Language and Society

In this paper, I argue that the ‘social meanings’ associated with sociolinguistic variation put pressure on the standard philosophical conception of language, according to which the foremost thing we do with words is exchange information. Drawing on parallels with the explanatory challenge posed by slurs and pejoratives, I argue that the best way to understand social meanings is to think of them in speech act theoretic terms. I develop a distinctive form of pluralism about the performances realized by means of (...) sociolinguistic variants, and I claim that engagement with such performances is an utterly pervasive feature of our linguistic activity. (shrink)

A new dimension beyond criticism, pessimism and dispute.

One of the core insights from Eleanor Rosch’s work on categorization is that human categorization isn’t arbitrary. Instead, two psychological principles constrain possible systems of classification for all human cultures. According to these principles, the task of a category system is to provide maximum information with the least cognitive effort, and the perceived world provides us with structured rather than arbitrary features. In this paper, I show that Rosch's insights give us important resources for making progress on the 'feasibility question' (...) in conceptual engineering: the question of how we can implement conceptual engineering projects in ways that are practically feasible. Specifically, I show that one overlooked upshot of Rosch's work is that naming practices play an extremely important role in the construction of perceived similarities within and dissimilarities between categories, and, correspondingly, the dissemination of social stereotypes that serve as markers between different categories that are otherwise similar. Thus, naming practices will be a crucial constraint for the feasibility of certain ameliorative projects. (shrink)

The present paper has as its theme the sociological aspect of the use of slang in a socio educational environment. Its main purpose is to describe and analyze the social distance in a learning environment, according to Bourdieu's concepts of cultural capital and habitus. In order to develop the classwork, some workshops about a slang dictionary have been held. The qualitative data provided by the pedagogical practice are presented, based on the reports of the meetings so that we have been (...) able to analyze the concepts presented by the young people. From this, it has been verified the symbolic character of words and expressions as a vector of social distancing by the incorporated cultural capital. (shrink)

(Penultimate Draft). I consider common ground in its evolutionary context and argue for several claims. First, common ground is widely (though not universally) distributed among social animals. Second, the use of common ground is favored (i.e. is predicted to emerge and subsequently persist) among populations of animals whose members face recurrent interdependent decision-making problems in which the benefit of their courses of action are contingent on the variable choices of their stable social partner(s). Third, humans deploy cognitive and social mechanisms (...) for establishing and updating common ground that are not deployed by other living animals—the use of common ground has not only persisted within the human lineage but been amplified as well. Finally, I suggest that some of these points count against the iterative construal of common ground. In its place, I propose an alternative psychological construal of common ground in terms of what I will call reciprocal responsiveness. (shrink)

تعمل الكلمات كروابط لإدراكات متباينة، ما يسمح لنا بتجميع التجارب الحسية المختلفة تحت مُسمى واحدًا. ينطبق هذا بشكل خاص على المفاهيم التي تُشير إلى أشياء يمكننا رؤيتها أو لمسها، لكننا ما زلنا لا نفهم حقًا كيف تعمل اللغة في تشكيل معنى المفاهيم الأكثر تجريدًا، أو كيف تسمح لنا بتجميع الخبرات معًا تحت مظلة مصطلح واحد يشير إلى شيء لا يمكننا الإشارة إليه أو رؤيته أو لمسه. هذا ما تناقشه «ماريانا مارسيلا بولونيسي» (الأستاذ المشارك بقسم اللغات والآداب والثقافات الحديثة بجامعة بولونيا) (...) في مقال لها تحت عنوان: «كيف تُشكل اللغة أفكارك – ما يعرفه الباحثون». (shrink)

Politics abounds with bad language: lying and bullshitting, grandstanding and virtue signaling, code words and dogwhistles, and more. But why is there so much bad language in politics? And what, if anything, can we do about it? In this paper I show how these two questions are connected. Politics is full of bad language because existing social and political institutions are structured in such a way that the production of bad language becomes rational. In principle, by modifying these institutions we (...) can reduce the prevalence of bad language. However, as I show, such practical efforts are fraught with difficulties. After first outlining an account of bad language (Section 1), I examine the rationality of three different types of bad language: inaccurate language, insincere language, and unclear language (Section 2). Next, I discuss the possibility of implementing institutional reforms to improve the quality of political discourse (Section 3). However, I then outline and discuss two serious complications for institutional reforms—namely, they create risk of abuse, and they could preclude instances of seemingly bad language that, in fact, are socially beneficial (Section 4). I conclude with some thoughts about how to pursue institutional reform in an appropriately circumspect manner (Section 5). (shrink)

