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CE Seminar: Talk by Takaaki Matsui (Tokyo) on “Inferentialism and Conceptual Engineering: A Sellarsian Approach”
Research Project: Conceptual Engineering
12th April 2019 @ 2:00 pm - 4:00 pm
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Abstract
In his Fixing Language (2018), Herman Cappelen claims that since revising and improving our concepts are important activities, being able to explain how conceptual revision is possible is a constraint on any theory in metasemantics. However, according to Cappelen, inferentialism is “static” and thus “not constructed to account for constant evolution and revision [of concepts].” He also claims that inferentialists have made little effort to address the problem of the limits of conceptual revision, namely, the problem of explaining how much revision is permissible and when we are no longer talking about the same topic through a conceptual revision. This talk aims to answer these objections to inferentialism. I will argue, following Sellars, that inferentialism can be so dynamic that it can explain how conceptual revision is possible.
Other events in Conceptual Engineering
May 2020: Workshop on Genealogy & Conceptual Engineering – cancelled
Nov 2019: Super Special Seminar: Wil Cunningham (Tornonto) The neuroscience of self and social identity
Mar 2020: Conceptual Engineering Seminar | Patrick Greenough (St Andrews): “The stipulation dilemma”
Apr 2019: Workshop Themes from Fixing Language