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Abstract. — This paper looks at a potential counter-example to Hume’s Law based on the principle that Ought implies Can and especially evaluates (and rejects) a conventionalist view according to which there are oughts that imply can, and oughts that don’t, and this makes the question of whether or not Ought implies Can essentially conventional and up to…

Abstract. — In this talk I argue that our engagement in debates about art can be fruitfully understood along the same lines as debates in conceptual engineering. Proposals in conceptual engineering are not to be evaluated on the basis of their ability to track empirical essences but on the basis of a concept’s epistemic, pragmatic,…

*Password: ACEW20* Abstract. — In this talk I present a new challenge to explication, as a method for importing lay concepts into science. To illustrate this new challenge, I focus on the concept of innateness.

Abstract. — Do conceptual revisions change the subject? Do revolutionary analyses of familiar kinds? A standard picture of meaning — that an expression’s truth conditions are essential to it — suggests so. I present an alternative. The novel usages philosophers propose have analogues in ordinary discourse that figure in a family of puzzles about diachronic…

*Password: ACEW20* Abstract. — Conceptual engineering is the study of how to evaluate and change our concepts, meanings, words, and other representational devices. Experimental philosophy is the use of scientific techniques to collect data on human reactions to central examples in philosophy. One familiar project in conceptual engineering is to address the defects in our…

Paper: Haslanger (2020), “How Not to Change the Subject” Abstract. — Concepts are not only useful for enabling individuals to have attitudes – perception, cognition, conation, emotion – but for groups to coordinate with each other.  If we take seriously the coordinating function of concepts, then although in some cases it is important that concepts connect us…

Abstract. — Conceptual engineering (CE) is the area of philosophy dedicated to assessing and improving our representational devices. Experimental philosophy (XPhi) focuses on using techniques from experimental psychology and cognitive science to investigate traditional philosophical problems and methods. It has seemed to many that XPhi could play an important role in CE projects, and various…

Abstract. — In this paper I argue that concepts fall into distinct kinds according to such things as their direction of determination, their modal range, and the nature of their referents. Such properties determine a given concept’s eligibility for genuine revision. As a result, different kinds of concepts require different treatment in the context of conceptual engineering. Understanding…