scholarly journals Why Conceptual Engineers Should Not Worry About Topics

Erkenntnis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steffen Koch
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Conceptual Engineering

AbstractThis paper argues for explanatory eliminativism about topics (and cognates, such as subject matters) relative to the domain of conceptual engineering. It has become usual to think that topics serve an important explanatory role in theories of conceptual engineering, namely, to determine the limits of revision. I argue, first, that such limits can be understood either as the normative limits pertaining to the justification of conceptual engineering, as the metaphysical limits pertaining to the identity of the concepts in question, or as the terminological limits pertaining to usage of the original terminology. Second, I argue that the metaphysical reading is disputable as a theory of concepts and inconsequential for conceptual engineers, and that neither of the two leading accounts of topics that have been presented in the literature—the samesaying account and functionalism—determine the limits of revision in either of the two remaining senses. In the absence of more promising competitors, I conclude that there is no theoretical role for topics to play in theories of conceptual engineering. An upshot of my argument is that conceptual engineers should stop worrying about things like topic (dis)continuity, and instead shift their attention to the issues that really matter for justifying conceptual revisions or replacements, making terminological choices, and underpinning conceptual engineering with a theory of concepts.

Mechanisms of Eyewitness Suggestibility: A Test of the Explanatory Role Hypothesis

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric J. Rindal ◽  
Quin M. Chrobak ◽  
Maria Zaragoza ◽  
Caitlin Weihing
Keyword(s):  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Eyewitness Suggestibility

Conceptual Analysis Rebooted

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edouard Machery
Keyword(s):  
Experimental Method ◽  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Traditional Use ◽  
Philosophical Significance ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Method Of Cases

Chapter 7 proposes a new, naturalistic characterization of conceptual analysis, defends its philosophical significance, and shows that usual concerns with conceptual analysis do not apply to this revamped version. So understood, conceptual analysis encompasses both a descriptive project and a normative project, similar to explication or to conceptual engineering. Chapter 7 also defends the philosophical significance of this novel form of conceptual analysis and its continuity with the role of conceptual analysis in the philosophical tradition. Furthermore, naturalized conceptual analysis often requires empirical tools to be pursued successfully, and an experimental method of cases 2.0 should often replace the traditional use of cases in philosophy.

Chalmers’s Subscript Gambit, the Importance of Topics, and Lack of Control

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen
Keyword(s):  
New Words ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Lack Of Control ◽  
Verbal Dispute ◽  
The Subject

This chapter discusses Chalmers’s view about how to deal with verbal disputes, and its relation to the Austerity Framework. According to Chalmers’s subscript gambit, when we suspect that a philosophical term is the subject of a verbal dispute, we ought to ban the use of the word, and replace it with two or more new words which express the different meanings, and investigate whether any substantial dispute remains. Although Chalmers’s method of elimination is helpful, the chapter argues that it does not give us an account of conceptual engineering, because it does not provide a theory of topics, and assumes that we are in control of the meaning of our words.

Metalinguistic Negotiation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen
Keyword(s):  
English Word ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

This chapter, along with the next two, discuss alternative accounts of conceptual engineering, both for their own sake and to help bring out the author’s theory more by contrast. This chapter discusses and criticizes the appeal to the notion of metalinguistic negotiation found in both Ludlow and Plunkett and Sundell. Ludlow’s claim that we are constantly negotiating meanings is inconsistent with the claim that changes in meaning are out of control, and so should be rejected, and his appeal to microlanguages is problematic. While Plunkett and Sundell can avoid these problems, their view that engineering is a matter of metalinguistic negotiation is bad because someone who is interested in improving our representational devices for talking about torture (for example) doesn’t care about English word ‘torture’, but about torture itself. It closes by discussing some worries about the examples used to motivate the idea of metalinguistic negotiation.

