Incomprehensible - Out of Control - Will Keep trying: The Foundations of Conceptual Engineering
Herman Cappelen
In chapter 7 of my forthcoming Fixing Language: Conceptual Engineering and the Limits of Revision I present The Austerity Framework for theorizing about conceptual engineering. The framework has 8 Ingredients.
This talk is focused on Ingredient 8: “Incomprehensible - Out of Control - Will keep Trying”: The processes involved in conceptual engineering are for the most part incomprehensible, out of our control, but nonetheless we will keep trying. Put very roughly:
(i) We are not likely to ever understand the detailed mechanisms that underpin particular instances of conceptual engineering. They are too complex, messy, nonsystematic, amorphous, and unstable.
(ii) The process of conceptual engineering is not within our control: No one of us and no subgroup of us has any significant degree of control over how concepts develop.
(iii) Despite (i) and (ii), we will keep trying to engage in conceptual engineering and given the kinds of creatures we are, maybe we must keep trying.
The talk is a presentation and justification of this part of my theory and I compare it to proposals by Halanger, Ludlow, Plunkett, and Sundell. My primary focus will be on Out of Control - and the alternative, Control.
Herman Cappelen
In chapter 7 of my forthcoming Fixing Language: Conceptual Engineering and the Limits of Revision I present The Austerity Framework for theorizing about conceptual engineering. The framework has 8 Ingredients.
This talk is focused on Ingredient 8: “Incomprehensible - Out of Control - Will keep Trying”: The processes involved in conceptual engineering are for the most part incomprehensible, out of our control, but nonetheless we will keep trying. Put very roughly:
(i) We are not likely to ever understand the detailed mechanisms that underpin particular instances of conceptual engineering. They are too complex, messy, nonsystematic, amorphous, and unstable.
(ii) The process of conceptual engineering is not within our control: No one of us and no subgroup of us has any significant degree of control over how concepts develop.
(iii) Despite (i) and (ii), we will keep trying to engage in conceptual engineering and given the kinds of creatures we are, maybe we must keep trying.
The talk is a presentation and justification of this part of my theory and I compare it to proposals by Halanger, Ludlow, Plunkett, and Sundell. My primary focus will be on Out of Control - and the alternative, Control.