Generic statements (‘Tigers have stripes’) are pervasive and early-emerging modes of generalization with a distinctive linguistic profile. Previous experimental work found that generics display a unique asymmetry between their acceptance conditions and the implications that are typically drawn from them. This paper presents evidence against the hypothesis that only generics display an asymmetry. Correcting for limitations of previous designs, we found a generalized asymmetry effect across generics, various kinds of explicitly quantified statements (‘most’, ‘some’, ‘typically’, ‘usually’), and variations in types (...) of predicated properties (striking vs. neutral). We discuss implications of these results for our understanding of the source of asymmetry effects and whether and in which ways these effects might introduce biased beliefs into social networks. (shrink)

There is a correlation between positions taken on some scientific questions and political leaning. One way to explain this correlation is the cultural cognition hypothesis (CCH): people's political leanings are causing them to process evidence to maintain fixed answers to the questions, rather than to seek the truth. Another way is the different background belief hypothesis (DBBH): people of different political leanings have different background beliefs which rationalize different positions on these scientific questions. In this article, I argue for two (...) things. I argue that two attempts by proponents of the CCH to discredit the DBBH fail. And I argue that this matters, because while the CCH makes epistemic paternalistic interventions seem called for (as some philosophers have argued compellingly), the DBBH does not. The DBBH makes it much easier to stay closer to an ideal of deliberative democracy. (shrink)

In this paper, I critically assess Mark Richard’s interesting and important development of the claim that linguistic meanings can be fruitfully analogized with biological species. I argue that linguistic meanings qua cluster of interpretative presuppositions need not and often do not display the population-level independence and reproductive isolation that is characteristic of the biological species concept. After developing these problems in some detail, I close with a discussion of their implications for the picture that Richard paints concerning the dangers of (...) conceptual engineering and the prospects for dynamic notions of semantic stability. (shrink)

The use of lexical signs like ‘knowledge’ has consequences. Not only do they have direct psychological resonances, but people ascribe beliefs and act based on their semantics. This paper proposes that such consequences are up for negotiation, and introduces a formal framework from financial theory to suggest constraints on those negotiations and implications of those constraints. The upshot is that changing language will be easier sometimes than others, and philosophers’ projects of linguistic change should be aware of those conditions.

In paradigmatic cases of subtweeting, one Twitter user critically or mockingly tweets about another person without mentioning their username or their name. In this chapter, we give an account of the strategic aims of subtweeting and the mechanics through which it achieves them. We thereby hope to shed light on the distinctive communicative and moral texture of subtweeting while filling in a gap in the philosophical literature on strategic speech in social media. We first specify what subtweets are and identify (...) the central features that give rise to their strategic mechanics. Next, we draw attention to problematic aspects of subtweeting and consider conditions under which subtweeting can be justified on moral and prudential grounds. The chapter concludes by discussing practical upshots and noting avenues for future work. (shrink)

This paper argues that in addition to the familiar approach using formal contexts, there is now a need in artificial intelligence to study contexts as social constructs. As a successful example of the latter approach, I draw attention to 'interpretation' (in the sense of literary theory), viz. the reconstruction of the intended meaning of a literary text that takes into account the context in which the author assumed the reader would place the text. An important contribution here comes from Wendell (...) Harris, enumerating the seven crucial dimensions of context: knowledge of reality, knowledge of language, and the authorial, generic, collective, specific, and textual dimensions. Finally, two recent approaches to interpretation, due to Jon Barwise and Jerry Hobbs, are analyzed as useful attempts which also come to grips with the notion of context. It must be noted that there has been a considerable body of contributions connecting linguistic structure with social context. For example, anthropological linguistics, from Bronislaw Malinowski onwards, has underlined the cultural context of discourse as essential to meaning. This viewpoint became prominent with the emergence of the ethnography of speaking in anthropology. Thus, conversation analysis represents a consistent formal effort to contribute to an analysis of the nature of context. While this paper emphasizes and reviews the literary theory approach, it makes various contacts with works of the latter kind (e.g., the landmark contributions of Erving Goffman, John Gumperz, William Hanks, John Heritage, Dell Hymes, et al.) in order to deliver a more balanced and complete study of the dimensions of context. (shrink)