Objections, Replies, and Clarifications

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen
Keyword(s):  
Not Given ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Meaning Holism

This chapter considers seven objections to the view of conceptual engineering put forward in this book. It responds to a worry about topic presentation. It responds to the charge of having not given a full defense of externalism, or a theory of control, and returns to the aversion to concepts. It then considers some other objections to do with meaning holism, change in thoughts, and confronts the gloomy possibility that engineering makes things worse—that what we think of as amelioration is in fact deterioration.

Externalist Conceptual Engineering

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen
Keyword(s):  
Change Over Time ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Meaning Change ◽  
Semantic Values ◽  
Over Time

This chapter continues to consider some foundational semantic issues important for the author’s theory, and for conceptual engineering in general. It argues that conceptual engineering is not—despite the nomenclature—concerned with concepts, but rather with the intensions and extensions of words. It introduces externalism about meaning, which is a key component of the Austerity Framework, and draws connections between meaning change and externalist discussions of reference shift. It responds to the objection that externalism makes changing meaning either impossible or extremely difficult by denying the first—it’s built into externalism that meaning change is possible—and frankly accepting the latter. It then argues that not only semantic values but also metasemantics can change over time, draws out some consequences, and discusses expressions that do not have intensions or extensions.

Metasemantics, Metasemantic Superstructure, and Metasemantic Base

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
In Virtue Of

This chapter introduces the topic of metasemantics, developing a distinction between a metasemantic base and a metasemantic superstructure. Conceptual engineering is concerned with the meanings of our representational devices. Representational devices have meanings in virtue of some facts; there is some fact that makes it the case that ‘snow’ means snow, for example. The metasemantic base consists of those make-it-the-case facts: the grounding facts for meaning and reference. The metasemantic superstructure consists in our beliefs, hopes, preferences, and so on about our meanings. Most theorists have attempted to practice conceptual engineering at the superstructure level: they have attempted to get us to think differently about our meanings. This approach is mistaken. To change meanings we need to change the grounding facts: we need to change the metasemantic base.

How Content Explains

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicholas Shea
Keyword(s):  
Research Programme ◽  
Causal Efficacy ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Content Determination ◽  
Explanatory Relevance ◽  
Tight Connection ◽  
Personal Level ◽  
Naturalistic Account ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Semantic Properties

The varitel accounts of content allow us to see how the practice of representational explanation works and why content has an explanatory role to play. They establish the causal-explanatory relevance of semantic properties and are neutral about causal efficacy. Exploitable relations give the accounts an advantage over views based only on outputs. Content does valuable explanatory work in areas beyond psychology, but it need not be explanatorily valuable in every case. The varitel accounts illuminate why there should be a tight connection between content and the circumstances in which a representation develops. The accounts have some epistemological consequences. Representations at the personal level are different in a variety of ways that are relevant to content determination. Naturalizing personal-level content thus becomes a tractable research programme. Most importantly, varitel semantics offers a naturalistic account of the content of representations in the brain and other subpersonal representational systems.

In Defense of Perceptual Content

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susanna Schellenberg
Keyword(s):  
Perceptual Experience ◽  
Representational Content ◽  
Perceptual Content ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Relational Understanding ◽  
The Way

Chapter 5 takes a step back and traces the way in which excessive demands on the notion of perceptual content invite an austere relationalist account of perception. It argues that any account that acknowledges the role of discriminatory, selective capacities in perception must acknowledge that perceptual states have representational content. The chapter shows that on a relational understanding of perceptual content, the fundamental insights of austere relationalism do not compete with representationalism. Most objections to the thesis that perceptual experience has representational content apply only to austere representationalist accounts, that is, accounts on which perceptual relations to the environment play no explanatory role. By arguing that perceptual relations and perceptual content are mutually dependent the chapter shows how Fregean particularism can avoid the pitfalls of both austere representationalism and austere relationalism. With relationalists, Fregean particularism argues that perception is constitutively relational, but with representationalists it argues that it is constitutively representational.

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