WHAT IS A CONCEPT?

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 478.

A concept is a general idea about something, usually expressed in a single word or a short phrase. A concept is more than a proper noun or the name of a thing. There is, for example, a difference between talking about a cat (a particular and uniquecat) and having a concept of a ‘cat' (the idea of a cat). The concept of a cat is not a ‘thing' but an ‘idea', an idea composed of the various attributes that give a cat its distinctive character: ‘a furry mammal', ‘small', ‘domesticated', ‘catches rats and mice' and so on. In the same way the concept of ‘presidency' refers not to any specific president, but rather to a set of ideas about the organisation of executive power. Concepts are therefore ‘general' in the sense that they can refer to a number of objects, indeed to any object that complies with the general idea itself.

What, then, is the value of concepts? Concept formation is an essential step in the process of reasoning. Concepts are the ‘tools' with which we think, criticise, argue, explain and analyse. Merely perceiving the external world does not in itself give us knowledge about it. In order to make sense of the world we must, in a sense, impose meaning upon it, and we do this through the construction of concepts. Quite simply, to treat a cat as a cat, we must first have a concept of what it is. Precisely the same applies to the process of political reasoning: we build up our knowledge of the political world not simply by looking at it, but through developing and refining concepts which will help us make sense of it. Concepts, in that sense, are the building blocks of human knowledge. Nevertheless, concepts can also be slippery customers, and this is particularly the case in relation to political concepts. Amongst the problems posed by political concepts are that they are often value-laden, that their meanings may be the subject of argument and debate, and that they are sometimes invested with greater substance and significance than they actually possess.