A common objection to the very idea of conceptual engineering is the topic continuity problem: whenever one tries to “reengineer” a concept, one only shifts attention away from one concept to another. Put differently, there is no such thing as conceptual revision: there’s only conceptual replacement. Here, I show that topic continuity is compatible with conceptual replacement. Whether the topic is preserved in an act of conceptual replacement simply depends on what is being replaced (a conceptual tool or a conceptual (...) role) and what the topic under discussion is. Thus, the topic continuity problem only arises from a failure to specify these two things. (shrink)

Assertions are often accepted without being understood, a phenomenon I call stupefying. I argue that stupefying can be a means for conversational manipulation that works through at-issue content, in contrast with the not-at-issue and back-door speech act routes identified by others. This shows that we should reject a widely assumed connection between attention and at-issue content. In exploring why stupefying happens, it also emerges that stupefying has important cooperative uses, in addition to its manipulative ones, and so should not be (...) avoided altogether. (shrink)

This paper articulates a general distinction between two important communicative ideals—expressive sincerity and discursive integrity—and then uses it to analyze problems with political debate in contemporary democracies. In the context of philosophical discussions of different forms of trustworthiness and debates about deliberative democracy, self-knowledge, and moral testimony, the paper develops three arguments for the conclusion that, although expressive sincerity is valuable, we should not ignore discursive integrity in thinking about how to address problems with contemporary political debate. The paper concludes (...) with a brief discussion of a strategy for improving discursive integrity within public political debate by reflecting on which principles of responsible public debate would promote better democratic decision making. (shrink)

Deepfakes are algorithmically modified video and audio recordings that project one person’s appearance on to that of another, creating an apparent recording of an event that never took place. Many scholars and journalists have begun attending to the political risks of deepfake deception. Here we investigate other ways in which deepfakes have the potential to cause deeper harms than have been appreciated. First, we consider a form of objectification that occurs in deepfaked ‘frankenporn’ that digitally fuses the parts of different (...) women to create pliable characters incapable of giving consent to their depiction. Next, we develop the idea of ‘illocutionary wronging’, in which an individual is forced to engage in speech acts they would prefer to avoid in order to deny or correct the misleading evidence of a publicized deepfake. Finally, we consider the risk that deepfakes may facilitate campaigns of ‘panoptic gaslighting’, where many systematically altered recordings of a single person's life undermine their memory, eroding their sense of self and ability to engage with others. Taken together, these harms illustrate the roles that social epistemology and technological vulnerabilities play in human ethical life. (shrink)

Slurs are both derogatory and offensive, and they are said to exhibit “derogatory force” and “offensiveness.” Almost all theories of slurs, except the truth-conditional content theory and the invocational content theory, conflate these two features and use “derogatory force” and “offensiveness” interchangeably. This paper defends and explains the distinction between slurs’ derogatory force and offensiveness by fulfilling three goals. First, it distinguishes between slurs’ being derogatory and their being offensive with four arguments. For instance, ‘Monday’, a slur in the Bostonian (...) argot, is used to secretly derogate African Americans without causing offense. Second, this paper points out that many theories of slurs run into problems because they conflate derogatory force with offensiveness. For example, the prohibition theory’s account of offensiveness in terms of prohibitions struggles to explain why ‘Monday’ is derogatory when it is not a prohibited word in English. Third, this paper offers a new explanation of this distinction from the perspective of a speech act theory of slurs; derogatory force is different from offensiveness because they arise from two different kinds of speech acts that slurs are used to perform, i.e., the illocutionary act of derogation and the perlocutionary act of offending. This new explanation avoids the problems faced by other theories. (shrink)

Esta entrevista realizada al primer vicepresidente de la Academia Nacional de Letras de Uruguay, Gerardo Caetano, tiene como propósito debatir sobre la situación política que atraviesa Latinoamérica, a partir de los cuestionamientos que se han hecho acerca de algunos conceptos fundamentales, como el que se entiende por democracia. Las respuestas que brinda el doctor son esenciales, puesto que efectúa un recuento de la historia de los dos últimos siglos para confrontar el panorama que se aprecia en las coyunturas nacionales actuales (...) y el rol que ejercen otras instituciones u organismos, como la prensa. (shrink)

