowing a term's use is knowing a concept. In what remains of section one I will describe what "a term's use in the language" means. In section two, I will describe two general points relative to beginning an analysis of a concept. I will then briefly describe some ways to go about the analysis of concepts. 2. To illustrate the analysis of concepts by doing an analysis of the concept of justice and to summarize my conclusions regarding what the concept of concept is. This task is undertaken in Chapter III, in two sections. In section one, I will comment further on what an analysis of the concepts of justice and concept involves. I will then proceed to an analysis of the concept of justice. This analysis will illustrate a way of col- lecting uses, techniques for determining the features of uses, the "locating" of a concept among its family of concepts, techniques for determining a family of con- cepts, etc. I conclude section one with an illustration of the "locating" of the concept of justice among its family of concepts. In doing this I "locate" a case of use of the term "justice" among a case of use each of the terms "favoritism" and "arbitrariness." In section two, I list some of my conclusions regarding the map of use of the term "concept." In other words, to some extent, I explain what the concept of concept is. 3. To appraise the views of Beyer and of Hunt and Metcalf regarding what a concept is and how a concept should be taught, and to contrast their views with mine. This task is undertaken in Chapter IV, in two sections. In section one, I will describe more fully Beyer's view. I will then describe certain difficulties with Beyer's view. Finally, I will contrast Beyer's view with mine, using the social studies concept "landscape." In section two, I will do much the same as in section one, only with the view of Hunt and Metcalf. Here too certain social studies concepts will be used in exemplification. A final chapter briefly summarizes the main arguments of the disser- tation and the conclusions. FOOTNOTES--CHAPTER I 1Glen L. Crane, "The New Social Studies: Recent Attempts to Implement It," The Social Studies 65 (January 1974): 22-26. Crane's reference (1) is to Dorothy McClure Fraser's chapter, "The Changing Scene in the Social Studies," in Social Studies Curriculum Develpp: ment: Prospects and Problems, ed. Dorothy McClure Fraser (Washington, D.C.S National Council for the Social Studies, 39th Yearbook, 1969 . 2Barry K. Beyer and Anthony N. Penna, eds., Concepts in the Social Stggies (Washington, D.C.: National Council for the Social Studies, Bulletin No. 45, 1971), p. 17. 3Bertha H. Davis, "Conceptual Teaching in the Social Studies," in New Approaches to the Teaching of Social Studies: A Report of the Eleventh Yale Conference on the Teaching of Social Studies, April 15land 16, 1966 (New Haven: Yale University Office of Teacher Training, 1966). 4Verna S. Fancett, et al., Social Science Coneepts in the Classroom (Syracuse: Syracuse University, SoCial Studies Curriculum Center, 1968). 5Edwin Fenton, et al, A High School Social Studies Curriculum for Able Students: 'Final Report of USOE Project--HSO4l and H-292 (Pittsburgh: Social Studies CurriculumiCenter, Carnegie-MElTEn University, 1969), p. 25. 6 7Fred M. Hechinger, "Waxworks History," Saturdpy Review, May 1976, pp. 27-29. 8Barry K. Beyer, Inquiry in the Social Studies Classroom: A Strate for Teachin (columbus: Charles E. Merrill Publishing 0., 7 , p. . 9Marlin L. Tanck, "Teaching Concepts, Generalizations and Constructs,“ in Social Studies Curriculum Development: Prospects and Problems, ed. Dorothy McClure Fraser (Washington, DfC.: Natiggal Council for the Social Studies, 39th Yearbook, 1969), p. . Beyer and Penna. 10 10Irving Morrissett, "The New Social Science Curricula,“ in Concepts and Structure in the New Social Science Curricula, ed. Irving Morrissett (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc., 1967), p. 3. ll 12Isaac J. Quillen and Lavone A. Hanna, Education for Social Competence, rev. ed. (Chicago: Scott Foresman, 1961), pTT187} 13Maurice P. Hunt and Lawrence E. Metcalf, Teachinngigh School Social Studies, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1968), pp. 84, 85. 14 Fancett, p. 4. Ibid., p. 85. CHAPTER II WITTGENSTEIN AND CONCEPTS The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and the lightning bug. Attributed to Mark Twain A main source of our failure to understand is that we do not command a clear view of the use of our words. Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philospphical Investigations Wittgenstein and What a Concept Is Wittgenstein and the Concept of Game Early in his work Philospphical Investigations Ludwig Wittgenstein examines the proceedings called "games." We have just seen that one predominant definition of the term "concept" is as follows: ". . . a concept is a general idea, usually expressed by a word, which represents a class or group of things or actions having certain characteristics in common."1 One of the things I take Wittgenstein to be doing when he examines the proceedings called "games" is testing this definition or one of its sort. He examines the things ordinarily called "games" to see what they, in fact, have in common. He hunts for the set of necessary and suffi- cient conditions which makes a game a game. He, equivalently, looks 11 12 for the essence of a game and thus for the answer to the question "What is a game?" He looks for the concept of game and thus for the definition of the term "game." He looks for that unique feature (e.g., winning) or