If we don't know what the words 'democracy' and 'democratic' mean, then we don't know what democracy is. This book defends a radical view: these words mean nothing and should be abandoned. The argument for Abolitionism is simple: those terms are defective and we can easily do better, so let's get rid of them. According to the abolitionist, the switch to alternative devices would be a significant communicative, cognitive, and political advance.

The first part of the book presents a general theory of abandonment: the conditions under which language should be abandoned. The rest of the book applies this general theory to the case of 'democracy' and 'democratic'. Cappelen shows that 'democracy' and 'democratic' are semantically, pragmatically, and communicatively defective.

Abolitionism is not all gloom and doom. It also contains a message of good cheer: we have easy access to conceptual devices that are more effective than 'democracy'. We can do better. These alternative linguistic devices will enable us to ask better questions, provide genuinely fruitful answers, and have more rational discussions. Moreover, those questions and answers better articulate the communicative and cognitive aims of those who use empty terms like 'democracy' and 'democratic'.

• Preface & Acknowledgements
• Part I: A Theory of Abandonment
1. Introduction
2. Arguments for Abandonment
3. Abandonment compared to Elimination, Reduction, Replacement, and Amelioration
4. Abandonment and Communication
• Part II: Some Data about 'Democracy'
5. The Ordinary Notion of 'Democracy': Methodological Preamble
6. OSome Data about 'Democracy' and 'Democratic'
• Part III: Abandonment of 'Democracy'?
7. Problems with 'Democracy'
8. Better than 'Democracy': A Chapter of Good Cheers
9. Consequences of Abandoning 'Democracy'
• Part IV: Democracy Ameliorated
10. Ameliorations of 'Democracy'
11. Verbal Disputes about 'Democracy's
• Part V: Efforts to Defend Democracy
12. Objections and Replies
• Bibliography

• 'In The Concept of Democracy, philosopher Herman Cappelen advances a bold, provocative thesis: the word "democracy", he argues, fails to pick out any determinate phenomenon, is highly vulnerable to rhetorical capture and abuse, and easily leads to purely verbal disputes. And, crucially, almost everything we discuss with that word can be discussed without using it'

  'The Concept of Democracy is a thought-provoking, well-researched, engaging and extremely clear book that will be of interest to methodologically oriented political philosophers, democratization scholars and comparative political scientists, among others.'

  'Cappelen usefully subjects to careful scrutiny – and, often, to fierce criticism – the "pre-theoretical philosophy of language" on which democracy scholars often rely, and even those who disagree with his arguments will find in the book a valuable survey of the main challenges an adequate definition of "democracy" must overcome.'
  — Pablo Magaña in Political Studies Review

Can humans and artificial intelligences share concepts and communicate? Making AI Intelligible shows that philosophical work on the metaphysics of meaning can help answer these questions. Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever use the externalist tradition in philosophy to create models of how AIs and humans can understand each other. In doing so, they illustrate ways in which that philosophical tradition can be improved.

The questions addressed in the book are not only theoretically interesting, but the answers have pressing practical implications. Many important decisions about human life are now influenced by AI. In giving that power to AI, we presuppose that AIs can track features of the world that we care about (for example, creditworthiness, recidivism, cancer, and combatants). If AIs can share our concepts, that will go some way towards justifying this reliance on AI. This ground-breaking study offers insight into how to take some first steps towards achieving Interpretable AI.

• PART I: INTRODUCTION AND OVERVIEW
1. Introduction
2. Alfred (The Dismissive Sceptic): Philosophers, Go Away!
• PART II: A PROPOSAL FOR HOW TO ATTRIBUTE CONTENT TO AI
3. Terminology: Aboutness, Representation, and Metasemantics
4. Our Theory: De-Anthropocentrized Externalism
5. Application: The Predicate 'High Risk'
6. Application: Names and the Mental Files Framework
7. Application: Predication and Commitment
• PART III
8. Four Concluding Thoughts
9. Bibliography

• 'Making AI Intelligible is a thought-provoking overview of the resources available in the contemporary philosophy of language, and their potential application to the interpretation of AI systems. ... One intriguing conclusion drawn by the authors is not then that modern philosophy of language is ill-suited for AI systems, but that it must overcome its admittedly anthropocentric bias in order to better grasp the nature of content.'
  — Paul Dicken in Los Angeles Review of Books
• 'Making AI Intelligible begins an original, creative, and ambitious project, which contributes both to the scientist's search for alternative methods to make sense of a phenomenon, as well as the philosopher's search for her own blind spots.'
  — Nikhil Mahant in The Philosophical Quarterly

