ABSTRACT. — When I hit upon the term ‘conceptual engineering’ in the Introduction to my book Think, I suppose I thought of it as simply a cute way of introducing what philosophers do. I had no idea that the term had already been used, although I have subsequently learned that it was. I have therefore been surprised that books and seminars have subsequently been devoted to the idea: it is as if books and seminars were simply entitled ‘Philosophy’ rather than directed at particular problems within philosophy. In my talk I hope to go further into that and try to understand why it happened.