This essay focuses on conceptual engineers who aim to improve other people's patterns of inference and attention by shaping their concepts. Such conceptual engineers sometimes engage in a form of epistemic paternalism that I call paternalistic cognitive engineering: instead of explicitly persuading, informing and educating others, the engineers non-consultatively rely on assumptions about the target agents’ cognitive systems to improve their belief forming. The target agents could reasonably regard such benevolent exercises of control as violating their sovereignty over their own (...) belief formation. This is a pro tanto reason against such engineering. In addition to the relevant projects of conceptual engineering, paternalistic cognitive engineering plausibly includes certain kinds of nudging and evidence suppression. I distinguish the sovereignty-based concern from other ethical worries about conceptual engineering and discuss how one might justify the relevant conceptual engineering projects despite the sovereignty-based reason against them. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering concerns the assessment and improvement of our concepts. But how can proposals to engineer concepts be implemented in the real world? This is known as the implementation challenge to conceptual engineering. In this paper, I am concerned with the meta-philosophical implications of the implementation challenge. Specifically, must we overcome the implementation challenge prior to undertaking conceptual engineering? Some critics have recently answered this question affirmatively. I intend to show that they are mistaken. I argue as follows. First, successful (...) implementation is not an integral part of conceptual engineering. Second, the idea that the value of conceptual engineering relies on successful implementation is in tension with widespread assumptions about normative theorizing. (shrink)

I will clarify when and how a tension arises between epistemic environmentalism (a new focus on assessing and improving the epistemic environment) and respect for epistemic autonomy (allowing, empowering, and requiring people to each govern their own beliefs). Using the example of participatory conceptual engineering (improving the linguistic environment through rational discussion with broad participation), I will also identify an option for avoiding the tension—namely, participatory environmentalism. This means a new focus on how people can each contribute to improving the (...) shared epistemic environment through rational deliberation and thereby govern their own beliefs that are shaped by that environment. (shrink)

Critical discussions can often require conceptual engineering, a process in which speakers are engaged in revising each other’s concepts. We show that the analysis of conceptual engineering can benefit from integrating argumentation theory with models of conceptual representation. Argumentation theory accounts for the argumentative moves of the discussants, allowing the detection of speakers’ conceptual disagreements, for which some fallacies can be seen as cues. Models of conceptual representation, such as Conceptual spaces and the theory of meeting of minds, allow us (...) to study the cognitive side of engineering practices. However, when this integrated framework is applied to practical scenarios, conceptual engineering faces different challenges. In particular, assuming a psychological view about concepts, revisionary strategies are significantly narrowed down, if not impossible, in practice. These criticisms lead to a kind of dilemma for conceptual engineers, highlighting the necessity of further work on the definition of concept embraced by this research program. (shrink)

This paper is concerned with the relationship between paradigms of explication and the practice of conceptual engineering. It defends three interrelated claims: First, the predominant functionalist attitude in the present debate on conceptual engineering is due to its roots in Carnapian explication, which identifies the explicandum with a precursor concept. Second, alternative metaphysical paradigms of explication locate the explicandum in a part of a concept-independent reality (‘field explication‘, as I will call it). Third, field explication may be a better paradigm (...) than Carnapian functionalism for certain instances of socio-political conceptual engineering. In these instances, we adjust our concepts to more adequately capture differences in our concept-independent (felt) reality. To demonstrate this, I will contrast the metaphysical to the functionalist paradigm concerning the example of Heimat. [in German]. (shrink)

Conceptual engineering has strong political roots. But if conceptual engineering is to be a useful tool for promoting social justice, there must be a means by which the concepts we design can take root and propagate in dominant contexts. This is known as the implementation challenge. In this paper, I caution against movements toward a particular methodological perspective on the challenge called dialogical individualism. This perspective centres the role of speakers in speech-situations to persuade hearers to change their minds about (...) currently held concepts. This individualism has a distorting effect: it warps our perception of the size of the challenge. In particular, dialogical individualism ignores the social environmental factors that make conversation an unfriendly site for conceptual change. Moreover, it is not sufficiently attentive to the history of conceptual change in communities of practice. In the end, I argue for a methodological perspective shift: discursive strategies, such as speaker persuasion, should be decentralized in our overall thinking about the best solutions to the implementation challenge. Our attention is better focused on tailoring strategies to deal with the social environment in which concept-users are embedded. (shrink)

The article reveals the pragmatic implications of Herman Cappelen’s account of ‘topics’ in his contribution to the conceptual engineering literature. I show that Cappelen’s introduction of the category of ‘topics’ serves the pragmatic goal of having a convenient handle to account for ‘continuity in revision’, and that his general insistence on ‘continuity’ is motivated morally and strategically. In asking what accounts for continuity, Cappelen’s ‘topics’ are not defined by content or any other fixed set of rules or criteria. Topics are (...) metaphysically lightweight and defined pragmatically and as we go: speakers talk about the same topic when we (and they) attribute that they do. But why should we do that? Why should we aim for continuity and why should we think it is possible in general? I contrast Cappelen’s insistence on continuity with Rorty’s appeal for discontinuity, and trace both of their positions back to their respective moral background assumptions and their assumptions about what communication is (and is for) and, in turn, what philosophy is (and is about). Further, I question the role the ‘continuity’ claim plays in the current redefinition of linguistic philosophy after the ‘death of the linguistic turn’. (shrink)