Abstract
In the recent debate about scientific concepts, pluralists claim that scientists can legitimately use concepts with multiple meanings, while eliminativists argue that scientists should abandon such concepts in favor of more precisely defined subconcepts. While pluralists and eliminativists already share key assumptions about conceptual development, their normative positions still appear to suggest that the process of revising concepts is a dichotomous choice between keeping the concept and abandoning it altogether. To move beyond pluralism and eliminativism, I discuss three options of revising concepts in light of new findings, and when scientists should choose each of them.
