Philosophy as Conceptual Engagement: The Concepts We Have and the Concepts We Want
FWF doc.funds project at the University of Vienna

Overview
Ask even the most eloquent philosopher what philosophy is, and in most cases he or she will struggle to articulate a good answer. A possible exception are philosophers who work in metaphilosophy—i.e. who work on questions about philosophy and its methods. However, contemporary metaphilosophy is a highly controversial and divided field with widely diverging views of what philosophy is and what its methods should be. At one extreme, there are those who advocate an a priori approach according to which philosophy relies on a priori intuitions and studies aspects of reality that can be elucidated by those means (e.g. Bealer 1998, Chudnoff 2013, Bengson 2015). There are also those who think that philosophers investigate reality via studying hypothetical cases (method of cases, thought experiments), with varying accounts of those methods (e.g. Yablo 1993, Williamson 2007, 2018; Cappelen 2012; Levin 2014; Papineau 2014; Bengson 2015; Horvath 2018). Yet others reject thought experiments (the method of cases) and see philosophy as at best continuous with empirical science (e.g. Kornblith 2002, Ladyman & Ross 2007). Another extreme is occupied by those who advocate experimental methods and see philosophy as elucidating empirical aspects of human thought, at individual or society level (e.g. the articles in Sytsma & Buckwalter (eds) 2016, Machery 2017, Knobe & Nichols 2017). Finally, there are also those who view philosophy not primarily as examining, but as manipulating and thereby improving human thought—also sometimes known as “conceptual engineering” (e.g. Creath 1990, Blackburn 1999, Haslanger 2000, Scharp 2013, Brun 2016, Cappelen 2017, Eklund 2017, Sawyer 2020, Burgess et al. (eds) 2020, Isaac 2021, Nado 2021, Chalmers forthcoming).

While metaphilosophy is divided, most philosophy is continuing undisturbed. Metaphysicists still examine the nature of reality, truth, existence etc, ethicists still examine what we ought to do and what is good, metaethicists still ask about the status of moral judgement, logicians still examine the logical properties of various languages, epistemologists still try to explain what knowledge and justification is, aestheticists still wonder about beauty and aesthetic experience, philosophers of mind still ask whether the mind is material and how mental representation works, and so on. While individual approaches to each such question may vary considerably, the questions are generally viewed as the same across different approaches and also across different historical periods. Thus, metaphilosophical division contrasts with topical continuity, or at least a perception of such continuity. Philosophers typically view themselves as pursuing the same questions as their rivalling contemporaries and as their historical antecedents.
In principle, there need be nothing wrong if a scientific discipline continues undisturbed by metascientific controversy. However, the metaphilosophical views on offer raise some uncomfortable questions about philosophy. If the experimental philosophers are right, then much of philosophy today and in the past has been conducted in a woefully inadequate way. If theorists of a priori philosophical intuition are right, then most philosophers are sceptical about the primary philosophical method. If the conceptual engineers are right, then much of philosophy is pursuing irrelevant descriptive pursuits. Thus, each of the most prominent metaphilosophical views can make sense only of a small part of philosophy.

This project proposes to explore a unifying hypothesis about the subject matter of philosophy: that a significant part of philosophy, both historical and contemporary, is concerned with the pursuit of conceptual engagement: the activity of reflecting, on our own ways of thinking. Conceptual engagement can involve finding out about our actual ways of thinking, the actual concepts we employ. It can involve exploring possible concepts in abstraction of whether anyone actually uses them. It can involve considering what would be good concepts to have, i.e. what would be good ways to think about a subject matter. On this view, much of philosophy concerns different aspects of the same overall reflective aim: it aims at a better understanding of ourselves and the way we think with a view to improvement. Thus, the hypothesis not only concedes that different aims may warrant different methods, it also suggests that often these different aims contribute to an overarching project: that of conceptual engagement: a better understanding and improvement of our own ways of thinking.
The aim of the project is to explore the power and limits of this hypothesis by introducing a research group dedicated to methodological reflection and discussion into the Vienna Doctoral School of Philosophy (VDP). Each PhD-project funded by the project will be a case study by which the hypothesis can be explored: does it fit the hypothesis? If so, which of the types of conceptual engagement envisaged does the project exemplify? If not, why not, and does it exemplify a coherent alternative methodology?

