Event Timeslots (1)
Wednesday
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Nico Orlandi (UC Santa Cruz, DAAD Gastprofessur Philosophy of Cognitive Science)
Conceptual engineering is usually understood as the design, implementation, and evaluation of concepts in projects that aim to ameliorate our understanding of the social and political world. But what are concepts such that conceptual engineering would even be possible? And is conceptual engineering something we should want to do (and why)? This seminar aims to address these questions by reading literature in western analytic philosophy starting from the work of feminist philosopher Sally Haslanger. Haslanger is often credited with introducing the idea of 'ameliorative' projects that, rather than simply describing the concepts we have, strive to design our concepts in ways that meet our social and political goals. We will look at critical reactions to this idea, as well as at ways of developing it.