I introduce game-theoretic models for threats to the discussion of threats in speech act theory. I first distinguish three categories of verbal threats: conditional threats, categorical threats, and covert threats. I establish that all categories of threats can be characterized in terms of an underlying conditional structure. I argue that the aim—or illocutionary point—of a threat is to change the conditions under which an agent makes decisions in a game. Threats are moves in a game that instantiate a subgame in (...) which the addressee is ‘under threat’. (shrink)

According to René Girard, all religious traditions - and so every tradition- originate from a communitarian violence towards a randomly chosen individual. I provide an introductory construal of Girard’s proposal in the first section of my paper. In the second section, I will address a conceptual view of the theory by making explicit its principles and their inferential relations. In the third section, I will explain how philosophers of language address slurs and hate-speech. Particularly, I will apply such materials to (...) Girard’s assumption that the three friends’ discourses to Job are instances of hate-speech. My purpose is to defend the use of a presuppositional account of derogatory epithets in the philosophy of religion, and to argue for the legitimacy of reading a number of religious statements which cement a social group into a “we” in opposition to an individual who is individuated as an instance of a “not-we” as slurs. In the fourth section, I will argue that, if Girard is right in thinking that speech-hate and the use of slurs are means for the identification of a scapegoat within a group, then Girard’s theory needs to be adjusted in order to accommodate some obvious difficulties. Finally, in the fifth section, I will sum up my conclusions and then provide a few suggestions for defending the theory. (shrink)

Conceptual engineers endeavor to improve our concepts. But their endeavors face serious practical difficulties. One such difficulty – rational conceptual conflict - concerns the degree to which agents are incentivized to impede the efforts of conceptual engineers, especially in many of the contexts within which conceptual engineering is viewed as a worthwhile pursuit. Under such conditions, the already difficult task of conceptual engineering becomes even more difficult. Consequently, if they want to increase their chances of success, conceptual engineers should pay (...) closer attention to – and devise strategies to mitigate – rational conceptual conflict. After outlining the phenomenon at greater length and mapping its connections to other similar practical problems (Section 1), I explore the dynamics of such conflict by way of several detailed case studies (Section 2). In particular, I focus on cases driven by material, social, and moral incentives. I then consider some important methodological implications of rational conceptual conflict (Section 3). Among other things, I argue that conceptual engineers should focus more heavily on cultivating settings that modify the payoffs and penalties associated with conceptual conflict. By such indirect means, they can incentivize conceptual cooperation rather than conflict, thus making it easier to achieve success in conceptual engineering. Section 4 concludes. (shrink)

Menas is a term that has attracted a great deal of attention on the political scene in Spain at present. Although the term had a neutral usage originally, being an acronym for unaccompanied foreign minors, it has recently evolved into a term with clear negative connotations. This article explores what kind of term menas is today. Specifically, we will examine whether menas is a slur or an ESTI, an ethnic/social term used as an insult. First, we point out the most (...) defining characteristics of both types of terms. Then, using analyses on linguistic corpora, we show that menas exhibits the most defining characteristics of ESTIs. We end by discussing the possible evolution of the term, pointing out that, although the term presents the features related to ESTIs, there are two possible scenarios. On the one hand, the term may retain its neutral uses and thus remain an ESTI. On the other hand, the neutral uses may disappear, and thus the term may become a slur. (shrink)

This paper aims to deepen our understanding of so-called covert dogwhistles. I discuss whether a covert dogwhistle is a specific sort of mechanism of manipulation or whether, on the contrary, it draws on other already familiar linguistic mechanisms such as implicatures or presuppositions. I put forward a series of arguments aimed at illustrating that implicatures and presuppositions, on the one hand, and covert dogwhistles, on the other, differ in their linguistic behaviour concerning plausible deniability, cancellability, calculability and mutual acceptance. I (...) concluded this paper by outlining a simple theory for covert dogwhistles according to which they are attitude-foregrounders. (shrink)