set of features (e.g., winning, rules, played rather than waged) which can be found in all those things called "games" and which distinguishes those things called "games" from everything else. In conducting his investigation in just this way Wittgenstein is also following the traditional procedure for answer- ing conceptual questions. These questions usually take the form of "What is X?" (e.g., What is revolution?) or the form of "What counts as X?" (e.g., What counts as teaching?). What Wittgenstein finds is ". . . that you will not see something that is common to ell, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that."2 What does this mean? It means that winning, for example, is not a characteristic or an attribute of 911 games. It is only a feature of some games. There are some things properly called "games" which do not have winning as a feature. For Wittgenstein, "The idea of a general concept being a common property of its particular instances connects up with other, too simple, ideas of the structure of language."3 I take Wittgenstein to be taking exception to this unexamined but often presupposed "characteristics in common" view of what a concept is.4 Wittgenstein argues that geme§_and "language-games" do not have "something that is common to all but similarities, relation- ships, and a whole series of them at that" in the following passages: 13 65. Here we come up against the great question that lies behind all these considerations.--For someone might object against me: "you take the easy way out! You talk about all sorts of language-games, but have nowhere said what the essence of a language-game, and hence of language, is: what is common to all these activities, and what makes them into language or parts of language. 50 you let your- self off the very part of the investigation that once gave you yourself most headache, the part about the general form of propositions and of language. And this is true.--Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for all,--but that they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is Because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all "language.“ I will try to explain this. 66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games." I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them a11?-- Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games'"--but look and see whether there is anything common to all.-—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to ell, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look!--Look for example at board- games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass next to ball-games, much that is common is retained, but much is lost.--Are they all 'amusing'? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and losing, or competition between players? Think of patience. In ball-games there is winning and losing; but when a child throws his ball at the wall and catches it again, this feature has disappeared. Look at the parts played by skill and luck; and at the differ- ence between skill in chess and skill in tennis. Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared! And we can go through the many,many other groups of games in the same way; can see how similarities crop up and disappear. And the result of this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss- crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes simi- larities of detail.5 14 Wittgenstein's point, again, is that for those things called "games" there is or are no essential feature or features, characteristic or characteristics, attribute or attributes. What is there? There are "similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that."6 I take Wittgenstein to be saying that we ought not set out looking for a feature or set of features that is common to all games. We ought, instead, to begin by examining the variety of things called "games" to see what features each has, to see how in each game these features are configured (i.e., which features are central aspects of the game and which are not), and most importantly to see whether the features of one game are, in fact, among the configurations of features that constitute other games. In doing this we will begin to "see a network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing: sometimes overall similarities, sometimes similarities of detail."7 This "network-of similarities" is quite different from "a set of features in common." To see this, consider a group of games A, B, 'C and D. On the "set of features in common" view, for "game" to include or be applicable to the group of games A, B, C and D, A must have something in common with B, B must have something and the geme thing in common with C, C must have something and the geme_thing in common with D. It is only in virtue of the existence of this single common feature that we can apply the term "game" to all of A, B, C and D. On the "network of similarities" view, A may have something in common with B, B may have something different in common with C, and C with D; however, there may be nothing in common to all of A, B, C and D, yet "game" may sensibly include or be applicable to 15 the group of games A, B, C and D. Thus the concept of game is not what is common to all games, but instead--at least, in part--is the network of similarities and differences among the various things called games. Also it seems reasonable to suppose that Wittgenstein would agree that having a knowledge of this network is in part what constitutes knowing the concept of