Abstract. — Conceptual engineering (CE) is the area of philosophy dedicated to assessing and improving our representational devices. Experimental philosophy (XPhi) focuses on using techniques from experimental psychology and cognitive science to investigate traditional philosophical problems and methods. It has seemed to many that XPhi could play an important role in CE projects, and various aspects of this idea have started to show up in the literature. Here I focus on a fundamental question about the kinds of CE projects that could benefit from XPhi and how they might do so. This issue is closely linked to a the “changing the subject” problem (from Strawson) that has been used as an objection to CE. In particular, how is information from XPhi about how we currently think and talk relevant to assessing and improving our representational devices? I argue that XPhi should play an important role in the assessment of most of our representational devices, but its role in improving them is less clear, especially in cases of scientific CE, like the controversial definition of ‘planet’ by the International Astronomical Union in 2006.

• Zoom meeting ID: 857 3025 53 80
• Zoom password: ACEW20 (Invite link)