Book contents
- A Philosophical History of the Concept
- A Philosophical History of the Concept
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1Concepts in Classical Greece
- 2Concepts in Epicurean and Stoic Philosophy
- 3Concepts in Late Antiquity
- 4Concepts in Early Chinese Philosophy
- 5Buddhist Theory of Concepts
- 6Concepts in Brahmanical Philosophy in Classical India
- 7Concepts in Islamic Philosophy
- 8Concepts in the Latin Medieval Tradition
- 9Concepts and Ideas in Suárez, Descartes and Beyond
- 10Concepts in British Empiricism
- 11The Leibnizean Alternative
- 12Kant on the Epigenesis of (Empirical) Concepts
- 13The Concept in German Idealism
- 14Concept, Value and World
- 15Concepts in the School of Brentano, Husserl and Early Phenomenology
- 16Two Concepts of Concept in Early Analytic Philosophy
- 17Concepts in Pragmatism
- 18Concepts, Meaning and Use
- 19Concepts in Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer
- 20Poststructuralist Approaches to the Concept
- 21Carnap, Quine, Putnam and Burge on Concepts
- 22Concepts and Conceptual Engineering
- Index
- References
22 - Concepts and Conceptual Engineering
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 January 2026
Book contents
- A Philosophical History of the Concept
- A Philosophical History of the Concept
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Contributors
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1Concepts in Classical Greece
- 2Concepts in Epicurean and Stoic Philosophy
- 3Concepts in Late Antiquity
- 4Concepts in Early Chinese Philosophy
- 5Buddhist Theory of Concepts
- 6Concepts in Brahmanical Philosophy in Classical India
- 7Concepts in Islamic Philosophy
- 8Concepts in the Latin Medieval Tradition
- 9Concepts and Ideas in Suárez, Descartes and Beyond
- 10Concepts in British Empiricism
- 11The Leibnizean Alternative
- 12Kant on the Epigenesis of (Empirical) Concepts
- 13The Concept in German Idealism
- 14Concept, Value and World
- 15Concepts in the School of Brentano, Husserl and Early Phenomenology
- 16Two Concepts of Concept in Early Analytic Philosophy
- 17Concepts in Pragmatism
- 18Concepts, Meaning and Use
- 19Concepts in Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty and Gadamer
- 20Poststructuralist Approaches to the Concept
- 21Carnap, Quine, Putnam and Burge on Concepts
- 22Concepts and Conceptual Engineering
- Index
- References
Summary
Conceptual engineering is, prima facie, the engineering of concepts. But what are concepts? And in what sense, if any, can they be engineered? In this chapter I introduce conceptual engineering and then distinguish three different understandings of concepts. The first, prevalent in parts of cognitive science, is the psychological account, which sees concepts as psychologically real cognitive structures in individuals’ minds. The second, with historical connections to the pragmatism of Carnap, is the semantic account, which sees concepts as semantic meanings determined by conventional principles of use. The third, rooted in Frege’s rationalism and in anti-individualism, is the representationalist account, which sees concepts as publicly accessible components of thought, determined ultimately not by use but by direct relations between individuals and the world. Disagreements over the nature, target and possible implementation of conceptual engineering are, I will claim, ultimately grounded in the more fundamental disagreement over the nature of concepts.
Keywords
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- A Philosophical History of the Concept , pp. 439 - 457Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2026
References
Antony, Louise. ‘Against Amelioration: Or, Don’t Hire Any Conceptual Engineers without Talking to Me First’. Proceedings and Addresses of the American Philosophical Association 96 (2022): 167–84.Google Scholar
Ball, Derek. ‘Revisionary Analysis without Meaning Change (or, Could Women Be Analytically Oppressed?)’. In Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, edited by Burgess, Alexis, Cappelen, Herman and Plunkett, David, 35–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barsalou, Lawrence W. ‘Perceptual Symbol Systems’. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 22 (1999): 577–660.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Block, Ned. ‘Functional Role and Truth-Conditions’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 61 (1987): 157–81.Google Scholar
Brandom, Robert. Making It Explicit: Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1994.Google Scholar
Brigandt, Ingo. ‘The Epistemic Goal of a Concept: Accounting for the Rationality of Semantic Change and Variation’. Synthese 177 (2010): 19–40.10.1007/s11229-009-9623-8CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brun, Georg. ‘Explication as a Method of Conceptual Engineering’. Erkenntnis 81 (2016): 1211–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler. ‘Frege on Sense and Linguistic Meaning’. In The Analytic Tradition, edited by Bell, David and Cooper, Neil, 30–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.Google Scholar
Burge, Tyler ‘Individualism and the Mental’. Midwest Studies in Philosophy 4 (1979): 73–122.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler ‘Intellectual Norms and Foundations of Mind’. Journal of Philosophy 83 (1986): 697–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler Origins of Objectivity. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199581405.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burge, Tyler ‘Sinning against Frege’. Philosophical Review 88 (1979): 398–432.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, Alexis, and Plunkett, David. ‘Conceptual Ethics I’. Philosophy Compass 8 (2013): 1091–101.Google Scholar
Burgess, Alexis, and Plunkett, David ‘Conceptual Ethics II’. Philosophy Compass 8 (2013): 1102–10.Google Scholar
Cappelen, Herman. Fixing Language: An Essay on Conceptual Engineering. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf. ‘Empiricism, Semantics and Ontology’. Revue internationale de philosophie 4 (1950): 20–40.Google Scholar
