I roughly sort pedagogical issues into two broad categories: engagement and mastery. By “engagement” I mean roughly discussion and reflection on teaching methods that increase students’ motivation to learn the course material. By “mastery” I mean roughly discussion and reflection on teaching methods that improve students’ ability with respect to course objectives. Much has been written about engagement. For this post, I will try to say something useful about teaching philosophical mastery. Philosophical mastery is a rich topic, where sustained reflection can yield profitable insights for philosophy teachers. What I would like to propose here is that conceptual competence is one form of philosophical mastery, and students of philosophy would benefit greatly from acquiring conceptual competence.
What is conceptual competence? Borrowing from the work of James Higginbotham and Jeffrey King, I distinguish between three kinds of conceptual competence: ordinary competence, analytic competence, and evaluative competence. I will present the three kinds of competence in an order that forms a hierarchy, where the latter forms of competence are at higher levels than the former. We can speak of conceptual competence as possession of any of these kinds of competence, and we can speak of being more competent as possessing a higher level of competence with respect to some concept C. For instance, someone who is evaluatively competent with respect to C is more competent than someone who is analytically competent with respect to that same C.
The first level is ordinary competence, which is a kind of linguistic competence with respect to C. Individual X with ordinary competence can use term F expressing C correctly in everyday discourse. Moreover, when prompted, X can correctly cite some examples that are instances of C. Finally, when asked, X may be able to provide something like a dictionary definition for F. For example, if X has ordinary competence with respect to the concept ‘religion’, then X will be able to use the term “religion” correctly in everyday discourse, can cite some instances of the concept ‘religion’, and perhaps be able to provide a dictionary definition of the term “religion.” A competent user of a natural language will have ordinary competence with respect to a range of concepts. As instructors, we assume that our students have ordinary competence with respect to many of the concepts that we investigate in our courses.
The second level I call “analytic competence.” At this level, X can do at least two things with respect to C. First, X can provide an explanatory account of what it is for something to fall under C. Second, X can make various inferences on the basis of C. For instance, if Selena has analytic competence with respect to the concept ‘religion’, then she can provide an account of what it is for something to count as a religion. Secondly, X can make various inferences regarding the concept ‘religion’. For example, if a necessary condition for something counting as a religion is that it includes some set of practices, and if atheism does not entail such practices, then Selena can infer that atheism is not a religion.
One way to teach analytic competence is to teach students to master conceptual analysis. This includes not only the ability to identify necessary and jointly sufficient conditions but also the ability to test proposed conditions by looking for counterexamples. In conjunction with teaching conceptual analysis, instructors can also teach thought experimentation, and how thought experiments are employed to serve as counterexamples to proposed analyses. (For suggestions on how to teach conceptual analysis and thought experimentation, see my “Teaching Component Skills in Philosophy.” https://philpapers.org/rec/LEETCS-10)
Lastly, the third level is what I call “evaluative competence.” An individual at this level of competence can reflect on their explanatory account of C and consider whether it is plausible or satisfies some other desideratum. Furthermore, X can recognize when disputes become verbal and can at least identify what sorts of considerations might adjudicate a verbal dispute. To continue with my religion example, if Selena and Maria are evaluatively competent, then they might recognize that a dispute they are engaged in is merely verbal because they are operating with different definitions of “religion.” Perhaps for Selena, a necessary condition for something being a religion is a commitment to the existence of a personal god, whereas Maria’s analysis of religion involves no such condition. Consequently, they recognize that the dispute over whether Buddhism is a religion is verbal, since they are both correct, given their differing accounts of religion. Moreover, they can weigh considerations about which account of religion is more plausible.
Teaching students to be evaluatively competent takes them into deep and important issues regarding philosophical methodology. The instructor can guide students through discussions about the nature of intuition and the various debates about the proper role of intuition in philosophical methodology. Additionally, the instructor can teach students how to perform conceptual engineering. There are several different directions an instructor can go when introducing students to conceptual engineering. The instructor can teach students how concepts can be improved for theoretical purposes. For instance, Rudolf Carnap argued for explication, which was a method of redefining scientific concepts in a way that better fits scientific theorizing and practice. A contemporary example of this would be the redefinition of the concept ‘planet’, which resulted in Pluto no longer counting as a planet. The instructor can also teach students how concepts can be improved for the purposes of social justice. An example of such a method is Sally Haslanger’s ameliorative analysis. Haslanger argued that the concept ‘woman’ should be redefined to include systematic subordination, so that anyone who counts as a woman would be those who are subordinated on the basis of their observed or imagined bodily features. Such a redefinition would draw our attention to the injustices related to sexism and misogyny.
Training students to become conceptually competent is something that can be weaved into just about any philosophy course. Doing so can yield a number of benefits. Conceptually competent students will likely perform better at interpreting philosophical text, as well as identifying and evaluating philosophical argumentation. If any of what I said is useful or plausible, then I hope that this post will spur discussion on effective methods for training students to be conceptually competent.
James Lee
James Lee is a visiting assistant professor at SUNY Oswego. His research interests primarily revolve around the epistemology of metaphysics and philosophical methodology.
