Explication or Amelioration? Carnapian Clarification as the Normative Basis for Conceptual Engineering
Abstract
As conceptual engineering fractures into explication pursuing exactness and amelioration pursuing justice, the field risks losing its focus. I argue that unifying these projects requires retrieving a crucial insight from Rudolf Carnap: that attempts to improve concepts must start with the preliminary stage of practical clarification. However, Carnap’s account of clarification in terms of predictive proficiency remains normatively inert and biased towards exactness. I expand it into a normative diagnosis of the needs underpinning a concept’s inferential structure. This reveals whether properties like vagueness are flaws that need fixing or features worth preserving. Ultimately, practical clarification can orient a division of conceptual labour, determining when concepts call for scientific exactness or social utility and accommodating both aspirations within one methodology.
Date Issued
2026
Publication Type
Article
Subject(s)
Subjects
Carnap
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clarification
•
normativity
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explication
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amelioration
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conceptual engineering
Language(s)
en
Journal
The Monist
Publisher
Oxford University Press
ISSN
0026-9662
Access(Rights)
metadata.only