Carnap, Rudolf Logical Foundations of Probability. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1950.Google Scholar
Chalmers, David. ‘What Is Conceptual Engineering and What Should It Be?’ Inquiry (2020). https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2020.1817141/.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Clark, Andy, and Chalmers, David. ‘The Extended Mind’. Analysis 58 (1998): 7–19.10.1093/analys/58.1.7CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Del Pinal, Guillermo. ‘Dual Content Semantics, Private Adjectives and Dynamic Compositionality’. Semantics and Pragmatics 8 (2015): 1–53.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deutsch, Max. ‘Speaker’s Reference, Stipulation, and a Dilemma for Conceptual Engineers’. Philosophical Studies 177 (2020): 3935–57.10.1007/s11098-020-01416-zCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ekers, Ron. ‘IAU Planet Definition Committee’. Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo (Prague), ser. 3, no. 3 (16 August 2006), 3–4. www.iau.org/Iau/Iau/About/Archive.aspx.Google Scholar
Estes, William K. Classification and Cognition. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1944.Google Scholar
Fodor, Jerry. Concepts: Where Cognitive Science Went Wrong. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, Gottlob. Begriffsschrift: Eine der arithmetischen nachgebildete Formelsprache des reinen Denkens. Halle: L. Nebert, 1879. English translation by S. Bauer-Mengelberg, in From Frege to Gödel: A Source Book in Mathematical Logic, 1879–1931, edited by van Heijenoort, Jean, 1–82. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press 1967.Google Scholar
Frege, Gottlob Die Grundlagen der Arithmetik: Eine logisch-mathematische Untersuchung über den Begriff der Zahl, 1884. Breslau: Wilhelm Koebner. English translation: The Foundations of Arithmetic: a Logico-Mathematical Enquiry into the Concept of Number. Translated by J. L. Austin. Oxford: Blackwell, 1950.Google Scholar
Frege, Gottlob ‘The Thought: A Logical Inquiry’. Mind 65 (1956): 289–311.10.1093/mind/65.1.289CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. ‘Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do We Want Them to Be?’ Noûs 34 (2000): 31–55.10.1111/0029-4624.00201CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Haslanger, Sally ‘Going On, Not in the Same Way’. In Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, edited by Burgess, Alexis, Cappelen, Herman and Plunkett, David, 230–60. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.Google Scholar
Haslanger, Sally Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199892631.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaac, Manuel Gustavo. ‘Broad Spectrum Conceptual Engineering’. Ratio 34 (2021): 286–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jorem, Sigurd. ‘Conceptual Engineering and the Implementation Problem’. Inquiry 64 (2021): 186–211.10.1080/0020174X.2020.1809514CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jorem, Sigurd, and Löhr, Guido. ‘Inferentialist Conceptual Engineering’. Inquiry 67 (2024): 932–53.10.1080/0020174X.2022.2062045CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koch, Steffen. ‘Engineering What? On Concepts in Conceptual Engineering’. Synthese 199 (2021): 1955–75.10.1007/s11229-020-02868-wCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koslow, Allison. ‘Meaning Change and Changing Meaning’. Synthese 200 (2022): 1–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machery, Édouard. Doing without Concepts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195306880.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machery, Édouard Philosophy within Its Proper Bounds. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Machery, Édouard ‘Responses to Herman Cappelen and Jennifer Nado’. Philosophical Studies 179 (2022): 329–42.10.1007/s11098-020-01583-zCrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Margolis, Eric, and Laurence, Stephen, eds. Concepts: Core Readings. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Marques, Teresa. ‘Representing or Shaping Reality? What “Class” Can Teach about “Woman”’. In New Perspectives on Conceptual Engineering, edited by Isaac, Manuel Gustavo, Koch, Steffen and Scharp, Kevin. Synthese Library. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Nado, Jennifer. ‘Classification Procedures as the Targets of Conceptual Engineering’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 106 (2023): 136–56.10.1111/phpr.12843CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nado, Jennifer ‘Conceptual Engineering, Truth, and Efficacy’. Synthese 198 (2021): 1507–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinder, Mark. ‘Conceptual Engineering, Metasemantic Externalism and Speaker Meaning’. Mind 130 (2021): 141–63.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, Joey. ‘Content Internalism and Conceptual Engineering’. Synthese 198 (2021): 11587–605.10.1007/s11229-020-02815-9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pollock, Joey ‘Radical Holism and Disagreement’. In Sharing Thoughts: Philosophical Perspectives on Intersubjectivity and Communication, edited by Bermúdez, José Luis, Valente, Matheus and Verdejo, Victor, 312–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.Google Scholar
Prinz, Jesse. Furnishing the Mind: Concepts and Their Perceptual Basis. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2002.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Putnam, Hilary. ‘Meaning and Reference’. Journal of Philosophy 70 (1973): 699–711.10.2307/2025079CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Queloz, Matthieu. ‘Function-Based Conceptual Engineering and the Authority Problem’. Mind 131 (2022): 1247–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Railton, Peter. ‘Naturalism and Prescriptivity’. Social Philosophy and Policy 7 (1989): 151–74.10.1017/S0265052500001060CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rey, Georges. ‘Concepts versus Conceptions (Again)’. Behavioural and Brain Sciences 33 (2010): 221–2.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rorty, Richard. Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1979.Google Scholar
