Linguistic Analysis; and Concepts and Meanings

     When I was in graduate school, New York University, 1960-69, the philosophical technique in hot vogue was Linguistic Analysis.  Though NYU's philosophy department fundamentally favored the 1930's American espousal of pragmatism, it nonetheless courted the 'forefront' philosophies, which in the 1960s and 1970s, was Linguistic Analysis, as espoused by Ludwig Wittgenstein, many years prior.  The thrust of the movement was to dissect meanings of terms appearing in contexts of discourse as functional items descriptive of situations either real or imagined. 


     But where they came short was in highlighting the concept that has several meanings in situ.  In essence, they were featuring logical atoms but failed to pay close attention to the molecular structure that the concept provides.  Hence, they bogged down over miniscule discussions about the meaning of terms or concepts, when in fact while there are conventional meanings there are also stipulative or nominal meanings a speaker can designate for use in a particular context.  Wittgenstein was taken with the contextual use of terms, i.e., the power of the concept to take on a particular meaning to represent some action or thing.  Its adjectival power, so to speak in coming to know what we're talking about.  


     For me, the power of logic is in the concept, even as Aristotle argued centuries ago.  Sentential logic merely describes the properties of a situation--yes, in situ.