Deflating the functional turn in conceptual engineering.
Conceptual engineers have recently turned to the notion of conceptual functions to do a variety of explanatory work. Functions are supposed to explain what speakers are debating about in metalinguistic negotiations, to capture when two concepts are about the same thing, and to help guide our normati...
| Publicado en: | Synthese Vol. 199; no. 3/4; pp. 11555 - 11587 |
|---|---|
| Autor principal: | |
| Formato: | Artículo |
| Publicado: |
Springer Nature
Dec2021
|
| Materias: | |
| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=154096949&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 154096949 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00397857 4LI jtl: Synthese issn: 00397857 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Dec2021 vid: 199 iid: 3/4 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 154096949 10.1007/s11229-021-03302-5 ppf: 11555 ppct: 32 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 693KB tig: atl: Deflating the functional turn in conceptual engineering. aug: au: Riggs, Jared affil: Philosophy, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada su: Problem solving Engineers Engineering sug: subj: Problem solving Engineers Engineering keyword: Concepts Conceptual change Conceptual engineering Conceptual functions ab: Conceptual engineers have recently turned to the notion of conceptual functions to do a variety of explanatory work. Functions are supposed to explain what speakers are debating about in metalinguistic negotiations, to capture when two concepts are about the same thing, and to help guide our normative inquiries into which concepts we should use. In this paper, I argue that this recent "functional turn" should be deflated. Contra most interpreters, we should not try to use a substantive notion of conceptual functions to handle various problems for conceptual engineering. The primary accounts of function appealed to by conceptual engineers, namely etiological and system functions, are not suited to handle many of the problems functions are supposed to handle, and it's dubious whether any other account of function would do better. Instead of trying to use substantive functions to solve theoretical problems, we should deflate those problems themselves by focusing only on what matters to us, as speakers or theorists, in a given inquiry. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Synthese is a copyright of Springer, 2021. All Rights Reserved. item: Synthese holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2021 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
|---|