Social externalism and the implementation challenge: Revising socially and politically significant terms

Abstract A central issue in conceptual engineering is the “implementation challenge”: the problem of how—or whether—conceptual revisions can be brought about, given our lack of control over the factors that determine meaning. Social externalism, which holds that semantic meaning is determined by the usage of experts within a linguistic community, seems to offer a path to controlled implementation. This paper argues that this route encounters serious obstacles in politically and socially significant cases. Drawing on Ball's (2020) distinction between Power Metasemantics and Virtue Metasemantics, the paper presents challenges for both perspectives. Power Metasemantics makes it very difficult for marginalized groups to bring about meaning change, as it is sensitive to how structural inequalities affect distributions of credibility and authority—though implementation remains possible. Virtue Metasemantics, on the other hand, faces epistemic and structural problems that may lend support to Cappelen's (2018) skepticism about implementation.