Call for abstracts directed at philosophers and non-philosophers who are interested in concepts, their impact on social life, and how we can change them for the better! Deadline: 15 October. We welcome submissions from a variety of sectors. Share widely 🙏 📍Conference website: www.conceptsatwork.net

Concepts at Work 2027

a two-day conference bringing together philosophers and practitioners* to explore the work that concepts do in the real world

conceptsatwork.net

I have a new paper coming out on conceptual abandonment: philpapers.org/rec/SHIDFP-2. Abandonment is a ubiquitous strategy in the history of philosophy – philosophers have advocated getting rid of folk psychological concepts, the concept of harm, the concept of democracy, among many others.

Matthew Shields, Diving for pearls: conceptual abandonment, conceptual engineering, and the limits of thought and language - PhilPapers

References to conceptual abandonment are ubiquitous in philosophy. I argue that making a case for abandonment is much harder than philosophers have realized and that this difficulty has striking, broa...

philpapers.org

My colleague Tamara Dobler is organizing this very cool workshop on the semantics-pragmatics distinction, taking place at VU Amsterdam on June 25-26. (It is possible to register as a participant by sending Tamara an email.) My talk will be on joint work with @celinehenne.bsky.social

Sandra Harding, a philosopher well-known for her work in feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and philosophy of science, has died.

Sandra Harding (1935-2025) - Daily Nous

Sandra Harding, a philosopher well-known for her work in feminist theory, postcolonial theory, and philosophy of science, has died. Professor Harding was recognized for her development of standpoint t...

dailynous.com

C’est le printemps 🌿 mon tout premier article vient d’être publié, en bonne compagnie, au sein du dossier thématique « modernité sexuelle et religion ».

Revue Théorèmes @revue-theoremes.bsky.social · 2y ago

Un article de Benjamin Dubrulle, "Qu’est-ce qu’une mosquée inclusive ? Enquête à Londres et Paris" journals.openedition.org/theoremes/16...

Join us in London on the afternoon of Friday 25th April for 'Conceptual Engineering: New ideas for a disrupted age', with speakers including Dr Manuel Gustavo Isaac, Dr Guido Löhr, @celinehenne.bsky.social, Lela Kogbara and @staplejames.bsky.social Tickets here: lu.ma/fnlconceptual #ai #philosophy

Conceptual Engineering: New ideas for a disrupted age · Luma

As our realities are rapidly reshaped by technological and social change, the world can feel increasingly chaotic and hard to grasp. Part of the difficulty may…

lu.ma

Very excited to share this event on conceptual engineering co-organised with Future Narratives Lab @fnlab.bsky.social-- bringing together philosophers & civil society voices. With Manuel Gustavo Isaac, Guido Löhr, Emily Kenway, and more! 📍London, 25 April 👉Register here: lu.ma/fnlconceptual

Conceptual Engineering: New ideas for a disrupted age · Luma

As our realities are rapidly reshaped by technological and social change, the world can feel increasingly chaotic and hard to grasp. Part of the difficulty may…

lu.ma

What the hell. This is literally fascism

Last year we had a really fun discussion on the evolution of the concept of planet 🪐 with Janna Müller (doing her PhD in history of science at Cambridge), Mike Brown (discoverer of Eris and killer of Pluto), and Ethan Landes (experimental philosopher). The video is now on YouTube!

Panel: Landes, Brown, Henne, & Müller @ CEN Lecture Series

YouTube video by Conceptual Engineering

youtube.com

Sometimes I read a paper that's so clear and to the point it feels like it was written in two hours. Then when I try to emulate this writing and I realise it takes 2 months and 10 drafts to write one paragraph like this

Friends, the time has come, I'm looking for a PostDoc. If you hear of any positions (ideally in Europe/UK, starting next fall) that could be a good fit for a philosopher of chemistry, let me know! I'd love to branch out and collaborate across disciplines. #philsci #philsky

Somebody had to do it! Here's a History of Philosophy of Science (HOPOS) Starter Pack. Reply or DM if you want to be added to or subtracted from the list! I tried my best, but there are certainly many HOPOI whom I missed. #hopos #philsky #philosophy #philsci #hps #histsci go.bsky.app/47TTJCm

it's so sad that hinge epistemology is not about whether you can trust what people write on their dating app profile

In case you're wondering what's new on X, tens of thousands of men are going absolutely insane over a young woman's English PhD thesis and its niche topic.

I am a philosopher on the team in this project. I like to think my knowledge of political philosophy n ethics, as well as of philosophy of measurement, makes the final product of this grant much better than it otherwise would. There are many more ways to be relevant than just testing causal claims.

Measuring social and cultural infrastructure - Bennett Institute for Public Policy

How best can we define and measure the impact that social and cultural infrastructure has on the quality of life and resilience of our communities? The Bennett Institute is conducting a major new proj...

bennettinstitute.cam.ac.uk

Arturs Logins @alogins.bsky.social · 2y ago

Ok, I need to know. How do you see the good collaboration between philosophy and social sciences? Philosophers won't test claims about the causal relation between an A and a B. So, what's our impact? Where should we invest our forces if we want to be relevant for social sciences?

Data is never ‘collected’, it is only *generated*. This isn’t merely a pedantic semantic gripe; by misrepresenting ‘data’ as something that exists in nature & has only to be scooped up, evasion of accountability for data harms has already begun Data doesn’t exist until someone constructs it

New paper! How do we implement new or revised concepts? My take: implementation is not an afterthought that we need to address once we've engineered a concept, but something that requires our attention across all stages of the engineering process. philpapers.org/rec/HENTPI-5

Celine Henne, The Practical Implementation Challenge: A Pragmatist Response to Deutsch’s Dilemma for Conceptual Engineers - PhilPapers

According to Max Deutsch, conceptual engineers face a dilemma: either they target semantic meanings, in which case they are engaged in an infeasible activity (the “implementation challenge”), or they ...

philpapers.org