Neutralism and Conceptual Engineering

Greenough, Patrick

doi:10.1093/oso/9780198801856.003.0011

Cited by 9 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 26 publications

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“…All these concepts must be replaced too, together with words we use to pick them out. (Greenough 2019, ch.3. )…”

Section: All Out Pessimismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A concept may be flawed on more than one dimension—broken in many different ways. Conceptual Engineering, as a result, is a multifarious business (Greenough 2019, ch.1).…”

Section: Conceptual Engineering: the Optimistic Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…See e.g. (Simion 2018, Forthcoming), (Burgess, Cappelen and Plunkett 2020), (Cappelen 2018), (Clark and Chalmers 1998), (Greenough 2019), (Haslanger 2000), (Leslie 2017), (Plunkett and Sundell 2013), (Sharp 2013), (Thomasson 2020), (van Inwagen 2008). See (Cappelen 2018) for a great overview.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Conceptual Innovation, Function First

Simion

Kelp

2019

Nous

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Can we engineer conceptual change? While a positive answer to this question would be exciting news for philosophy, there has been a growing number of pessimistic voices in the literature. This paper resists this trend. Its central aim is to argue not only that conceptual engineering is possible but also that it is not even distinctively hard. In order to achieve this, we will develop a novel approach to conceptual engineering that has two key components. First, it proposes a reorientation of the conceptual engineering project away from fixing conceptual defects and towards bringing about conceptual innovation. Second, it offers a new account of when conceptual engineering is successful in terms of etiological functions. We then turn to the reasons that have motivated various forms of pessimism about conceptual engineering and show that, on our novel approach, none of them stands up to scrutiny.

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“…All these concepts must be replaced too, together with words we use to pick them out. (Greenough 2019, ch.3. )…”

Section: All Out Pessimismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A concept may be flawed on more than one dimension—broken in many different ways. Conceptual Engineering, as a result, is a multifarious business (Greenough 2019, ch.1).…”

Section: Conceptual Engineering: the Optimistic Viewmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Conceptual Innovation, Function First

Simion

Kelp

2019

Nous

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“…As Cappelen (2018, p. 53 <ms.>) concedes, on the no‐concept wing, ‘“conceptual engineering” isn't a great label <(or even a very bad one […])>.’ And this would then confront conceptual engineers with a self‐discrediting predicament. In light of conceptual engineering's ‘cognitive functionalism’ (Section 2.1), ‘conceptual engineering without concepts [only]’ (Greenough, 2020) thus appears to deliver yet another pragmatically inconsistent option, while the pro‐concept wing prevails.…”

Section: The Main Foundational Issuementioning

confidence: 99%

Broad‐spectrum conceptual engineering

Isaac

2021

Ratio

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Conceptual engineering is the method for assessing and improving our representational devices. On its ‘broad‐spectrum’ version, it is expected to be appropriately applicable to any of our representation‐involving cognitive activities, with major consequences for our whole cognitive life. This paper is about the theoretical foundations of conceptual engineering thus characterised. With a view to ensuring the actionability of conceptual engineering as a broad‐spectrum method, it addresses the issue of how best to construe the subject matter of conceptual engineering and successively defends the theses that conceptual engineering should be: (i) About concepts, (ii) psychologically theorised, (iii) as multiply realised functional kinds. Thereby, I claim to theoretically secure and justify the maximum scope, flexibility, and impact for the method of conceptual engineering on our representational devices in our whole cognitive life—in other words, a broad‐spectrum version of conceptual engineering.

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“…14 14 She is quoting Greenough (2017). For a general and pioneering account of conceptual engineering, see Cappelen (2018).…”

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confidence: 99%

Freedom‐amelioration, transformative change, and emancipatory orders

Schmid

2022

European J of Philosophy

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Abstract“Freedom” is a fundamental political concept: contestations or endorsements of freedom‐conceptions concern the fundamental normative orientation of sociopolitical orders. Focusing on “freedom,” this article argues that the project of bringing about emancipatory sociopolitical orders is both aided by efforts at engineering fundamental political concepts as well as required by such ameliorative ambitions. I first argue that since the absence of ideology is a constituent feature of emancipatory orders, any attempt at bringing about emancipation should leverage genealogical approaches in order to debunk existing ideological freedom‐concepts, which can occur only by exposing the discursive functions these have come to serve for the (re‐)production of dominant power relations. I then suggest that establishing and sustaining an alternative, ideology‐free conception of “freedom” is a steeper task. Ensuring widespread uptake of any ameliorated concept is contingent on effective change in the relevant social environment. Where fundamental political concepts such as “freedom” are concerned, effective intervention in the relevant social environment requires radical sociopolitical change. But if such change can be brought about and enables the widespread uptake of an “improved” freedom‐concept, the concept's content comes to reflect changed social facts, thereby stabilizing the particular emancipatory sociopolitical order which has newly arisen.

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Neutralism and Conceptual Engineering

Cited by 9 publications

References 26 publications

Conceptual Innovation, Function First

Conceptual Innovation, Function First

Broad‐spectrum conceptual engineering

Freedom‐amelioration, transformative change, and emancipatory orders

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