Ether Lin

Should conceptual engineering be a legitimate methodology in science and, if so, how should we make sense of it? This paper argues for a functionalist conception of conceptual engineering for science. In particular, it extends Lutz’s (2020) proposal — that conceptual engineering should be understood as modifying the analytic component — to a broader functionalist picture by defending a view I call Carnapian constitutive functionalism, that a concept is the constraint on admissible interpretations imposed by a chosen analytic component, which is to say it is individuated by the role the theory assigns the term under that component. Scientific conceptual engineering is thus understood as the revision of the corresponding analytic component, and as a result, every engineering act results in a different concept.