Abstract
Conceptual engineering involves revising our concepts. It can be pursued as a specific
philosophical methodology, but is also common in ordinary, non-philosophical, contexts. How does
our capacity for conceptual engineering fit into human cognitive life more broadly? I hold that
conceptual engineering is best understood alongside practices of conceptual exploration, examples
of which include conceptual supposition (i.e., suppositional reasoning about alternative concepts),
and conceptual comparison (i.e., comparisons between possible concept choices). Whereas in conceptual
engineering we aim to change the concepts we use, in conceptual exploration, we reason
about conceptual possibilities. I approach conceptual exploration via the linguistic tools we use
to communicate about concepts, using metalinguistic negotiation, convention-shifting conditionals,
and metalinguistic comparatives as my key examples. I present a linguistic framework incorporating
conventions that can account for this communication in a unified way. Furthermore, I argue
that conceptual exploration helps undermine skepticism about conceptual engineering itself.