game. To know the concept of game, therefore, one must know the features that each of a variety of games has and must know the arrangement of those features among the games. This knowledge might be exhibited in a collection of propositions such as the following: One feature of basketball is team member interaction. One cannot play a game of basketball by himself. One can play the game-of golf by himself. To play the game of golf, team member interaction is not necessary. In fact, the concept of team as associated with basketball and with golf has a slightly different meaning in each. The way we discover this fact is by noticing that the term "team" has a different use in basketball talk from that which it has in golf talk. Two golfers may "team up" in golf to play a "bestball";however they do not act as a team in the same way that basketball players act as a team. The game of checkers can be played with almost no physical prowess. At least the physical prowess required is not the same as that required to play golf and basket- ball. Yet checkers is similar to basketball in that there must be an opponent in order for the game to be played. The game of golf may have opponents, but they are not necessary to playing the game. The above set of propositions describes part of the network of simi- larities and differences that exist between and among games. Again, I take Wittgenstein to be saying that knowing this "network" in part constitutes knowing the concept of game. Notice that I said that knowing the similarities and differ- ences in features among and between those things called "games" is 16 only part of what is involved in knowing the concept of game. I take Wittgenstein to be saying that more is required. He is saying that in one sense we could not have or know the concept of game completely unless we know the logic of the connections (the network of similarities and differences) between the concept of game and ell-concepts. Some of the chief features of some games are also the chief features of other concepts. And some of the chief features of some games are not among the chief features of other concepts. Just as, for example, many games require opponents in order for the games to be played, so too battles require opponents in order for battles to be fought. Having an opponent is a chief feature of both games and battles. Most games, however, have the feature of play about them else they are not games. Battles do not require an element of play for them to be battles. The element of play is a chief feature of games but not of battles. Here we now have a network of similari- ties and differences among the concepts game, battle, opponent, and play. Some of the chief features of these concepts are the chief features of still other concepts. And some of the chief features of these concepts are pgt_the chief features of still other concepts. For example, just as there must be an encounter for there to be a battle, so too there must be an encounter for there to be a debate. Yet while the use of words is a chief feature of_a debate, it is not so of a battle.8 Observe that we have expanded our network of similarities and differences. We now have logical connections among the concepts game, battle, opponent, play, encounter, debate and the use of words. We could continue expanding our network indefinitely. 17 The presence or absence of features presents us with a network of similarities and differences not just among games but also between the concept game and all the other concepts in the language. So to know fully the concept of game we must know its connections in meaning with all the concepts in the language. Of course for most purposes and in most contexts such a complete knowledge of this net- work of connections in meaning is not necessary for us to be said to know the concept of game. What is necessary for most purposes and in most contexts is that we must know the logical connections between the concept of game and that array of concepts which are naturally involved in the area of discourse with which the concept of game has to do. Talk about the concept of game ordinarily involves talk about the concepts of player, play, sport, leisure, activity, rule, opponent, etc. It also involves talk about con- cepts which are often contrasted with the concept of game, such as war, battle, serious activity, etc. These concepts which I have just listed in the above two sentences are what I am referring to when I speak of the "array of concepts which are naturally involved in the area of discourse with which the concept of game has to do." In sum, for Wittgenstein the concept of game is connected to all the concepts in the language and knowing or having the concept of game requires not just that we know the network of similarities and dif- ferences that exists among various games, but also the network that exists between the concept of game and its family of concepts. 18 The Concept of Game and Other Concepts: The “Look and See Injunction All that has been said so far in this chapter has been said about the concept of game. Recall that Wittgenstein said, "Consider for example the proceedings that we call 'games.'"9 What is it that Wittgenstein is trying to show by using the example of games? Surely it is not just that games have no essence, nor just that games have no essence, nor just that games are related in a network of simi- larities and differences. When Wittgenstein begins passage #66 with "Consider for example . . . ,"10 he is about to present an instance to illustrate the meaning and truth of his immediately preceding claim. Recall that that claim is the following: And this is true.