Peirce’s Ethics of Terminology, and the Pragmatic Maxim Applied to Conceptual Engineering

The present paper aims to clarify on the one hand to what extent Peirce’s pragmatism is compatible with conceptual engineering, and on the other how the pragmatic method may help frame some burning questions of CE. (1) The first part of the paper paves the way for a comparison between Peirce’s pragmatism and CE. It introduces the general concerns shared by CE and Peirce, and focuses on his “ethics of terminology” and his ameliorative strategies for finding exact concepts. (2) On the basis of the results reached in the first part, the paper proposes a specific application of the pragmatic method to CE, in order to make the latter more effective. If the crucial question of conceptual engineering is: “what do we want a concept to be?”, the pragmatic maxim – indicated by Peirce as “method for the analysis of concepts” (Peirce CP 8.191, 1904 c.) – helps determine what kind of conceptual engineering we want to go for. In this regard, I take into account the differences between de novo engineering and re-engineering (among others, cf. Chalmers 2020) and use Peirce’s pragmatic maxim for assessing their (conceivable) practical effects, so that we can figure out what is the most feasible way to become good conceptual engineers.