Public law and the value of conceptual analysis

Abstract

The goal of this paper is to demonstrate the viability and potential of conceptual analysis as a methodological tool. It is argued that conceptual analysis represents a flexible and open method for connecting public law with analyses that are different, and even incommensurable with its own epistemology. The particular area that this paper seeks to connect public law with is that of feminist critiques. It is a journey that does not occur without some difficulty. Conceptual analysis is unknown within public law and therefore the notion requires defining and explaining. Public law has also been particularly resistant to the inclusion of feminist critiques and therefore the task of identifying suitable concepts is not straightforward. The outcome is, however, not only the identification of a new methodological tool for public lawyers but the capacity to broaden the range of material that can be incorporated within their analyses.

Critical Thinking and Critical Literacy: Mutually Exclusive?

“…Conceptual analysis was used as the overarching theoretical framework within the study. Conceptual analysis originated in and is most commonly used within the discipline of philosophy (Beany, 2017;Jackson, 2000;Flew, 1956), however, it is also used across a wide variety of other disciplines, including the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning research (Hussy & Smith 2008), educa-tion (Boylan, Coldwell, Maxwell& Jordan, 2018), law (Mauthe, 2014), nursing (Milbrath & DeGuzman, 2015), psychology (Monroe & Harkness, 2011), psychiatry (Kendler & Neale 2010) and science (Bursten, Hartmann, & Millstone, 2016).…”