--Instead of producing something common to all that we call language, I am saying that these phenomena have no one thing in common which makes us use the same word for a11,--but that they are related to one another in many different ways. And it is because of this relationship, or these relationships, that we call them all "language." I will try to explain this.1 It should be evident that Wittgenstein is using the counterexample of "games" to show that language does not have an essence--that there is nothing in common to all that we call "language." It seems reasonable to suppose that he also would agree that all concepts are get of such a nature as to have an essence. Clearly the concept of game is one such concept. Are there others? Wittgenstein's answer would be "look and see." Just as we ought not assume that all con- cepts are of such a nature as to have an essence, so too we ought not assume that all concepts are of such a nature as to have a net- work of similarities and differences, as the concept of game has. 19 However, for Wittgenstein what is true of the concept of game might be true of other concepts, and he suggests we "look and see." Wittgenstein does not rule out the possibility of some terms being essentially defined, that is, of some concepts being that which is common to their instances. The term "triangle" as used in geometry and the term "ohm" as used in physics may be examples of terms Which express such concepts. A triangle is ordinarily defined as a three-sided plane figure, the sum of whose angles equals 180 degrees. All and only those figures which satisfy this definition are correctly called "triangles." An ohm is ordinarily defined as the practical unit of resistance which is formulized as the resis- tance of a circuit in which a potential difference of one volt pro- duces a current of one ampere. All and only those units of resis- tance which satisfy this formulization are correctly called "ohms." Here we can be reasonably sure that we have two concepts whose instances all have the specified features. Is knowing what these common specified features are sufficient for knowing the concept of triangle, of ohm? Wittgenstein would answer no. For him knowing the definition of the term which expresses a concept is not enough for one to be said to know that concept. Knowing a concept requires knowing the similarities and differences among the family of con- cepts in which that concept is embedded. This latter condition holds regardless of whether the instances of a concept are related by a single commonality or by a network of commonalities. Knowing what a triangle is requires knowing the relations between it and a whole array of geometric concepts such as figure, plane, solid, 20 square, rectangle, angle, proof, geometry, etc. Similarly, knowing what an ohm is requires knowing its relationships with volt, ampere, circuit, current, electricity, etc. The point, again, is that know- ing any concept requires that the logical relationships among its family of concepts be known. Concepts and a Term's Use in the Language We now have an idea, more or less, of what we might see when we "look and see." But what is it at which we are to look? This at first glance may seem an odd question. It is odd in that it suggests that though the result of an investigation into what a concept is will be something about a concept, the thing at which we will look to obtain this result will not be a concept. The thing at which we will look will be the language in which concepts are expressed. This shift of focus is one of the major aspects of Wittgenstein's way of doing philosophy. Consider what he says in the following: "We are not analysing a phenomenon (e.g. thought) but a concept (e.g. that of thinking), and therefore the use of a word."12 He further states, "You learned the concept 'pain' when you learned language."13 Concepts are ordinarily expressed in language by single words or phrases (which function like single words) as opposed to,e.g., sentences. So, according to Wittgenstein, the meaning of a term is its use in the language. Knowing a term's use is knowing a concept. We, therefore, obtain a particular concept by learning how a term functions in the language. I find John Wilson’s words to be helpful in clarifying this point. He notes that 21 As we have noticed, our use and understanding of a word are closely related to our concept of a thing. We form concepts by learning the uses of words, and it can be seen what concepts we have formed by seeing what we understand by words: putting it another way our use and understanding of language act both as guides to forming concepts, and as tests of concepts when formed. Thus we could truly say that the logical limits of a concept may be the same as the limits to the range of meaning of a particular word.14 Hence, if we are to come to know a concept, regardless of whether that concept is of such a nature as to exhibit an essence or a net- work of similarities and differences, we must examine and come to know a term's use. In fact it is by examining a term's use that we come to know the nature of the concept the term expresses. In the absence of a better term, this examining and coming to know has been called "mapping." Wittgenstein and the Use of theTT'erml"UseIr Mapping a term's use as it exists in the language is a com- plex affair. Clearly prior to mapping any particular term's use, we need to know what is meant by the term "use"--i.e., we need to