One danger in characterizing philosophy as the examination of concepts is that of overlooking the difference between using a concept and stating its use. As a result, clarification of the latter is confused with clarification of the former and the propriety of correcting philosophical errors in the latter is confused with the impropriety of finding fault with the former. Certainly, people can be confused in their use of concepts as they can be unidiomatic or ungrammatical in their use of a language. But this is not a failing of many of us in our use of our everyday concepts or of experts in their use of technical concepts. Nor, if it were, would it be the job of philosophers to correct it. But philosophers do try to correct the views of other philosophers and nonphilosophers about what this use of theirs actually is.

(Alan R. White, “Conceptual Analysis,” chap. 5 in The Owl of Minerva: Philosophers on Philosophy, ed. Charles J. Bontempo and S. Jack Odell [New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1975], 103-17, at 112)