Broad‐spectrum conceptual engineering

Abstract

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.

Conceptual engineering: A road map to practice

“…This type of conceptual content can, but need not, coincide with what we earlier described as a concept's application conditions (cf. Isaac, 2020, 2021a, b, c; Koch, 2021a; Machery, 2017, 2021). Thus, where the conceptual engineer's goal is to alter the unconscious and automatic inferences that people are likely to draw about what they encounter, psychologically construed conceptual content is a plausible target of their endeavors.…”

“…14 14 This being granted, philosophers may still disagree over which of these truly deserves the label of “conceptual engineering” (Isaac, 2021a, b). …”

“…26 26 For instance, on a psychological approach to concepts for conceptual engineering, one may attempt to re‐delineate the content of, say, a prototype structure—that is, its constitutive features, their weights, or their dependency relationships—by changing the relevant parameters of the environmental or discourse environment with which it frequently co‐occurs and thus “refurbish” people's minds (Fischer, 2020; Isaac, 2021b; Machery, 2017). …”

Epistemic Paternalism via Conceptual Engineering

“…Concepts, on such an approach, are psychological entities in individual minds and play an important role in cognition (see Machery 2017, ch. 7;Fischer 2020;Isaac 2020;Isaac 2021a;Isaac 2021b;Koch 2021;Machery 2021). The relevant kind of conceptual engineer recognizes the power of concepts over our thought and deliberation, and wants to use that power for the good, including the concept users' own epistemic good, broadly construed.…”