Abstract

The attempt to analyze and clarify concepts is a trademark of Western philosophy. And this is how it should be. Given the relatively non-empirical nature of the philosophical endeavor, philosophers must be concerned with the state of their primary instruments--language and the concepts expressed by language. The aim of this paper is to make sense of a pattern of argumentation typically employed in the effort to clarify philosophically important concepts. The upshot will be that only by adopting a thoroughgoing naturalism will we have any real chance to achieve the goal of conceptual clarity in philosophy.