Though philosophers have certainly not always been clear about what they are doing, much of the time they are probably better described as trying to find better concepts (better in respects including being clearer and more sharply defined) rather than trying to figure out what concepts we currently have. This is certainly true of Plato; the counter-examples in Plato aren’t meant to show that, for example, Cephalus isn’t accurately describing his own concept of justice, they’re meant to show that the concept of justice Cephalus has is problematic and better concepts are needed. This is somewhat obscured by the fact that in the dialogues Socrates tries to show that people’s concepts are problematic by their own standards, and more obscured by the rhetoric (including the doctrine of recollection) which phrases that in terms of somehow already possessing the better concepts without fully realizing it, but despite the rhetoric, Plato is clearly a conceptual reformer.
I take it that Mitchell Porter and Carinthium are making similar points, if I understand them correctly.
As I said in my response to Mitchell Porter, I’ll get to reflective equilibrium later. This here is a post about the very common philosophical practice of looking for what our current concepts are. There are of course many who look for “reforming accounts” of our concepts, e.g. Brandt.
Though philosophers have certainly not always been clear about what they are doing, much of the time they are probably better described as trying to find better concepts (better in respects including being clearer and more sharply defined) rather than trying to figure out what concepts we currently have. This is certainly true of Plato; the counter-examples in Plato aren’t meant to show that, for example, Cephalus isn’t accurately describing his own concept of justice, they’re meant to show that the concept of justice Cephalus has is problematic and better concepts are needed. This is somewhat obscured by the fact that in the dialogues Socrates tries to show that people’s concepts are problematic by their own standards, and more obscured by the rhetoric (including the doctrine of recollection) which phrases that in terms of somehow already possessing the better concepts without fully realizing it, but despite the rhetoric, Plato is clearly a conceptual reformer.
I take it that Mitchell Porter and Carinthium are making similar points, if I understand them correctly.
As I said in my response to Mitchell Porter, I’ll get to reflective equilibrium later. This here is a post about the very common philosophical practice of looking for what our current concepts are. There are of course many who look for “reforming accounts” of our concepts, e.g. Brandt.