Join us for a lecture by Jamin Asay (Purdue) and Max Deutsch (HKU) titled "Conceptual Perfection."
Conceptual Perfection
We argue that all concepts are perfect, with no defects of any kind whatsoever. A consequence of this is that proposals to revise or improve concepts are confused, poorly motivated, and impossible to enact. Since proposals to revise and improve concepts, and attempts to enact these proposals, are core among the things that advocates of conceptual engineering are advocating, our argument demonstrates that a main variety of conceptual engineering is confused, poorly motivated, and impossible to carry out. The lesson is that no one should pursue this variety of conceptual engineering. Attempts to revise or improve concepts falsely presuppose that many concepts are imperfect and riddled with defects. Since the truth, as we will show, is that all concepts are perfect, such attempts are pointless and doomed to fail.