Commitment engineering: conceptual engineering without representations

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

It is largely assumed that conceptual engineering is essentially about revising, introducing, or eliminating representational devices, in particular the intension and extension of words and concepts. However, tying conceptual engineering too closely to representations is risky. Not everyone endorses the notion of representation as theoretically helpful or even real. Not everyone thinks that concepts or meanings should be understood in terms of the notion of representation. Does this mean that conceptual engineering is not interesting or relevant for these skeptics? In this paper, I motivate and propose a non-representationalist construal of conceptual engineering. I argue that conceptual engineers can be understood as primarily engineering linguistic entitlements and commitments rather than representational devices. Note that this account is non-representationalist, but explicitly not anti-representationalist. Representations may play a significant role when it comes to justifying and completing commitment engineering projects.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)13035-13052
JournalSynthese
Volume199
Issue number5-6
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Dec 2021
Externally publishedYes

Funding

This work is part of the research programme Ethics of Socially Disruptive Technologies, which is funded through the Gravitation programme of the Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science and the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO Grant Number 024.004.031). It has also been funded by Ruhr University Research School PLUS, funded by Germany’s Excellence Initiative [DFG GSC 98/3].

FundersFunder number
Dutch Ministry of Education, Culture, and Science
Deutsche ForschungsgemeinschaftGSC 98/3
Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek024.004.031
Research School, Ruhr University Bochum

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