The VDP unites philosophical research from a very wide and diverse range of traditions, disciplines, historical periods, and methodological outlooks. The metaphilosophical hypothesis that philosophy is largely conceptual engagement is capable of unifying a large variety of contemporary and historical approaches to philosophy.
To be sure: many contemporary externalists (e.g. Kornblith, Williamson) disagree with the view that philosophy is largely conceptual engagement. Their views have several sympathizers amongst the faculty members of this project and amongst the VDP faculty as a whole. But engagement with this approach to philosophy is intended as part of the project.
The aim of the project is not to force all philosophy into a unified metaphilosophical mould and to regiment methodology. Rather, the aim is overall methodological improvement through explicit exchange and discussion of the methods and approaches used. The diversity of methods and approaches is not expected to decrease, but the level of fruitful exchange and of methodological awareness is expected to increase, and thereby the quality and significance of the work of the doctoral researchers.

The Hypothesis
The hypothesis is that a significant part of philosophy, both currently and historically, is concerned with the pursuit of conceptual engagement. The three elements of conceptual engagement—(a) description of actual concepts, (b) exploration of possible concepts and (c) evaluation of possible concepts for actual use—are of course mutually supportive. Observations of our actual ways of thinking may motivate deliberations about how it would be good to think. Completely abstract considerations about merely possible concepts are often ultimately motivated by our interest in actual ways of thinking. And again, the reason we want to know more about our actual ways of thinking may be the perception that they cause problems that could be avoided. Thus, the three elements, though quite different, contribute to an overarching enterprise of understanding and improving our ways of thinking.
The divergence of methodological approaches defended in metaphilosophy can in part be explained by the fact that different philosophers focus on different elements of the project of conceptual engagement: (a), (b) or (c). Some are more focused on the empirical project of describing our actual concepts, some are more focused on exploring concepts in the abstract, some are interested in what would be good concepts to have. Often, philosophical projects concern subtle combinations of these focuses.

Let me offer three examples. Much philosophical work on personal identity seems to be concerned with our actual ways of thinking, thus we ask ourselves whether we would regard person A as identical to person B if A and B stood in a relation of psychological continuity. But much work on personal identity also seems to be interested in the question what should count in favour of A and B being the same person. The latter may be understood in two fundamentally different ways: as the question which criterion is most appropriate given the independent metaphysical facts of personhood, or as the question which concept of person would be most appropriate given certain purposes. In classic authors, like Locke (1689) and Parfit (1984, 2011), all these questions seem to play a role, and it is not always easy to disentangle them.
Another example is research about the liar paradox. Some philosophers are engaged in purely logical questions about the behaviour of certain languages when a truth-predicate is added to them. Others will take such languages (to which a truth-predicate has been consistently added) to provide a model of how our actual truth concept works (e.g. Kripke 1975). Yet others will take such models to illustrate which novel truth concepts we should use to replace our actual concept, which causes inconsistency (e.g. Scharp 2013).
A third example is metaethical research about the moral ought. Some take themselves to be merely engaged in a project of describing actual thought (e.g. Prinz 2007, Wedgwood 2007, Finlay 2014). Others are explicit about wanting to introduce a new, better concept of ought (Mill 1961, Eklund 2017). Yet others seem to think that the two projects (that of describing the concept of ought we have, and that of choosing a good concept of ought) are unavoidably linked (Brandt 1970, Rawls 1971, Railton 1989).