• 'Herman Cappelen’s Fixing Language is a fascinating book, chock-full of provocative arguments, on what is fast becoming a (the?) central topic in metaphilosophy: conceptual engineering. It is an important book – one I very highly recommend.
        It sets the stage for what will be an exciting metaphilosophical debate over the prospects for conceptual engineering in the years to come. ... the book is remarkable for its extensive critical engagement with the work of others, and for its coverage of a dizzying array of issues related to its main theme. As advertised, it's a book about conceptual engineering, but also, and in some cases, equally, it’s a book about metasemantics, verbal disputes, the history of analytic philosophy, meaning change, externalism, inconsistent concepts, generic language, metaphor, slurs, feminist philosophy and contextualism. And that's a partial list.'
  — Max Deutsch in Analysis
• '... the past few years have seen an explosion of work that is described by its authors as "conceptual engineering"; and Cappelen bears no small share of the responsibility for this. ... I would recommend Fixing Language to anyone interested in meaning and philosophical methodology. This is not only because of the interest of the various ideas Cappelen discusses under the umbrella of the Austerity Framework, but also because of the many acute criticisms of alternative views.'
  — Derek Ball in Mind
• 'In this lovely and important book, Herman Cappelen organizes and contributes to a rapidly growing literature involving the idea that a, or perhaps the, central role of philosophy is the improvement of concepts. The paramount virtue of his own "austerity" account is that it neither makes improving human beings seem unrealistically easy, nor misconstrues arguments about the world's facts (including the facts about what ought to be the case) as a pointless contest of what middle-era Richard Rorty used to call "vocabularies."
        ... we should never forget Russell's moving conclusion to The Problems of Philosophy, where he argues that humility is one of the two (along with a heightened sense of the possible) epistemic/moral goods produced by proper reflection on Western philosophy's successes and failures. Anyone sensitive to Russell's wisdom will at least be open to finding Cappelen's intervention in these debates dispositive.'
  — Jon Cogburn in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
• '...clear and rigorous ... engaging and thought-provoking ... it identifies some of the key issues that any future theory of conceptual engineering will have to address, and offers thought-provoking answers to all of them. Grappling with Cappelen's answers will surely help to bring the meta-philosophical debate about conceptual engineering to a new level.'
  — Steffen Koch in Logical Analysis and History of Philosophy

• 'All of the contributions contain interesting and thought-provoking material. There is no better place than this volume for graduate students and professional philosophers to get a sophisticated introduction to recent debates about philosophical methods.'
  — Matthew C. Haug in Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews

• 'This is an engaging and exciting book ... Whether one is convinced by its conclusion or not, Philosophy Without Intutions represents a clear jolt to contemporary metaphilosophical orthodoxy. It is a vivid and powerful call for philosophers to examine their assumptions about philosophy. Anyone interested in the role of intuitions in philosophy or the proper description of contemporary philosophical practice will benefit from studying it.'
  — Jonathan Ichikawa in International Journal for Philosophical Studies
• 'If you're interested in the role of intuitions in philosophy, you need to read this book. Even if you're not particularly concerned by this metaphilosophical issue you would probably still benefit from reading this book, for it may well convince you to change the way in which you articulate your arguments and interpret other authors. Cappelen has made an excellent contribution to the ongoing debate over the importance of intuitions in philosophy.'
  — Stephen Ingram in Metaphilosophy
• 'Experimental results on the variability and intra-personal instability of philosophical intuitions have recently sparked a lively methodological debate about the reliability of the philosophical method. In his new book, Herman Cappelen argues that this entire debate is misguided. The reason is simple: philosophers don’t rely on intuitions, so there is no reason for philosophers to worry about their reliability. Cappelen’s case for this claim amounts to one of the most original and well-argued contributions to recent discussions about philosophical methodology. His book should be essential reading for anyone interested in the debate.'
  — Kristoffer Ahlstorm-Vij in Philosophical Quarterly
• 'wonderfully clear ... this is a well-argued, interesting book, challenging contemporary metaphilosophy fundamentally; I highly recommend it.'
  — Daniel Cohnitz in Disputatio
• 'In this imaginative book, Herman Cappelen challenges two key orthodoxies: that philosophers, as a matter of fact, rely upon intuitions in their everyday practice; and that it is legitimate for them to do so. What he wants is a philosophy purged of intuition-talk, since he believes such talk is idle when we consider how contemporary philosophers actually proceed in dealing with philosophical problems....this is a thought-provoking book that explores important questions about how philosophical research proceeds and, indeed, what philosophical progress might look like. Any future methodological work in philosophy that makes substantive use of the idea of intuitions needs to respond to Cappelen's challenges.'
  — Adrian Walsh in Australasian Journal of Philosophy (92(1), p.183)

