LECTURE | Tamara Dobler (VU Amsterdam)

Title:

"Concepts and conceptions in conceptual engineering"

Abstract:

In this paper consider the impact that distinguishing concepts from conceptions may have on the possibility of conceptual change and on topic (dis)continuity. In doing so I will revisit some arguments for and against this distinction in a theory of concepts (Rey 1983, 1985, 2010). Utilising Fodor’s file metaphor (Fodor 2008) and Chomsky’s distinction between common-sense and scientific concepts (Chomsky 2000), I will propose a different characterisation of the intended split between concepts and conceptions to the one proposed in Sawyer (2021). Whilst agreeing with Sawyer that different concepts may have different (meta)semantics – some mind-to-world, others world-to-mind direction – I dispute the notion that the categorisation into different kinds of concepts should be approached intuitively, namely, by what we think a concept is the concept of (e.g., that the concept water is a natural kind concept because it supposedly refers to a kind find in nature). On the Chomskian model I put forward, the key distinction is between technical concepts which are artificially engineered for a particular purpose and everyday concepts which are connected to natural language and whose role is to facilitate planning, action, and communication. The proposed meta-semantic framework will have some consequences for our understanding of conceptual revision and topic change.