Introduction

Suppose you could change people’s way of thinking about the world at its very roots. What we have in mind is something that cuts deep, right down to the very constituents of thought. Suppose that you could bring about changes in people’s way of thinking about the world by changing the very concepts by means of which they think. Suppose, further, that this would make the world a better place; that would be quite something. Conceptual engineering is concerned with this remarkable kind of feat. Within conceptual engineering, we can distinguish between three main lines of inquiry. The first concerns foundational issues having to do with the very possibility of conceptual engineering. Pessimists think that conceptual engineering cannot be done. And even among optimists, there is a remarkable variety in terms of how hard conceptual engineering is taken to be. The options here are ranging from very cautious to wholehearted optimists. Another, related question concerns the scope of conceptual engineering. A lot of the literature has focused on projects aimed at fixing defective concepts. But it is a live question as to whether conceptual engineering can go beyond this. For instance, we may ask whether we can engage in conceptual engineering projects for concepts that are not defective but can be improved upon. And we can also ask a question about conceptual innovation, that is, whether we can bring into existence new concepts.