Abstract
Traditional views on philosophical methodology characterize our primary philosophical goal as production of a successful conceptual analysis. The notion of conceptual analysis, however, faces several challenges—from experimental philosophy to more traditional worries such as the paradox of analysis. This paper explores an alternate approach, commonly called conceptual engineering, which aims at recommending conceptual revisions. An important question for the conceptual engineer is as follows: what counts as a case of successful conceptual engineering? What sorts of revisions are permitted, and what sorts are too revisionary? In this paper I examine ‘functional’ approaches to conceptual engineering, ultimately arguing for a ‘radical’ functionalism according to which even revisions which ‘change the subject’ are permitted, and successful re-engineering is constrained only by the requirement that continuity in needed functions of a pre-engineering concept be maintained somewhere in the postengineering conceptual scheme. I further argue that this approach suggests a heightened role, in metaphilosophical discourse, for a neglected epistemic goal—conceptual efficacy.
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Notes
For a classic (though older) summary of the philosophical and psychological work on this last issue, see Laurence and Margolis (1999).
Of course, all of these worries for the Standard Model have had their fair share of discussion, and potential responses to each are available. There has even been a ‘new wave’ of defenses of conceptual analysis, under the banner of the so-called ‘Canberra plan’ (see especially Jackson 1998). Yet the sheer volume of concerns with the Standard Model ought still to give us pause—we ought, I think, to consider whether alternative approaches to the aims and methods of philosophy might skirt the quagmire against which proponents of the Standard Model struggle.
This terminology was coined by Burgess and Plunkett (2013a); it is at least roughly synonymous with ‘conceptual engineering’, being concerned with prescriptive questions surrounding concept selection. Though see Cappelen and Plunkett (forthcoming) for a more detailed look at the terminology.
There’s a lot of unpacking needed here, particularly with regard to the role of ‘concept’ in conceptual engineering. Cappelen (2018), for instance, objects to the notion that conceptual engineering trucks in concepts at all. I’m less bothered by the ‘conceptual’ portion of the label, myself, but nothing in the current paper will hang on untangling this particular knot.
Michael Prinzing (2018) uses the term ‘Discontinuity objection’ for the same worry; it’s also often simply called ‘Strawson’s objection’, ‘Strawson’s challenge’, or something similar.
Though see Schupbach (2015) for an argument that experimental philosophy can fill this role.
I would also point the reader to a fantastic argument in Brun (2016) as to why similarity cannot plausibly be cashed out extensionally.
For another good alternative interpretation of Strawson’s objection, see Pinder (2017b).
Prinzing notes this case, and claims that the result is a replacement rather than a revision. I suspect he would thus group it with ‘phlogiston’ as a case where the continuity problem is waived. As with the phlogiston case, I think the proper conclusion is that identity preservation is a red herring.
An interesting approach which might fit into this category is that of Brigandt (2010), who argues for recognizing a concept’s ‘epistemic goal’—that is, “the kinds of inferences and explanations that the concept is intended to support” (Brigandt 2010, p. 24)—as an aspect of its content alongside reference and inferential role. He goes on to use this notion to give an account of rational semantic change, allowing that reference or inferential role can change so long as this is warranted by the concept’s epistemic goal.
A semantic engineer might argue that semantic similarity desiderata only apply when we aim to retain a term post-revision, thus allowing that Euteleostomi is legitimate because the category does not retain the label ‘fish’ (some sections of Cappelen (2018) suggest such a strategy). Nonetheless, the examples in this section are instances of conceptual repair, not novel introductions like ‘haecceity’. As noted earlier, continuity is required for such projects. The semantic engineer doesn’t have an obvious account of the needed continuity; the functionalist does.
It’s worth noting that functions might be rejected for reasons other than social justice, too. For instance, the obsolete measurement ‘league’ originally referenced the distance a person could walk in an hour. Thus, one plausible function of the ‘league’ concept was to quickly provide a rough estimate of walking time for long distances. However, in an era of cars and planes, where few of us walk more than an hour at a stretch on any regular basis, it’s quite arguable that we no longer need a long-distance measurement calibrated to human walking times. Successor concepts like ‘kilometer’ abandon that function, and aren’t particularly worse off for doing so. ‘Kilometer’ certainly isn’t the same concept as ‘league’; it’s a replacement rather than a revision.
Though it is odd to label such features ‘functions’, aim or goal language seems to do fine—e.g., we might design concepts to help us fulfil our goal of making a certain sort of classification practice less difficult. An example here might be the ‘four food groups’ that many Americans of a certain age learned in primary school; that rough-and-ready method of classifying foods vastly oversimplifies the diversity of their nutritional properties, but has the benefit of being easy to learn and deploy.
As an example: a microwave oven can be criticized as a wholesale replacement for a conventional oven on the grounds that, while a microwave cooks food more efficiently, it does not easily keep foods warm for long periods of time (as one might in the oven when mealtime is delayed).
One response here, of course, could be along the lines of arguments given in Cappelen (2018): Cappelen claims that he sees no obvious function for e.g., “salmon” other than to talk about salmon. So we might worry that if our successor concept doesn’t respect apparent counterexamples, then we are no longer talking about salmon and thus our successor is not fulfilling the concept’s function. But even if we accept this move, functions can be critiqued (as noted below). So it is open to the functionalist to say—“I don’t see why that function is worth retaining—why, that is, we should care about talking about salmon. I think it would be better to talk about shmalmon, for the following reason”. We can assess the value of functions/purposes/aims, and indeed we can do so by appeal to further functions/purposes/aims. Just as in physical engineering: such-and-so structural element might function to increase the maneuverability of a vehicle, but it might also decrease speed, and whether that function is worth preserving might further depend on the use to which the vehicle will be put.
Though a reviewer rightly points out that certain conceptual functions might as a matter of fact make the particular concepts that possess them inherently subjective (the reviewer notes, e.g., that one function of DELICIOUS might be to articulate subjective differences in taste).
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Acknowledgements
Thanks to Max Deutsch, Michael Johnson and Dan Marshall for helpful input on earlier drafts of this paper. Thanks also to the very helpful comments from the reviewers for Synthese.
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Nado, J. Conceptual engineering, truth, and efficacy. Synthese 198 (Suppl 7), 1507–1527 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02096-x
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11229-019-02096-x