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Legal Theory Lexicon 094: Words and Concepts

Introduction

Even before entering law school, law students are likely to know that lawyers work with words and ideas.  But most law students are likely to get through the first year without learning of one of the most basic distinctions in legal theory--the distinction between words and concepts--and the closely related distinction between sentences and propositions.  This entry in the Legal Theory Lexicon provides a very short introduction to the these ideas and their applications in legal theory.

A word of warning.  The notion of a concept plays an important role in legal theory, but typically legal theorists take the nature of concepts themselves for granted.  With the exception of work on the nature of law, where the notion of a concept is sometimes interrogated, legal theory rarely discusses deep questions about the nature of concepts themselves.  The discussion that follows ignores many important philosophical questions about concepts.  This is the Legal Theory Lexicon and not the Philosophers Lexicon.  For an introduction to the philosophical issues, I recommend the entry on Concepts in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which is cited in the bibliography at the end of this Lexicon entry.

What is a Concept?

Let's begin with concepts.  What is a concept?  And how is a concept different from the word or phrase that is used to express that concept in a natural language like English?  We can start with an example.  One of the meanings of the word "law" refers to the system of legal norms.  "The law in the United States includes a right to the freedom of speech."  The word "law" is used to express an idea or concept.  The concept law can be represented by other words.  Most obviously, the word "law" in English is translated as "recht" in German, "loi" in French, and "ley" in Spanish.  But the concept law can also be expressed in English in other words or phrases.  For example, the phrase "system of legal norms" can be substituted for the word "law" in a variety of contexts.  Words and phrases express concepts, but words are not the same kinds of things as concepts.  There is a conceptual distinction between a word and the concept that the word expresses.

Words, Phrases, and Terms

Some concepts are expressed by single words, but others are expressed by phrases (groups of words).  Some phrases are compositional: the meaning of the phrase is determined by the meaning of the individual words that make up the phrase.  Other phrases are idiomatic: the meaning of the phrase is not the product of the meaning of the individual words.  Here are some examples of idioms:

  • "Burn the midnight oil"
  • "Cry over spilt milk"
  • "Devil's advocate"

Each of these phrases has an idiomatic meaning that is well known to competent speakers of American English, but is not reducible to the meanings of the words that compose the idiom.  A "devil's advocate" is not the advocate of Satan.  "Crying over spilt milk" does not involve milk and it does not require crying.

We can use the word "term" to represent a unit of meaning, which could be a word or a phrase.  Thus, "law," "legal system," and "devil's advocate" are all terms that represent concepts.  This Lexicon entry is entitled "Words and Concepts" but a more accurate title might have been "Terms and Concepts."

Sentences and Propositions

What about sentences?  Words and phrases are combined into sentences.  Individual words and phrases have semantic meanings that associate them with concepts.  Sentences also have semantic meanings (or literal meanings), but these meanings are not just a function of the meaning of the individual words and phrases that make up the sentence.  Syntax plays a role in sentence meaning.  For the rough and ready purposes of this Lexicon entry, syntax might be thought of as something like grammar and (in the case of written sentences) punctuation.

We can use the word "proposition" to express the idea that the meaning of a sentence can be thought of as an abstract object.  Just as a word expresses a concept that can be expressed using other words, so too sentences express propositions that can be expressed using other sentences.  Thus, this Lexicon entry could be translated into Mandarin or Romanian (as many other Lexicon entries have already been translated).  And every sentence is this Lexicon entry could have been written using a different sentence in English that would have expressed the same proposition.  For example, many sentences in English that are expressed in "active voice" can be rewritten in passive voice.  "I wrote this the first sentence of this Lexicon entry" can be rewritten as "The first sentence of the Lexicon entry entitled 'Words and Concepts' was written by me."

As concepts are to words and phrases, so propositions are to sentences.  Again, a word of warning: this view of the relationship between concepts and propositions is controversial in philosophy, but for the purposes of the Lexicon, I am ignoring many of the foundational issues about the nature of concepts.

A Common Error: Mistaking Definitions for Concepts

Here is a very common mistake made in academic legal writing: conceptual issues are described as definitional issues.  For example, in an article about foundational issues in international law, the author might say that a dispute about the nature of international law is a definitional dispute.  Of course, it is possible that the dispute is really about the meaning of the phrase "international law," but it is more likely that the author is talking about the concept of international law and that the dispute is conceptual rather than definitional.  One way to see the difference is to ask these questions: (1) could the dispute be expressed in a different language?, and (2) could the dispute be reframed in English using other words?  If the answer to both of these questions is "yes," then there is a good chance that the issues are conceptual and not definitional.

Of course, many disputes are merely terminological, but terminological disputes can be avoided by stipulated definitions.  If stipulation doesn't provide a way around the issues, then the dispute is not really about the meaning of a word or phrase, it is actually about a concept or the nature of some kind.

Concepts and Conceptions

There is a Lexicon entry on the concept-conception distinction, which is frequently invoked by legal theorists.  This distinction was made famous by John Rawls in A Theory of Justice and was adapted to legal theory by Ronald Dworkin.  The gist of the idea is that certain concepts, such as justice, are contested.  There are different theories about the nature of justice and these theories compete with each other.  These competing theories can be described as "conceptions."  So we have different conceptions of the concept justice.  Notice that the debates over the nature of justice are not about the definition of the word "justice."

Linguistic Determinism (the Whorfian Hypothesis)

One of the ideas about the relationship between words and concepts is associated with Benjamin Whorf and is sometimes called "linguistic determinism" or "the Whorfian hypothesis."  The gist of this idea is that our language determines our concepts.  Thus, it is claimed that Eskimos have 50 words for snow or that the Hopi do not have a concept of time.  This Lexicon entry won't explore the empirical and philosophical issues raised by debates over linguistic determinism, but I do want to warn readers that they should not casually assume that linguistic determinism has been confirmed by social scientists.  It may be the case that the Eskimos do have many words for snow (as very recent research purports to show), but that does not entail linguistic determinism.  The notion that the Hopi lack a concept of time is probably false.  Before you make big assumptions about linguistic determinism, do some serious investigation!

Conclusion

As is usually the case, this Lexicon entry barely scratches the surface.  I hope that the ideas that I have introduced here are sufficient to give you a sense of the difference between words and concepts.  The bibliography includes some suggestions for additional readings!

Related Lexicon Entries

Bibliography

(This entry was last modified on November 13, 2022.)

March 24, 2019 |

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