Truth in philosophy: a conceptual engineering approach

Asian Journal of Philosophy 3 (1):1-22 (2024)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

The focus of this paper will be to examine the implications that a “practical” approach to conceptual engineering might have for the “traditional” conception of philosophy as uncovering truths about phenomena of philosophical interest. In doing so, I will be building on the ideas of a figure that many take to be the first major philosopher to write on conceptual engineering: Rudolf Carnap. Though the current wave of interest in conceptual engineering goes back less than a decade, many conceptual engineers have found precedent for their views in Carnap’s characterization of what he called “explication.” Interestingly, however, not nearly as much attention has been paid to another Carnapian thesis which seems to me to have deep relevance to methodological questions about conceptual engineering. I have in mind here the distinction between internal and external questions proposed in “Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology” (1950b) and the accompanying claim that external questions lack cognitive content and can be cogently approached only as a matter of pragmatic decision-making. This is the aspect of Carnap’s views upon which I propose to build. I'll first make the case that there is a suggestive similarity between Carnap’s claim that external questions are matters of pragmatic choice and the practical conceptual engineer’s claim that engineering success should be characterized in terms of suitability to a function or purpose. After that, I'll look at potential worries about the Carnapian distinction—including, e.g., the concern that it relies on the analytic/synthetic distinction. Finally, I will propose a somewhat modified and expanded version of the distinction and examine its consequences for the thesis that philosophy aims at discovering truths about phenomena of philosophical interest.

Other Versions

No versions found

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 97,060

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Armchair Philosophy Naturalized.Sebastian Lutz - 2020 - Synthese 197 (3):1099-1125.
Carnapian Frameworks Revisited.Matti Eklund - 2023 - In Panu Raatikainen (ed.), _Essays in the Philosophy of Language._ Acta Philosophica Fennica Vol. 100. Helsinki: Societas Philosophica Fennica. pp. 91–113.
Rudolf Carnap: Philosophy of Science as Engineering Explications.Christopher F. French - 2015 - In Uskali Mäki, Stéphanie Ruphy, Gerhard Schurz & Ioannis Votsis (eds.), Recent Developments in the Philosophy of Science. Cham: Springer. pp. 293-303.
Carnap's ideal of explication and naturalism.Pierre Wagner (ed.) - 2012 - New York, NY: Palgrave-Macmillan.
Implementing conceptual engineering: lessons from social movements.Carme Isern-Mas - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.
In Defense of Conceptual Engineering.Steffen Koch - 2021 - Dissertation, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics.Alexis Burgess, Herman Cappelen & David Plunkett (eds.) - 2019 - New York, USA: Oxford University Press.

Analytics

Added to PP
2024-03-17

Downloads
41 (#426,074)

6 months
28 (#139,124)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Jennifer Nado
University of Hong Kong

Citations of this work

Conceptual Engineering is Old News.Krzysztof Sękowski & Ethan Landes - forthcoming - Philosophical Quarterly.
Conceptual engineering in the Lvov-Warsaw School.Krzysztof Sękowski - forthcoming - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy.

Add more citations