Fixing Language An Essay on Conceptual Engineering 1st edition by Herman Cappelen 0192546295 9780192546296

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ISBN-10 : 0192546295

ISBN-13 : 9780192546296

Author :  Herman Cappelen  

Herman Cappelen investigates ways in which language (and other representational devices) can be defective, and how they can be improved. In all parts of philosophy there are philosophers who criticize the concepts we have and propose ways to improve them. Once one notices this about philosophy, it’s easy to see that revisionist projects occur in a range of other intellectual disciplines and in ordinary life. That fact gives rise to a cluster of questions: How does the process of conceptual amelioration work? What are the limits of revision? (How much revision is too much?) How does the process of revision fit into an overall theory of language and communication? Fixing Language aims to answer those questions. In so doing, it aims also to draw attention to a tradition in 20th- and 21st-century philosophy that isn’t sufficiently recognized. There’s a straight intellectual line from Frege and Carnap to a cluster of contemporary work that isn’t typically seen as closely related: much work on gender and race, revisionism about truth, revisionism about moral language, and revisionism in metaphysics and philosophy of mind. These views all have common core commitments: revision is both possible and important. They also face common challenges about the methods, assumptions, and limits of revision.

Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering 1st Table of contents:

Part I: Introduction to Conceptual Engineering
1. Introduction to Conceptual Engineering
1.1 Introduction
1.2 A Heuristic: Representational Complacency vs. Representational Skepticism
1.3 Central Themes of This Book
2. Illustrations: Conceptual Engineering in Philosophy and Beyond
Section I 2.1 Conceptual Engineering in Philosophy
Section II 2.2 Conceptual Engineering beyond Philosophy
Section III 2.3 The Logical Space of Conceptual Engineering: A Taxonomy
3. Arguments for the Importance of Conceptual Engineering and Implications for Philosophical Methodology
3.1 The Prudential Argument
3.2 Corollary of Prudential Argument: Conceptual Engineering’s Effect on our Self-Understanding and the Way We Lead our Lives
3.3 Two Ontological Arguments
3.4 Implications for Philosophical Methodology: Purely Descriptive Philosophy Must Be Abandoned
4. On the Importance of a General Theory and an Overview of the Austerity Framework
4.1 Taking Stock
4.2 Some Reasons for Thinking that a General Theory of Conceptual Engineering Is Important
4.3 Overview of the Positive Theory: The Austerity Framework
Part II Towards a General Theory 1: Metasemantic Foundations
5. Metasemantics, Metasemantic Superstructure, and Metasemantic Base
5.1 Semantics and Metasemantics
5.2 Metasemantic Base vs. Metasemantic Superstructure
5.3 The Tacit Prejudice in Favor of Metasemantic Superstructure
6. Externalist Conceptual Engineering
6.1 What Changes? Extensions and Intensions
6.2 Externalism
6.3 Challenges for the Combination of Externalism and Conceptual Engineering
6.4 How Reference Shifts
6.5 Metasemantics Can Change over Time
6.6 Moving on: Autonomy/Control, World Engineering, Inconsistent Concepts, and the Limits of Revision
6.7 Generalization: What about Words, Sentences, and Speech that Do Not Have Extensions and Intensions?
7. Corollaries of Externalism: Inscrutability, Lack of Control, and Anti-Luminosity
7.1 Elaborating the Austerity Framework
7.2 Elaborations 1 and 2: ‘Inscrutable’ and ‘Lack of Control’
7.3 Elaboration 2: ‘Will Keep Trying’
7.4 Elaboration 4: There Are No Safe Spaces Where We’re in Control
7.5 Elaboration 5: Conceptual Engineering Not Luminous
7.6 A Sharp Contrast: Haslanger on Externalism and Amelioration
7.7 Objections to the Austerity Framework
8. The Illusion of Incoherent/Inconsistent Concepts