Generic stereotypes are generically formulated generalizations that express a stereotype, like “Mexican immigrants are rapists” and “Muslims are terrorists.” Stereotypes like these are offensive and should not be asserted by anyone. Yet when someone does assert a sentence like this in a conversation, it is surprisingly difficult to successfully rebut it. The meaning of generic sentences is such that they can be true in several different ways. As a result, a speaker who is challenged after asserting a generic stereotype can (...) often simply dismiss the objection and maintain that the stereotype is true in a way that is compatible with the challenger’s objection. In this paper, a semantic theory for generics is presented that accounts for this type of defensive shifting in upholding generic stereotypes. This theory is then used to develop two strategies to object more efficiently. The first strategy is to immediately deny that either of the two possible ways in which a generic can be true obtains. The second strategy is to deny the satisfaction of an additional condition that is necessary for a generic sentence to be true. (shrink)

Drawing on recent work in formal pragmatic theory, this paper shows that the manipulation of discourse structure—in particular, by way of shifting the Question Under Discussion mid-discourse—can constitute an act of epistemic injustice. I argue that the “All Lives Matter” response to the “Black Lives Matter” slogan is one such case; this response shifts the Question Under Discussion governing the overarching discourse from Do Black lives matter? to Which lives matter? This manipulation of the discourse structure systematically obscures the intended (...) meaning of “Black lives matter” and disincentivizes future utterances of it. (shrink)

The verb to legitimate is often used in political discourse in a way that is prima facie perplexing. To wit, it is often said that an actor legitimates a practice which is officially prohibited in the relevant context – for example, that a worker telling sexist jokes legitimates sex discrimination in the workplace. In order to clarify the meaning of statements like this, and show how they can sometimes be true and informative, we need an explanation of how something that (...) is officially illegitimate can have a kind of ersatz legitimacy conferred on it, and how this can occur even when the actor ‘doing the legitimating’ lacks formal authority. I examine one putative explanation centred around the phenomenon of normalization, and I highlight some advantages that this account has in comparison to an alternative explanation, one that makes reference to the phenomenon of licensed authority. (shrink)

Slurs are derogatory words and they are used to derogate certain groups. Theories of slurs must explain why they are derogatory words, as well as other features like independence and descriptive ineffability. This paper proposes an illocutionary force indicator theory of slurs: they are derogatory terms because their use is to perform the illocutionary act of derogation, which is a declarative illocutionary act to enforce norms against the target. For instance, calling a Chinese person “chink” is an act of derogation (...) to enforce racist norms that license exclusion of the Chinese, deny their rights to dignity, etc. The contribution of this paper is twofold. First, it offers a more comprehensive explanation of the features of slurs than earlier speech act approaches. Second, it provides a theory that is immune to the problems faced by existing theories, such as wrong predictions of truth-conditions, explaining unacceptability to non-bigots, and explaining slurs against the dominant groups. (shrink)

There’s an interesting debate in moral and political philosophy about the nature of, and relationship between, ideal and non-ideal theory. In this paper we discuss whether an analogous distinction can be drawn in philosophy of language. Our conclusion is negative: Even if you think that distinction can be put to work within moral and political philosophy, there’s no useful way to extend it to work that has been done in the philosophy of language.

