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To be able to carry on legal and, for that matter, any kind of argumentation we need to have access to a set of adequate fundamental concepts. In the legal conceptual arsenal there are a number of fundamental concepts, e.g. 'operative fact', 'legal consequence', 'act-in-the-law,' '(in)validity', '(change of) position', 'norm, 'right', 'duty', and 'competence. These are not always adequate, hwever, which is due to the fact that they are not well defined. In this dissertation I will analyze and discuss one of these concepts, namely the concept of competence, to find out whether or not we need a concept of competence, and if this is shown to be the case, (ii) making this as suited to its purpose as possible. It will be seen that a satisfactory solution to the problems (i) and (ii) comprises an account of the relation between the concept of competence and certain other fundamental concepts, such as the concepts '(in)validity' and (change of) legal position.