CFP: Conceptual Engineering and its Place in the History of Philosophy

Conceptual Engineering and its Place in the History of Philosophy

Special Issue: History of Philosophy and Logical Analysis (Brill)

Deadline: December 31st, 2024

We are pleased to announce a Call for Papers for a special issue in History of Philosophy & Logical Analysis devoted to conceptual engineering and its place in the history of philosophy.

Conceptual Engineering takes normative considerations on concepts and revising their meaning as a primal goal for philosophy. It has both linguistic and extra-linguistic goals. Better concepts should allow us to develop better theories, overcome hermeneutic injustices, and help us navigate our social world.

Conceptual Engineering is often portrayed as a revolutionary movement seeking to reshape the way we think about philosophy and the act of philosophizing. In this narrative, conceptual engineering emerges as a novel methodological approach in contrast to traditional philosophical methodologies that primarily involve the analysis of concepts rather than their revision.

However, this depiction of conceptual engineering is not without controversy. Some have argued that the practice of revising or introducing new concepts has a long history in philosophy, suggesting that many historical philosophical works can be interpreted as early instances of conceptual engineering.

The issue seeks to explore the question of where conceptual engineering fits within the history of philosophy. We are interested in both:

a) metaphilosophical discussions about the role and methods of improving concepts in texts belonging to the history of philosophy or in historical texts, and

b) examples that can be seen as applied cases of concept engineering in the history of philosophy.

Possible topics include but are not limited to:

- Demonstrations of conceptual engineering in the history of philosophy

- Explicit historical examples of arguments for or against the method of revising concepts

- Historical analyses of how a revised concept had theoretical or social consequences

- Explorations of the differences between contemporary examples of conceptual engineering and historical instances of arguments aimed at concept revision or amelioration

Papers may cover any tradition in any historical period, including ancient, medieval, and modern philosophy, with an exception for papers concerning works done by living authors. The papers should be no longer than 9000 words (including abstract, footnotes, and bibliography). Abstracts should have 150-250 words.

CFP:

Papers should be sent to any of the editors by December 31st, 2024.

If you have any questions, including whether your proposal fits within the scope of the volume, please contact one of the editors.

Editors:

Celso Vieira (Ruhr-Universität Bochum), [email protected]

Krzysztof Sękowski (University of Warsaw), [email protected]

Ethan Landes (University of Zurich)