Rosch, Eleanor, and Mervis, Carolyn B.. ‘Family Resemblances: Studies in the Internal Structure of Categories’. Cognitive Psychology 7 (1975): 573–605.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, Sarah. ‘Concept Pluralism in Conceptual Engineering’. Inquiry (2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2021.1986424.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, Sarah ‘An Externalist Shared Thought View of Communication, Agreement, and Disagreement’. In Sharing Thoughts: Philosophical Perspectives on Intersubjectivity and Communication, edited by Bermúdez, José Luis, Valente, Matheus and Verdejo, Victor, 173–92. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2025.Google Scholar
Sawyer, Sarah ‘The Importance of Concepts’. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society 118 (2018): 127–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, Sarah ‘Kinds of Kinds: Normativity, Scope and Implementation in Conceptual Engineering’. In New Perspectives on Conceptual Engineering, edited by Isaac, Manuel Gustavo, Koch, Steffen and Scharp, Kevin. Synthese Library. Forthcoming.Google Scholar
Sawyer, Sarah ‘The Role of Concepts in Fixing Language’. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 50 (2020): 555–65.10.1017/can.2020.5CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawyer, Sarah ‘Talk and Thought’. In Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, edited by Burgess, Alexis, Cappelen, Herman and Plunkett, David, 379–95. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.Google Scholar
Sawyer, Sarah ‘There Is No Viable Notion of Narrow Content’. In Contemporary Debates in Philosophy of Mind, edited by Brian, P. McLaughlin and Jonathan, D. Cohen, 20–34. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.Google Scholar
Sawyer, Sarah ‘Truth and Objectivity in Conceptual Engineering’. Inquiry 63 (2020): 1001–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2020.1805708.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scharp, Kevin. Replacing Truth. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013.10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199653850.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tarski, Alfred. ‘The Concept of Truth in Formalized Languages’. In Logic, Semantics, Metamathematics, translated by J. H. Woodger, 152–278. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931.Google Scholar
Thomasson, Amie. ‘Conceptual Engineering: When Do We Need It? How Can We Do It?’ Inquiry (2021). https://doi.org/10.1080/0020174X.2021.2000118/.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomasson, Amie ‘How Should We Think about Linguistic Function?’ Inquiry 67 (2024): 840–71.10.1080/0020174X.2022.2074886CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Thomasson, Amie ‘A Pragmatic Method for Normative Conceptual Work’. In Conceptual Engineering and Conceptual Ethics, edited by Burgess, Alexis, Cappelen, Herman and Plunkett, David, 435–58. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020.Google Scholar
Weiskopf, Daniel, A. ‘Atomism, Pluralism, and Conceptual Content’. Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 79 (2009): 131–63.10.1111/j.1933-1592.2009.00269.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, Michael. ‘Introduction to the 2009 Edition’. In Rorty, Richard, Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, 30th anniversary edition, xiii–xxix. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009.10.1515/9781400833061-001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Accessibility standard: WCAG 2.1 AA
Why this information is here
This section outlines the accessibility features of this content - including support for screen readers, full keyboard navigation and high-contrast display options. This may not be relevant for you.Accessibility Information
The HTML of this chapter complies with version 2.1 of the
Web Content Accessibility Guidelines
(WCAG), covering newer accessibility requirements and improved
user experiences and achieves the intermediate
(AA)
level of WCAG compliance, covering a wider range of accessibility requirements.
Content Navigation
Table of contents navigation
Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.
Allows you to navigate directly to chapters, sections, or non‐text items through a linked table of contents, reducing the need for extensive scrolling.
Index navigation
Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.
Provides an interactive index, letting you go straight to where a term or subject appears in the text without manual searching.
Reading Order & Textual Equivalents
Single logical reading order
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
You will encounter all content (including footnotes, captions, etc.) in a clear, sequential flow, making it easier to follow with assistive tools like screen readers.
Short alternative textual descriptions
You get concise descriptions (for images, charts, or media clips), ensuring you do not miss crucial information when visual or audio elements are not accessible.
You get concise descriptions (for images, charts, or media clips), ensuring you do not miss crucial information when visual or audio elements are not accessible.
Visual Accessibility
Use of colour is not sole means of conveying information
You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.
You will still understand key ideas or prompts without relying solely on colour, which is especially helpful if you have colour vision deficiencies.
Structural and Technical Features
ARIA roles provided
You gain clarity from ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) roles and attributes, as they help assistive technologies interpret how each part of the content functions.
You gain clarity from ARIA (Accessible Rich Internet Applications) roles and attributes, as they help assistive technologies interpret how each part of the content functions.