Thus, the hypothesis offers an account of a central subject matter of philosophy that has the potential to classify much philosophical activity as contributing to the same overall goal: engagement with our own ways of thinking. At the same time, it has the potential of showing a way out of methodological unclarity and controversy by explaining (and justifying) some methodological diversity. For the different elements of conceptual engagement (empirical, abstract, practical) will require different methodological approaches.
To be sure, not all methodological controversies are automatically answered by the hypothesis: some specific controversies will remain, such as, for example, disagreements about the best methods for examining actually used concepts: by experiments, by intuitions about cases or perhaps by introspective methods. Nevertheless, the hypothesis has the potential to explain away much of the current appearance of metaphilosophical controversy as differences in method that correspond to the different aspects of the project of conceptual engagement.

The Aims of the project
The aims of the project are to test the scope of the hypothesis and its explanatory power; and to improve methodological awareness and sophistication amongst doctoral researchers faculty. The scope of the hypothesis is best tested by looking at philosophical problems through its lens, and trying to identify which type of conceptual engagement is involved, if any. This includes trying to find philosophical problems that have nothing to do with conceptual engagement, i.e. cases where the hypothesis does not apply. The explanatory power of the hypothesis is best tested by evaluating the methodologies used by philosophers in the light of distinguishing the different aspects of conceptual engagements mentioned: descriptive, abstract and practical.
We propose that each PhD-project funded by this project figure as such a test case for the hypothesis. The plan is not to stipulate a fixed set of philosophical problems and then recruit PhD researchers to carry out the research. Rather, the idea is to let the PhD-researchers bring their own philosophical projects, but to require them to work in a methodologically reflective manner that will ultimately show whether their research can in fact be usefully seen as a form of conceptual engagement or not. Moreover, we will require them to make explicit their methodological assumptions, i.e. to explain how they hope to support the theses they will be defending. We do not wish to restrict the range of philosophical problems work on which can be funded. The call for applications will be thematically open. We believe that any worthwhile philosophical project can be used as a test case of the hypothesis and be carried out in a methodologically reflective way.

We do not assume in any way that every philosophical project can be approached as a project of conceptual engagement. On the contrary: finding cases that do not match the hypothesis would be a valuable illustration of its limits. There is a significant number of philosophers who emphatically deny that conceptual reflection is part of their philosophical research. Hilary Kornblith puts it thus: “the subject matter of ethics is the right and the good, not our concepts of them. The subject matter of philosophy of mind is the mind itself, not our concept of it. And the subject matter of epistemology is knowledge itself, not our concept of knowledge.” (2002, p. 1). We agree that a PhD-project that is carried out under these assumptions can be methodologically reflective and help contribute to testing the scope and power of the hypothesis. Several of the faculty members of the project sympathize with this outlook at least for some areas of philosophy. Others tend more towards the view that philosophy is mostly aimed at conceptual engagement of one or another variety. We see this diversity of views as a strength, as it will generate productive debate within the doctoral school.
Similarly, the project does not presuppose any particular view of concepts. It is even compatible with scepticism about concepts (e.g. Cappelen 2017, Machery 2009). There is a version of the hypothesis that avoids commitment to concepts: a significant part of philosophy, both currently and historically, is concerned with reflecting about our own ways of thinking. This can include description of the ways we actually think, exploration of abstract ways one might think and deliberation about the ways in which we ought to think.
The project is neutral with respect to the distinction between so-called “analytic” and “continental” traditions and styles of philosophy (to the extent to which making the distinction is not obsolete, both are represented amongst the faculty members and in the doctoral school). We believe that analytic and continental philosophy are each confronted by the metaphilosophical and methodological challenges outlined above. Jointly reflecting on these challenges will enrich and strengthen the response.

Finally, it needs to be emphasized that the project will be especially hospitable to research wholly or partly in the history of philosophy. The history of philosophy is often concerned with, or relevant to, the genealogy and development of concepts, which makes it naturally interesting to those concerned with conceptual engagement. The project’s hypothesis may even begin to explain a feature that seems to be unique to philosophy: the relevance of its own history. Of course, the history of philosophy additionally has its own methodological challenges different from those of systematic philosophy.

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