Every area of knowledge is based on a variety of products of conceptual engineering. This article is programmatic in essence: it aims at introducing a model of how conceptual engineering works and, particularly, how conceptual innovation is achieved in the context of theoretical inquiry. First, it describes the context in which the explicit study of the relevance, scope, mechanisms, and aims of conceptual engineering was born. Secondly, it introduces a distinction between evaluative and instrumental conceptual engineering based on the difference (...) between committed and instrumental conceptual use. According to this, it argues that both evaluative and instrumental conceptual engineering might be formally seen as the result of one function, which, provided a conceptual problem, maps to possible conceptual solutions generating success or failure values. Lastly, it introduces a third kind of conceptual engineering, namely, constructive conceptual engineering. Its core is a function that maps solutions to a representational space of non-considered alternatives, thus generating new conceptual content. In general, the proposed model offers a productive and novel field of inquiry on the conditions and factors that grounds theoretical innovation through conceptual engineering. (shrink)

La conciencia fenoménica es la propiedad que los estados, sucesos y procesos mentales poseen cuando, y sólo cuando, hay algo que es como algo para el sujeto que los posee; para experimentarlos o estar en tales estados. Hay algo que es como oler café recién preparado. Tener la experiencia de oler café recién preparado es un estado fenoménicamente conciente. Comúnmente, qué es algo como tener una experiencia conciente refiere al carácter fenoménico de las experiencias. Las teorías de la conciencia intentan (...) explicar éste carácter fenoménico. (shrink)