Prima di commentare in dettaglio su making il mondo sociale (MSW) offrirò prima alcuni commenti sulla filosofia (psicologia descrittiva) e il suo rapporto con la ricerca psicologica contemporanea come esemplificato nelle opere di Searle (S) e Wittgenstein (W), dal momento che sento che questo è il modo migliore per posizionare Searle o qualsiasi comportamento commentatore, nella giusta prospettiva. Aiuterà molto vedere le mie recensioni di PNC, TLP, PI, OC, TARW e altri libri di questi due geni della psicologia descrittiva. S (...) non fa alcun riferimento alla presciente dichiarazione d'animo di W come meccanismo in TLP, e la sua sua distruzione nel suo lavoro successivo. Dal momento che W, S è diventato il principale decostruttore di queste visioni meccaniche del comportamento, e il più importante psicologo descrittivo (filosofo), ma non si rende conto di come W lo abbia anticipato completamente né, in generale, fare altri (ma vedere i molti articoli e libri di Proudfoot e Copeland su W, Turing e AI). Il lavoro di S è molto più facile da seguire di quello di W, e anche se c'è qualche gergo, è per lo più spettacolare chiaro se ti avvicini dalla giusta direzione. Vedi le mie recensioni su W S e altri libri per maggiori dettagli. Nel complesso, MSW è una buona sintesi dei molti progressi sostanziali su Wittgenstein derivanti dal mezzo secolo di lavoro di S, ma a mio parere, W è ancora ineguagliabile per la psicologia di base una volta compreso quello che sta dicendo (vedi le mie recensioni). Idealmente, dovrebbero essere letti insieme: Searle per la chiara prosa coerente e generalizzazioni sul funzionamento di S2/S3, illustrate con esempi perspicaci di W del funzionamento di S1/S2, e i suoi brillanti aforismi. Se fossi molto più giovane scriverei un libro facendo esattamente questo. Coloro che desiderano un quadro aggiornato completo per il comportamento umano dalla moderna vista a due systems possono consultare il mio libro 'La struttura logica dellafilosofia, psicologia, Mind e il linguaggio in Ludwig Wittgenstein e John Searle' 2nd ed (2019). Coloro che sono interessati a più dei miei scritti possono vedere 'TalkingMonkeys--Filosofia, Psicologia, Scienza, Religione e Politica su un Pianeta Condannato--Articoli e Recensioni 2006-2019 3rd ed (2019) e Suicidal Utopian Delusions nel 21st Century 4th ed (2019) . (shrink)

The “language-communication-society” triangle defies traditional scientific approaches. Rather, it is a phenomenon that calls for an integration of complex, transdisciplinary perspectives, if we are to make any progress in understanding how it works. The highly diverse agents in play are not merely cognitive and/or cultural, but also emotional and behavioural in their specificity. Indeed, the effort may require building a theoretical and methodological body of knowledge that can effectively convey the characteristic properties of phenomena in human terms. New complexity approaches (...) allow us to rethink our limited and mechanistic images of human societies and create more appropriate emo-cognitive dynamic and holistic models. We have to enter into dialogue with the complexity views coming out of other more ‘material’ sciences, but we also need to take steps in the linguistic and psycho-sociological fields towards creating perspectives and concepts better fitted to human characteristics. Our understanding of complexity is different – but not opposed – to the one that is more commonly found in texts written by people working in physics or computer science, for example. The goal of this book is to extend the knowledge of these other more ‘human’ or socially oriented perspectives on complexity, taking account of the language and communication singularities of human agents in society. (shrink)

Philosophers have nearly universally assumed that some highly general semantic relationship obtains between slurs and so-called “neutral counterpart” terms. This assumption has been fleshed out in different ways. On all extant accounts, however, it implies an unmotivated distinction between paradigmatic slur/“neutral counterpart” pairs and many pairs that theorists haven’t considered, including `chick flick’/`romantic comedy’, `stoner’/`cannabis user’, and 'libtard/'liberal’. For pairs like these, the most intuitive theory of the target relationship involves overlap––both in (presumed) extension and associated stereotypes. Since (I argue) (...) we have no good reason to distinguish pairs like `chick flick'/`romantic comedy’ from paradigmatic slur/“neutral counterpart” pairs, we have good reason to accept an overlap thesis about those pairs, too. An overlap thesis can accommodate the intuitions behind more orthodox views of slurs. It also paves the way for a more sophisticated understanding of the mechanisms of ordinary bigotry. (shrink)

Slurs are derogatory, and theories of slurs aim at explaining their “derogatory force”. This paper draws a distinction between the type derogatory force and the token derogatory force of slurs. To explain the type derogatory force is to explain why a slur is a derogatory word. By contrast, to explain the token derogatory force is to explain why an utterance of a slur is derogatory. This distinction will be defended by examples in which the type and the token derogatory force (...) come apart. Because of the distinction, an adequate theory of slurs must be plausible for both the type and the token derogatory force. However, I will argue that many theories fail to be plausible for both. In particular, Hom’s combinatorial externalism and the conventional implicature theory offer implausible accounts of the token derogatory force, whereas the prohibitionist theory is insufficient to explain the type derogatory force. (shrink)