know the uses of "use." Wittgenstein as might be expected spends a good bit of time showing us what use he is making of "use" when he speaks of the "uses of words." My concern in the remaining pages of this part of this chapter will be to explicate more fully how Wittgenstein uses the term "use." I have suggested in the last two paragraphs the logical priority of undertaking such an explication. Two other reasons are of central importance. First, I am undertaking such an explication to make a further point about knowing a concept. For Wittgenstein, the use of terms is not at all disconnected from 22 human activities, human behavior, etc. Thus, since knowing a term's use in the language is knowing a concept, knowing a concept involves knowing the connections between the use of a term and human activity. The second reason for examining Wittgenstein's use of "use" is to display some of the ways suggested in the work of Wittgenstein to go about the activity of mapping a term's use-- i.e., to go about giving the answer to the question "What is a concept?" George Pitcher has written an excellent chapter entitled "Uses of Words" (from his book, The Philosophy of Wittgenstein) in which he details the variety of ways that Wittgenstein uses the term "use." Four of those ways are non-trivial and will concern us here. They are respectively "the grammatical aspect of the use of words," “the speech act aspect of the use of words," "the semantic aspect of the use of words," and the use of words in what Pitcher calls "speech activities." I will discuss each of these aspects in turn. Regarding the grammatical aspect of the use of words Pitcher notes the following: Knowing how to use a word, in this aspect of its use, includes knowing in what sort of linguistic contexts or frames the word can and cannot occur without grammatical oddity; or, to put it more actively, knowing how to con- struct grammatically correct word-groups (e.g., sentences) which contain that word and being able to recognize gram- matically incorrect word-groups which contain it.1 Linguistic contexts are here to be constrasted with “passage," social, and environmental contexts. Pitcher gives as an example of a linguistic context or frame the following: "I slept in a t."16 bed last nigh Referring to this frame, he notes that 23 "the blanks can be filled with certain words without linguistic oddity, whereas if they are filled with other words or even the same words in reverse order, the result is linguistically odd."]7 In support of this claim, he points out that "big comfortable" or "very short" can be used to fill the blanks, but that "drink rum" and "short very" cannot. At this point we want to ask what the connec- tion is between knowing the grammatical aspect of the use of a word and knowing the concept expressed by that word. There are at least two things of note. First, by attending to the grammatical aspect of the use of words we come to know what, in part, are the limit; of use of a word and thus what, in part, are the limits of the con- cept expressed by that word. I suggest that Wilson's dictum that “we form concepts by learning the uses of words" means in part that we form concepts by learning the grammatical aspect of a word's use:'8 The second thing of note is that using a word in a gramatically odd way indicates the possibility that one does not understand the limits of a word's use and hence does not understand the concept expressed by that word. Consider another example of grammatical misuse. A child might utter the following: "I stood walking for ten minutes," or perhaps "I stood still to the store." If we had no reason to believe that the child was trying to do otherwise than to communicate in a straightforward manner, we would conclude that he did not know the use, or at least the limits of use, of the terms "walking" and "stood still." We would suspect that the child did not know the difference between walking and standing still, or at the very least had quite a limited concept of each activity. Our 24 ability to wield words in a correctly grammatical way is indicative of whether or not we understand the concepts expressed by those words. In the foregoing paragraph I have been suggesting that knowing how to use words grammatically is related to knowing what a concept is. However, though we may know how to wield a word in its grammatical use--i.e., construct or recognize grammatically correct linguistic frames, it does not follow that we then know what the concept is that the word expresses. Indeed Wittgenstein continu- ally cautions us not to be misled by the grammatical form of an expression--what he calls the "surface grammar." What he means by this is that though we may have a grammatically correct word-group, the use that is suggested by the word-group's form may not be among its uses, or at the least not be its principal use, what he calls the "depth grammar." For example, the grammar of the utterance "I am afraid" is analogous to the grammar of the utterance "I am Scottish." Yet the use made of the former is quite different from that made of the latter. The use that is made of "I am afraid" is more nearly akin to that made of "ouch" than that made of "I am Scottish," though grammatically “ouch" and "I am afraid" are quite different. So the "surface grammar" of "I am afraid" suggests that this utterance is a report in the way that "I am Scottish" is. However the "depth grammar" of "I am afraid" is more that of an ejaculation in the way that "ouch" is. Garth Hallett is even more precise about such first person