8.1 Explaining the Appearance of Incoherent or Inconsistent Concepts
8.2 Inconsistent Beliefs, Evidence, and Conceptions and Inconsistent Introductions
8.3 General Source of the Illusion of Inconsistency: Metasemantic Chaos
8.4 The Liar Paradox, Inconsistency Theories, and the Austerity Framework: A Comparison
Part III Towards a General Theory 2: Topic Continuity as the Limits of Revision
9. The Limits of Revision: Topic (Dis)Continuity and Miscommunication
9.1 Revision and Continuity
9.2 The Strawsonian Challenges
9.3 Change of Topic, Continuity of Inquiry, Verbal Disputes, and Saying What Others Said
9.4 Assessing What Others Have Said: Truth Relativism?
9.5 The Alleged Incoherence of Conceptual Engineering
9.6 Brief Note to Those Not Moved by (and Impatient with) the Strawsonian Objections
10. Reply to Strawson 1: Continuity of Topic, Samesaying, and the Contestation Theory
10.1 Overview of the Two Strategies for Responding to Strawson’s Challenge
10.2 Coarseness of Samesaying and Sameness of Topic
10.3 The Relevance of Coarseness to the Strawsonian Objections
10.4 Objection: What Kinds of Changes (Relative to a Context) Are Compatible with Preservation of Topic?
10.5 The Significance of Genealogy and Conceptual Histories
10.6 The Limits of Revision: The Contestation Theory
10.7 Comparison: Railton on Topic Preservation
11. Reply to Strawson 2: Lexical Effects
11.1 Beyond Topic Continuity
11.2 Lexical Effects and Conceptual Engineering: An Overview
11.3 Lexical Effects: Some Illustrations
11.4 Lexical Effects and Conceptual Engineering
11.5 A General Theory of Lexical Effects?
11.6 Why Are Lexical Effects Largely Ignored in Philosophy of Language?
11.7 Playing with Fire: Deception and Communicative Breakdowns
11.8 Why Exploitation of Lexical Effects Should Be Avoided
Part IV Towards a General Theory 3: Worldliness and the Varieties of Conceptual Engineering
12. The Worldliness of Conceptual Engineering
12.1 What Is Conceptual Engineering About?
12.2 In Favor of the Worldly Characterization of Conceptual Engineering
12.3 Against Conceptual Engineering Being about Concepts
12.4 Conceptual Engineering as Being about Constitutive Principles (of Concepts or Concept Possession)
12.5 Conceptual Engineering as Being about Entities That Persist over Time (Richard’s View)
12.6 Worldliness and Recent Metaphilosophy
13. Varieties of Conceptual Engineering
13.1 Three Varieties of Conceptual Engineering
13.2 The Interconnections between the Three Varieties of Conceptual Engineering
13.3 How Does a Theory of Conceptual Engineering Fit into an Overall Theory of Language and Communication?
14. Objections, Replies, and Clarifications
14.1 The Old Problem Problem
14.2 Externalism
14.3 Why This Aversion to Concepts?
14.4 No Precise Definition of ‘Control’
14.5 What about Meaning Holism?
14.6 What about Thoughts?
14.7 Why No Focus on Conceptual Degeneration?
Part V Compare and Contrast: Alternative Accounts of Conceptual Engineering
15. Metalinguistic Negotiation
15.1 Ludlow on Linguistic Negotiation over Micro-Languages
15.2 Comments and Objections
15.3 Plunkett and Sundell on Metalinguistic Negotiation
15.4 Against Metalinguistic Negotiation
16. On Appeals to a Concept’s Purpose or Function
16.1 Functions of Concepts
16.2 Haslanger’s Appeal to ‘Central Functions’ as the Limits of Revision
16.3 Brigandt’s Appeal to the Intended Epistemic Goal of a Concept
16.4 Thomasson and Millikan on the Proper Function of Linguistic Devices
17. Chalmers’s Subscript Gambit, the Importance of Topics, and Lack of Control
17.1 Chalmers on the Method of Elimination and the Subscript Gambit
17.2 The Importance of Topics and Topic Continuity
17.3 Chalmers on Fetishistic Value Systems
17.4 Chalmers’s Ahistorical Internalism
18. Conceptual Engineering without Bedrock and without Fixed Points
18.1 The Limits of Conceptual Engineering?
18.2 Chalmers on Bedrock Concepts
18.3 Eklund on Normative Limits

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