在评论这本书之前,我提出了对维特根斯坦和西尔和理性的逻辑结构的评论。这里的文章大多在过去十年中已经出版(尽管有些已经更新),还有一个未发表的项目,这里没有什么会令那些跟上他的作品的人感到惊讶。和W一样 ,他被认为是他时代最好的站立哲学家,他的书面作品是坚如磐石,自始至终具有开创性。然而,他未能足够重视后来的W,导致一些错误和混乱。仅举几个例子:在第7页,他两次指出,我们对基本事实的确定性是由于支持我 们主张的压倒性理由,但W在《关于确定性》中明确表明,不可能怀疑我们的系统1感知,记忆和思想,因为它本身就是判断的基础,不能判断本身。在第8页的第一句中,他告诉我们确定性是可更新的,但是这种" 确定性",我们称之为确定性2,是通过经验扩展我们的公理和不可更新的确定性(确定性1)的结果,它完全不同于它命题(真或假)。这当然是W反复展示的"用语言来打击我们智力的魔咒" ;的一个经典例子。一个词- 两个(或许多)不同的用途。 他的最后一章"命题的统一"(以前未出版)也将受益匪浅,阅读W的"关于确定性"或DMS的两本书的OC(见我的评论),因为他们清楚地区分了真正的只有句子描述S1和真 或假描述 S2 的命题。这让我觉得S把S1观念视为命题的一种超优方法,因为他们在S2中开始思考它们后才变成T或F。然而,他的观点是,命题允许陈述实际或潜在的真理和虚假,过去和未来和幻想,从而提供了一个巨大的进步,超过 前或原语言社会,是令人信服的。正如他所指出的,"一个命题是任何可以决定满足条件的东西...和满足的条件...就是这样的。或者,需要补充的是,这可能是或可能想象成这种情况。 总体而言,PNC很好地总结了在维特根斯坦的半个世纪的工作,许多实质性的进展,但在我看来,W仍然是无与伦比的,一旦你明白他在说什么。理想情况下,它们应该一起阅读:西尔为清晰的连贯的散文和概括,用W的敏锐 例子和辉煌的格言来说明。如果我年轻得多,我会写一本书。 那些希望从现代两个系统的观点来看为人类行为建立一个全面的最新框架的人,可以查阅我的书《路德维希的哲学、心理学、Min d和语言的逻辑结构》维特根斯坦和约翰·西尔的《第二部》(2019年)。那些对我更多的作品感兴趣的人可能会看到《会说话的猴子——一个末日星球上的哲学、心理学、科学、宗教和政治——文章和评论2006-20 19年第3次(2019年)和自杀乌托邦幻想21篇世纪4日(2019年)。.

This chapter introduces a novel account of fake news and explains how it differs from other definitions on the market. The account locates the fakeness of an alleged news report in two main aspects related to its production, namely that its creators do not think to have sufficient evidence in favor of what they divulge and they fail to display the appropriate attitude towards the truth of the information they share. A key feature of our analysis is that it does (...) not require that fake news must be circulated with the intention to deceive one’s audience. In this way, our account overcomes a potential limitation of the current philosophical discussion about fake news, which appears to individuate the main problem with this phenomenon in the fact that fake news consumers are misled and misinformed. In contrast, the proposed analysis shows that an additional (and perhaps equally fundamental) problem uncovered by the spread of fake news is a widespread pathological relationship with information, one on which we consume information not to satisfy our interest in the truth but to strengthen our social identities and quench our hunger for social recognition. (shrink)

In this paper, I highlight some important implications of a non-individualistic account of derogatory words. I do so by critically examining an intriguing claim of Jennifer Hornsby‘s: that derogatory words – words that, as she puts it, ―apply to people, and that are commonly understood to convey hatred and contempt‖ – are useless for us. In their stead, she maintains, we employ neutral counterparts: words ―that apply to the same people, but whose uses do not convey these things. I argue (...) that Hornsby‘s distinctions – between derogatory words and neutral counterparts, and them (speakers who have use for the former) and us (who do not) – is not sustainable. I begin by considering examples that suggest that some of the words that some of us have use for are indeed derogatory. I then offer reasons for thinking that words that would presumably be identified as acceptable counterparts to derogatory words are not, in general, neutral. (shrink)

