Hostname: page-component-54dcc4c588-hp6zs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-09-13T07:09:43.711Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Role of Concepts in Fixing Language

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2020

Sarah Sawyer Open the ORCID record for Sarah Sawyer [Opens in a new window]
Sarah Sawyer*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK
*
Email: s.a.sawyer@sussex.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This is a contribution to the symposium on Herman Cappelen’s book Fixing Language. Cappelen proposes a metasemantic framework—the “Austerity Framework”—within which to understand the general phenomenon of conceptual engineering. The proposed framework is austere in the sense that it makes no reference to concepts. Conceptual engineering is then given a “worldly” construal according to which conceptual engineering is a process that operates on the world. I argue, contra Cappelen, that an adequate theory of conceptual engineering must make reference to concepts. This is because concepts are required to account for topic continuity, a phenomenon which lies at the heart of projects in conceptual engineering. I argue that Cappelen’s own account of topic continuity is inadequate as a result of the austerity of his metasemantic framework, and that his worldly construal of conceptual engineering is untenable.

Keywords

Cappelenconceptual engineeringmetasemanticsexternalismconceptsthoughtlanguage

Information

Type
Author meets critics
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , July 2020 , pp. 555 - 565
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Brigandt, I. 2010. “The Epistemic Goal of a Concept: Accounting for the Rationality of Semantic Change and Variation.” Synthese 177 (1): 19–40.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, T. 1986. “Intellectual Norms and Foundations of Mind.” Journal of Philosophy 83 (12): 697–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, H. 2018. Fixing Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, H., and Dever, J. 2016. Context and Communication. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Cappelen, H., and Hawthorne, J. 2009. Relativism and Monadic Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cappelen, H., and Lepore, E. 1997. Liberating Content. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. 1950. Logical Foundations of Probability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Chalmers, D. 2011. “Verbal Disputes.” Philosophical Review 120 (4): 515–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, A., and Chalmers, D. 1998. “The Extended Mind.” Analysis 58 (1): 7–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dorr, C., and Hawthorne, J. 2014. “Semantic Plasticity and Speech Reports.” Philosophical Review 123 (3): 281–338.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eklund, M. 2002. “Inconsistent Languages.” Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 64 (2): 251–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eklund, M. 2017. Choosing Normative Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, S. 1999. “What Knowledge Is and What It Ought to Be: Feminist Values and Normative Epistemology.” Noûs 33 (13): 459–80.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, S. 2000. “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?” Noûs 34 (1): 31–55.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ludlow, P. 2014. Living Words: Meaning Underdetermination and the Dynamic Lexicon. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plunkett, D., and Sundell, T. 2013. “Disagreement and the Semantics of Normative and Evaluative Terms.” Philosopher’s Imprint 13 (23): 1–37.Google Scholar
Sawyer, S. 2007. “There Is No Viable Notion of Narrow Content.” In Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind, edited by McLaughlin, B. and Cohen, J., 20–34. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Sawyer, S. 2018. “The Importance of Concepts.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 118 (2): 127–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, S. 2020. “Talk and Thought.” In Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, edited by Burgess, A., Cappelen, H., and Plunkett, D., 379–95. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Scharp, K. 2013. Replacing Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strawson, P. F. 1963. “Carnap’s Views on Conceptual Systems versus Natural Languages in Analytic Philosophy.” In The Philosophy of Rudolf Carnap, edited by Schilpp, P. A., 503–18. La Salle, IL: Open Court.Google Scholar
Tarski, A. 1983. Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics: Papers from 1923 to 1938, edited by Corcoran, J., translated by Woodger, J. H., 152–278. Reprint by Indianapolis, IN: Hackett. First published 1933.Google Scholar
Thomasson, A. 2020. “A Pragmatic Method for Conceptual Ethics.” In Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, edited by Burgess, A., Cappelen, H., and Plunkett, D., 435–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar