Jared Riggs

Some philosophers argue that knowledge is the norm of belief. They typically have in mind “norms” that specify what one ought to do as a matter of normative fact, in a way that’s independent of whether anyone actually conforms to these norms or expects others to do so. This paper explores a different sense in which knowledge could be a norm for belief. Under this sociological, descriptive sense, “norms” constitutively depend on what we in fact expect of each other, and the standards by which we evaluate and criticize each other’s activities. Since which social norms we enforce is to some degree a contingent, voluntary matter, it makes sense to ask whether there’s practical utility in adopting knowledge as a social norm for belief. We argue that enforcing such knowledge norms for belief would be more practically useful than two of the main alternative social norms we could enforce instead.

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.

Conceptual engineers sometimes say they want to change what our words mean. If a certain kind of externalism is true, it might be nearly impossible to do that. For some of the external factors that determine meaning, like metaphysical naturalness or past usage, are not within our power to change. And if we can’t change what determines meaning, then we can’t change meaning. I argue that, if this sort of externalism is true, then conceptual engineers didn’t want to change what our words mean anyway. And if they did, they could always engineer externalism out of the language, or engineer a new sense of ‘meaning’ which could be changed. So the truth of externalism does not pose a threat to the possibility of conceptual engineering.

Friedrich Nietzsche thought that philosophers were deeply mistaken about the nature and sources of philosophical activity. Where others took themselves to be motivated by a desire to know the truth, Nietzsche charged that his fellow philosophers, motivated by a pathological set of psychological and physiological characteristics, did little more than sublimate and rationalize their own prejudices. In this thesis, I sketch out in further detail and defend the plausibility and significance of this Nietzschean diagnosis of philosophers. I argue that since Nietzsche’s view of philosophers both offers a compelling explanation of some phenomena in contemporary philosophical practice and, were it true, would have significant upshot for how and even whether philosophy should be practiced, we philosophers ought to begin taking it seriously.