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Changing the Subject

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2020

Timothy Sundell
Timothy Sundell*
Affiliation:
University of Kentucky Department of Philosophy Lexington, Kentucky
*
Email: timothy.sundell@uky.edu
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Abstract

In Fixing Language, Herman Cappelen defends the project of conceptual engineering from a family of objections that he calls “the Strawsonian challenges.” Those objections are all versions of this: “If I ask you a question about the F’s, and you give me an answer that’s not about the F’s but rather about the G’s, then you haven’t answered my question. You have changed the subject.” I argue that Cappelen’s response succeeds in reply to one understanding of the Strawsonian challenge—on which it is motivated by ordinary judgments of samesaying and continuity of topic—but that it fails as a response to another version—on which a parallel objection is motivated by philosophical considerations and is stated in a theoretical register.

Keywords

philosophy of languageconceptual engineeringconceptual analysisdisagreementspeech reports
Type
Author meets critics
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 50 , Issue 5 , July 2020 , pp. 580 - 593
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Canadian Journal of Philosophy

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