Conceptual engineering

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Conceptual engineering is a movement in analytic philosophy that focuses on how to best assess and improve our conceptual schemes and repertoires. One of its key features is its normative agenda: conceptual engineers aim to prescribe which concepts we ought to have and use, instead of describing those we do already have and use as a matter of fact. The most standard reference in the literature is to Rudolf Carnap's notion of explication as a precursory method of conceptual engineering for theoretical purposes.[1][2]

Conceptual engineering can be understood in terms of its three components: design, which is about the normative improvement of our concepts; implementation, which is about the actual uptake of the prescribed concepts via advocacy strategies; and evaluation, which is about the quality assessment of our concepts along different dimensions (explanatory, epistemic, moral, etc.).[3] Current work in conceptual engineering goes in two main directions. Case study research on the one hand, focuses on specific concepts and then advocates for specific ameliorations.[4][5] Metaphilosophical research, on the other hand, explicitly concentrates on conceptual engineering qua philosophical method.[6][7]

A common objection to conceptual engineering argues that instead of revising and improving existing concepts, conceptual engineering creates new concepts incongruent with the old ones, and is thus philosophically irrelevant or merely changing the subject.[8][9] One response to this objection is to take a functionalist view of conceptual engineering, such that so long as the new concepts serve the same function as the old concepts, conceptual engineering preserves the relevant subject matter and no problematic discontinuity obtains.[8][9][10] Another response, invoked by Herman Cappelen, argues that the relevant continuity to be preserved in conceptual engineering is that of topics; as long as there is continuity in the topics our concepts address, Cappelen argues, there is continuity in our philosophical inquiry even as the intension and extension of concepts change.[6][9]

References[]

  1. ^ Carnap, Rudolf (1950). "On explication". Logical Foundations of Probability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. pp. 1–18. ISBN 0226093433.
  2. ^ Carnap, Rudolf (1963). "Replies and systematic expositions". In Schlipp (ed.). The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap. La Salle: Open Court. pp. 859–1113. ISBN 0812691539.
  3. ^ Chalmers, David (2020). "What is conceptual engineering and what should it be?". Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2020.1817141.
  4. ^ Haslanger, Sally Anne (2000). "Gender and race: (What) Are they? (What) Do we want them to be?". Noûs. 34: 31–55. doi:10.1111/0029-4624.00201.
  5. ^ Scharp, Kevin (2013). Replacing Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199653850.
  6. ^ a b Cappelen, Herman (2018). Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198814719.
  7. ^ Burgess, Alexis; Cappelen, Herman; Plunkett, David, eds. (2020). Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198801856.
  8. ^ a b Prinzig, Michael (2017). "The revisionist's rubric: conceptual engineering and the discontinuity objection". Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2017.1385522.
  9. ^ a b c Belleri, Delia (2021). "Downplaying the change of subject objection to conceptual engineering". Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2021.1908161.
  10. ^ Jennifer, Nado (2019). "Conceptual engineering via experimental philosophy". Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2019.1667870.

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