Abstracts
Sarah (University of Sussex) : "Conceptual Engineering and Externalist Frameworks"There has been significant recent interest in the phenomenon of conceptual engineering. In this talk, I show how the phenomenon can be explained within an externalist metasemantic framework that distinguishes language from thought. I consider two alternative externalist frameworks, each of which purports to explain the phenomenon, and argue that neither succeeds. Looking at the differences between the three externalist frameworks in this context helps to highlight the externalist commitment both to the objectivity of the properties about which we talk and to the normative nature of thought.
