"Two Approaches to
Conceptual Choice"
Abstract: I have argued elsewhere that we should see metaphysics as fundamentally involved in conceptual work: not merely the kind of descriptive conceptual work of classical conceptual analysis, but also—and often more interestingly—normative conceptual work: work in conceptual ethics. If metaphysics centrally involves normative conceptual work, how ought we to be doing it? What methods and standards should we employ? In this paper I weigh up two alternative approaches. One is what we may call the ‘metaphysical’ approach: the idea that our conceptual choices should be guided by and answerable to metaphysical facts—e.g. facts about what (really) exists, or facts about structure. The other is what we may call the ‘pragmatic’ approach’: the idea that our conceptual choices should be guided by broadly pragmatic considerations, including not considerations of ‘mere’ usefulness, but also, in at least some cases, by deeper ethical, normative, or political considerations. I will argue that the pragmatic approach is more plausible than you might have thought—perhaps even so plausible as to make the mysteries that come with the metaphysics-first approach come to seem avoidable and unnecessary.
Amie Thomasson is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Miami.