• Forthcoming Philosophical Studies Symposium:
  • John Bengson ('How Philosophers use Intuition and 'Intuition'')
  • David Chalmers ('Intuitions in Philosophy: A Minimal Defense')
  • Jonathan Weinberg ('Cappelen between a Rock and a Hard Place')
  • Brian Weatherson ('Centrality and Marginalisation')
• Replies to Weatherson, Chalmers, Weinberg and Bengson:
  • Precis of Philosophy without Intuitions
  • Socratic Knowledge and its Role in Philosophy: Reply to Weatherson
  • Philosophy without Minimal Intuitions: Reply to Chalmers
  • An Enormous Mistake: Experimental Philosophy: Reply to Weinberg
  • On the interpretation of 'Intuition'-talk in Naming and Necessity: Reply to Bengson
• Forthcoming Analytic Philosophy Symposium:
  • Paul Boghossian ('Cappelen on Intuitions')
  • Brit Brogaard ('Intuitions and Intellectual Seemings')
  • Mark Richard ('Analysis and Intuitions')
• Replies to Boghossian, Brogaard and Richard:
  • Twin Earth and Intuitions: Reply to Boghossian
  • Intuitions and Intellectual Seemings: Reply to Brogaard
  • Conceptual Structure, Indeterminacy, and Intuitions: Reply to Richard

• Interview from New Books in Philosophy.
• Boghossian and Cappelen on Philosophy without Intuitions, at UCD on YouTube.

• X-Phi Without Intuitions?, forthcoming in Anthony Booth and Darrell Rowbottom, eds., Intuition, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

• '... this book is really a terrific contribution to the field and both authors and editors are to be commended for breaking new ground on this very important speech act. The collection is full of fresh, interesting insights and clear arguments that will provide many a philosopher with a deeply explored dialectic to work within. If I were to teach a (graduate) class on assertion, many if not all of these essays would be required reading.'
  — Adam Sennet in Analysis Reviews (2013, 73.1, 177-180)

• 'Relativism and Monadic Truth is a work full of philosophical insights, combined with theoretical ingenuity and dexterity in application ... Their book will drive forward research in the field for some time to come, and is therefore essential lreading for those working in the philosophy of language.'
  — Brian Ball in Logical Analysis and the History of Philosophy (13, 148-155)
• 'Relativism and Monadic Truth is an eminently readable book. The pace is fast, the style is witty, a wealth of interesting issues are raised in only 148 pages. Some of these issues are cursorily treated, but this is intentional. The idea is to create the impression that there are overwhelmingly many pieces of evidence, some strong, others more speculative, but all pointing in the same direction: Truth is monadic, propositions are true or false simpliciter ... both specialists and a philosophically interested general audience may be inspired by it, or provoked by it, to undertake a deeper scrutiny of the charms of simplicity.'
  — Alexander Almer and Dag Westerstahl in Linguistics and Philosophy (2010, 33, 37–50)

• Philosophical Studies Symposium (Peter Lasersohn, John MacFarlane ( "Simplicity Made Difficult"), Mark Richard).
• Analysis Symposium (Michael Glanzberg, Scott Soames ("True At"), Brian Weatherson ("No Royal Road to Relativism")).
• Author-Meets-Critic Session, 2010 APA Central Division meeting. Critics: Andy Egan, Ernest Lepore, Scott Soames, Adam Sennet.

• 'Overall, this is an excellent book. It sets a standard for clarity and explicitness of argumentation that few philosophical works equal. Cappelen and Lepore’s insights into debates concerning context sensitivity are many and profound. The challenges they set before contextualists of all kinds should set the terms of debate for some time to come.'
  — Daniel Bonevac in Philosophical Books (2008, 157-161)
• 'This is a book of considerable importance, which deals with a topic currently at the center of research in the philosophy of language. As a result, Insensitive Semantics has been and will continue to be widely discussed This book pushes the discussion of context–sensitivity forward in new and useful directions. Read it and learn from it.'
  — Rob Stainton in Journal of Linguistics

• Mind & Language Symposium. Replies by Ann Bezuidenhout, Steven Gross, Francois Recanati, Zoltan Szabo and Charles Travis.
• Philosophy and Phenomenological Research Symposium. Replies by Kent Bach, John Hawthorne, Kepa Korta & John Perry, and Rob Stainton.

• Context Sensitivity and Semantic Minimalism: New Essays on Semantics and Pragmatics (Oxford University Press, 2007, Preyer and Peter (eds)). Collection of 14 essays discussing Insensitive Semantics.