Conceptual engineering is the process of assessing and improving our conceptual repertoire. Some authors have claimed that introducing or revising concepts through conceptual engineering can go as far as expanding the realm of thinkable thoughts and thus enable us to form beliefs, hypotheses, wishes, or desires that we are currently unable to form. If true, this would allow conceptual engineers to contribute to solving stubborn problems – problems that cannot be solved with our current ways of thinking. We call this kind of conceptual engineering heavy‐duty conceptual engineering. As exciting as the idea of heavy‐duty conceptual engineering sounds, it has never been developed or defended. In this paper, we pursue a two‐fold goal. First, to offer a theory of heavy‐duty conceptual engineering that distinguishes it from other kinds of conceptual engineering; second, to show that heavy‐duty conceptual engineering is possible, both in theory and in practice, and to explain how it can be applied in the service of solving stubborn problems. The central idea is that heavy‐duty conceptual engineering can enhance the semantic expressive power of a conceptual system by the use of bootstrapping processes.

中文翻译：

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重型概念工程


概念工程是评估和改进我们的概念库的过程。一些作者声称，通过概念工程引入或修改概念可以扩展到可思考的思想领域，从而使我们能够形成我们目前无法形成的信念、假设、愿望或愿望。如果属实，这将使概念工程师能够为解决顽固的问题做出贡献——我们目前的思维方式无法解决的问题。我们将这种概念工程称为重型概念工程。尽管重型概念工程的想法听起来令人兴奋，但它从未被开发或捍卫过。在本文中，我们追求双重目标。首先，提供一种重型概念工程理论，将其与其他类型的概念工程区分开来;其次，证明重型概念工程在理论和实践中都是可能的，并解释如何将其应用于解决顽固问题。中心思想是，重型概念工程可以通过使用引导过程来增强概念系统的语义表达能力。