Gerald Bivens

Conceptual analysis can be understood as the attempt to state the necessary and sufficient conditions of the correct use of a given concept. The aims of conceptual analysis, on this view, are thus (1) to state, so far as it is possible, those conditions which, if they are not satisfied, prevent the concept in question from being correctly applied—the necessary conditions of correct use—and (2) to state those conditions which, if they are satisfied, permit the concept to be correctly applied—the sufficient conditions of correct use. In this view of conceptual analysis, an analysis is itself correct to the extent that it states the necessary and sufficient conditions of correct use.¹