Call for Papers: Conceptual Engineering — Foundations and Applications

2023-11-30

Call for Papers: Conceptual Engineering — Foundations and Applications

The Philosophy of Science (Filozofia Nauki) invites submissions for a special issue of the journal.

This volume is devoted to conceptual engineering — a normative, methodological approach focused on revising or ameliorating concepts or expressions, which is contrary to descriptive approaches, such as conceptual analysis, that aim to establish the nature of their subject of interest. Conceptual engineering is an influential approach in philosophical methodology, as well as in ethics. Since analytic philosophy has been traditionally considered to be mainly focused on descriptive projects, conceptual engineering offers a revolutionary shift in analytic philosophy's methodology and its metaphilosophy. Conceptual engineering proved to be especially fruitful in philosophical projects concerned with the pursuit of social justice and the further development of ethically and socially engaged analytic philosophy.

This issue of The Philosophy of Science (Filozofia Nauki) aims to explore the foundations of the conceptual engineering approach and its applications in several philosophical branches. We invite contributions relating, but not limited to:

  • The question of the target of conceptual engineering

  • The limits of conceptual engineering

  • The intersection between conceptual engineering and other methodological approaches in philosophy (e.g. conceptual analysis, ordinary language philosophy, experimental philosophy)

  • Normative constraints that can be relevant for conceptual engineering projects

  • The intersection of conceptual engineering methodology and the dispute on metalinguistic negotiations

  • The intersection of conceptual engineering methodology and the dispute between semantic externalism and internalism

  • Application of conceptual engineering methodology to philosophical projects concerned with the pursuit of social justice

  • Conceptual engineering of natural kind terms and social kinds such as race, gender, disability, class, sexual orientation and others

  • Implementation of ameliorated concepts and its challenges

The Philosophy of Science (Filozofia Nauki) is an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of philosophy in the analytic tradition. It is indexed by the Web of Science and Scopus.

We invite original contributions written in English. The manuscripts should be submitted by February 29, 2023. All papers included in the volume will be peer-reviewed. Manuscripts can be submitted either through our website [submit an article] or emailed to thephos@uw.edu.pl.

Before submitting a manuscript, please consult the submission guidelines at https://www.fn.uw.edu.pl/index.php/fn/about/submissions.

Should you have any questions, do not hesitate to write us at thephos@uw.edu.pl

Guest-editors: Antonina Jamrozik, Zu Jusińska, Krzysztof Sękowski

University of Warsaw, Department of Philosophy