How to conceptually engineer conceptual engineering?

Abstract

Conceptual engineering means to provide a method to assess and improve our concepts working as cognitive devices. But conceptual engineering still lacks an account of what concepts are (as cognitive devices) and of what engineering is (in the case of cognition). And without such prior understanding of its subject matter, or so it is claimed here, conceptual engineering is bound to remain useless, merely operating as a piecemeal approach, with no overall grip on its target domain. The purpose of this programmatic paper is to overcome this knowledge gap by providing some guidelines for developing the theories of concepts and of cognition that will ground the systematic unified framework needed to effectively implement conceptual engineering as a widely applicable method for the cognitive optimization of our conceptual devices.

What Should Conceptual Engineering Be All About?

“…The second alternative is a specific one that distinguishes, within the principled views, between the two following opposite options: A positive wing, on which the representational devices that conceptual engineering is about are to be specified as concepts, sometimes conflated with linguistic meanings (e.g., Haslanger 2020;Isaac 2020;Koch 2020;Machery 2017;Richard 2020;Scharp 2013Scharp , 2020; and a negative wing, on which these representational devices are not to be specified as concepts, but instead, for instance, as linguistic meanings, intensions, conceptions, or speakermeanings (e.g., Cappelen 2018;Pinder 2019;Sawyer 2018Sawyer , 2020a.…”

Broad‐spectrum conceptual engineering

“…The second alternative is a specific one that distinguishes, within the principled views, between the two following options: A positive wing, on which the specified representational devices that conceptual engineering target are to be construed as concepts (e.g., Haslanger, 2020a, 2020b; Isaac, 2020; Koch, 2020; Machery, 2017; Richard, 2020; Scharp, 2013, 2020) and a negative wing, on which these representational devices are not to be construed as concepts, but instead, for instance, as conceptions, linguistic meanings, intensions, or more generally, as the ways in which we think and talk about topics (e.g., Cappelen, 2018; Sawyer, 2018, 2020a, 2020b). Now, I contend that, among these three options (that is, the unprincipled views along with the positive and the negative principled views), only one best suits the purpose of making conceptual engineering an actionable method—namely, the pro‐concept one.…”

“…The alternative framework for theorising concepts that is available to conceptual engineering is that of the psychology of concepts. By contrast to the philosophical framework, only a few attempts have been made so far to capitalise on this research field for the purposes of conceptual engineering (Isaac, 2020; Koch, 2020; Machery, 2017). In this framework, concepts are construed as cognitive entities, further endowed with a ‘processing structure ’(Margolis & Laurence, 2010, p. 219).…”

Experimental philosophy and the method of cases

“…The metaphilosophical debate has considered various challenges to the idea of "engineering" concepts, such as the following: (i) What does conceptual engineering aim to engineer? For example, does it target semantic meaning, speaker meaning, or perhaps our psychological concepts (Ball, 2020;Cappelen, 2018Cappelen, , 2020Isaac, 2020;Koch, 2018Koch, , 2020aMachery, 2017;Pinder, 2019;Sawyer, 2018Sawyer, , 2020aSawyer, , 2020b? (ii) Is it within our power to change these things intentionally, as suggested by conceptual engineers?…”