expressions when he notes the following: 25 Thus it will not do to call these first-person expressions simply Ausserungen and leave it at that; they have their own unique status, to be reduced neither to that of reports nor to that of natural expressions. . . . The term avowal serves as well as any to suggest this status.19 Thus the "surface grammar" of an expression can draw us into making certain analogies which are misleading. Wittgenstein was concerned to correct the effects of such analogies. As such, Wittgenstein was concerned to clarify the "depth grammar" of a word or expression. Just now in examining the utterance "I am afraid," I pointed out that certain first person expressions are not chiefly used as their grammatical form might suggest. In this case, something that looked to be a description was more nearly an avowal or ejaculation. This is a case of one expression looking like another but performing a different function. Now consider the expression "That is orange." Used in one way it can be the act of describing the color of some- thing. Used in another way it can be part of the act of questioning:- doubting someone's assertion that something is orange. This is a case of an expression that can be used to perform a variety of func- tions. These two cases illustrate the fact that words are used to do more than just to state things. Regarding the speech act aspect of the use of words, Pitcher writes: Words are . . . used to gg_certain things, to perform certain linguistic jobs. . . . When we speak of the use of words in this way, we mean that words are used to perform certain speech acts (such as issuing orders, asking ques- tions, and so on). . . .20 A moment's thought on this point should serve to remind us of just how large the number of possible speech acts is. Such speech acts include describing something, commenting on something, reporting 26 something, requesting something, recommending something, promising, swearing, etc. Being able to wield a word in its speech act aspect is part of what constitutes knowing the concept that is expressed by that word. That is, knowing the concept that is expressed by a word means, in part, knowing the various speech acts that utter- ances in which that word normally occurs can perform. Consider, for instance, the concept of good. Knowing what the concept of good is requires,in part,knowing the possible speech acts that utterances containing the term "good" can perform. The expression "X is a good knife" can be used to perform a number of speech acts. Among these are the acts of describing, expressing an attitude, and recommending. To say "X is a good knife" might be the act of describing the sharp- ness of the knife. To say "X is a good knife" might be the act of expressing a favorable attitude towards the knife (notice that the sharpness of the knife is independent of any attitude towards the knife). Or to say "X is a good knife" might be the act of recommend- ing the knife to someone. Of course in uttering the phrase "X is a good knife" I could also be said to be doing all three--describing, expressing an attitude, and recommending. The point, again, is that for us to be said to know the concept of something, part of what we need to know is the possible variety of speech acts that utterances, in which the term expressing the concept occurs, can perform. Further we need to know how this term is similar to and different from the terms of its family of terms regarding this aspect of use. Perhaps here we can begin to see what Wittgenstein meant by 27 ". . . similarities overlapping and crisscrossing: sometimes over- all similarities and sometimes similarities of detail."21 The term "context" is used in a variety of ways. "Context" is used descriptively to mean not just the parts of discourse that surround a word, but also to mean the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs. To talk of a word's context in the parts of discourse sense can mean we are concerned with an utterance in which the word might be found (the grammatical aspect of a word's use). Also it can mean that we are concerned with the surrounding linguistic passages in which the utterance might be found. To talk of a word's context in the interrelated conditions sense can mean that we are concerned with the social environment (part of what Wittgenstein would call "form of life") in which a word or utterance containing that word may occur. In other words we are concerned with the linguistic-physical behavior that might surround or envelop the use of a word. Also to talk of the inter- related conditions can mean we are concerned with the physical environment. Of course any particular use of the term "context" might include any or all of these meanings. However, when Pitcher calls our attention to the semantic aspect of the use of words it is chiefly the "linguistic passage" and "social environment" meanings of the term "context" that he has in mind. Consider what Pitcher says in the following passage: There is another important aspect of the use of words that is concerned not with the immediate linguistic frame of individual words or phrases, but rather with the wider conditions--both linguistic and nonlinguistic--in which 28 word-groups (including whole sentences and individual words) and even morphemes are normally used. It is what I shall call the semantic aspect of the use of words. (Though it is different from the grammatical aspect, the two are not, of course, unrelated.) A given word-group (e.g., a given sentence) is normally used only when certain conditions,