How much do words matter? Is it necessary to examine what the terms "knowledge"

and "terrorism" really mean in a philosophical debate about knowledge or terrorism?

In this inquiry, I discuss how this question arises in a number of contexts

such as the location problem for certain metaphysical and epistemological projects,

the idea that changes in meaning change the subject under discussion, when evaluative

terms like "terrorism" are contested and hinder normative debates, and when a

dispute might be merely verbal.

Views on the role of words in first-order debates fall roughly into two camps.

Some philosophers acknowledge the need to examine the actual meaning of terms in

order to settle the subject matter of an inquiry, and they do so by either conducting

conceptual analysis or using empirical methods. Meanwhile, others claim that it is

largely unnecessary to analyse the meaning of terms when we are interested in the

nature of things. I argue that for all of the cases considered, an updated version of

Carnap's method of explication is the most promising method for settling the subject

matter of inquiry. On this approach, we revise pre-theoretic terms guided by our aims.

For a clearer view on what the subject matter of a debate is, I draw on David Lewis's

notion of the subject matter of a statement.

My methodological approach has considerable advantages over traditional as

well as more recent forms of conceptual analysis. Moreover, it promotes considering

important terminological matters that are underrated by opponents of conceptual

analysis. The upshot is that the ordinary meaning of words used in first-order inquiry

does not matter much. The more important question is how to adjust and refine the

meaning of these words in the light of our aims. How we decide this question has

epistemic, ethical and pragmatic implications.