The concept of toleration occupies an important position in contemporary societal debates. I will analyse the concept by considering the apparent inconsistency between what I regard as the genuine meaning of the concept of toleration and the prevalent common perception of toleration. One essential factor in the concept of toleration is the negative evaluation of the subject matter. However, this decisive feature appears to have become obsolete in the prevalent common perception of toleration. I will examine the normative implications of (...) the imprecise usage of ´toleration´/´tolerance´ caused by the vague perception of the concept. Furthermore, I argue there to be a significant, yet underemphasised linguistic power inherent to ´toleration´/´tolerance´, which is influential in how it perpetuates negative attitudes towards various minorities and maintains thereby unjust societal relations. Since ´toleration´/´tolerance´ appears insufficient to address the changed social reality in which attitudes towards minorities have remarkably progressed, I will adopt the approach of conceptual engineering to outline a concept capable of replacing ´toleration´/´tolerance´. I suggest that a new concept to supersede toleration should carry the ethos of respect, yet have the conceptual scope and precision of tolerance/toleration, to be intuitively appealing to replace it. I propose to replace ´toleration´ with ´respectation´ and ´tolerance´ with ´respectance´. (shrink)

This paper surveys some philosophical issues with the language surrounding mental illness, but is especially focused on pejoratives relating to mental illness. I argue that though 'crazy' and similar mental illness-based epithets (MI-epithets) are not best understood as slurs, they do function to isolate, exclude, and marginalize members of the targeted group in ways similar to the harmfulness of slurs more generally. While they do not generally express the hate/contempt characteristic of weaponized uses of slurs, MI-epithets perpetuate epistemic injustice by (...) portraying sufferers of mental illness as deserving minimal credibility. After outlining the ways in which these epithets can cause harm, I examine available legal and social remedies, and suggest that the best path going forward is to pursue a reclamation project rather than aiming to censure the use of MI-epithets. (shrink)

È mia contesa che la tabella dell'intenzionalità (razionalità, coscienza, mente, pensiero, linguaggio, personalità, etc.) che figura in primo piano qui descrive più o meno accuratamente, o almeno serve come euristica per, come pensiamo e ci comportiamo, e quindi comprende non solo la filosofia e la psicologia, ma tutto il resto (storia, letteratura, matematica, politica ecc.). Si noti in particolare che l'intenzionalità e la razionalità come io (insieme a Searle, Wittgenstein e altri) lo vedono, include sia il sistema linguistico deliberativo cosciente (...) 2 e l'inconscio sistema prelinguistico automatizzato 1 azioni o riflessi. Fornisco un'indagine critica di alcuni dei principali risultati di due dei più eminenti studenti di comportamento dei tempi moderni, Ludwig Wittgenstein e John Searle, sulla struttura logica dell'intenzionalità (mente, linguaggio, coscienza, comportamento), prendendo come punto di partenza la scoperta fondamentale di Wittgenstein -che tutti i problemi veramente 'filosofici' sono gli stessi - confusioni su come usare il linguaggio in un particolare contesto, e quindi tutte le soluzioni sono le stesse, guardando a come il linguaggio può essere utilizzato nel contesto in questione in modo che le sue condizioni di verità (Condizioni di soddisfazione o COS) siano chiare. Il problema di base è che si può dire qualsiasi cosa, ma non si può significare (dichiarare chiaro COS per) qualsiasi espressione arbitraria e significato è possibile solo in un contesto molto specifico. Analizzo vari scritti da e su di loro dalla prospettiva moderna dei due sistemi di pensiero (popolari come 'pensare veloce, pensare lentamente'), impiegando una nuova tabella di intenzionalità e nuova nomenclatura di sistemi duali. Vi mostro che questa è una potente euristica per descrivere il comportamento. Così, tutti i comportamenti sono intimamente connessi se si prende il punto di vista corretto. L'Illusione Fenomenologica (oblio al nostro Sistema automatizzato 1) è universale e si estende non solo per tutta la filosofia, ma per tutta la vita. Sono sicuro che Chomsky, Obama, zuckerberg e il Papa sarebbero increduli se gli venisse detto che soffrono dello stesso problema di Hegel, Husserl e Heidegger, (o che si differenziano solo in grado dai tossicodipendenti e dai tossicodipendenti di sesso nell'essere motivati dalla stimolazione delle loro cortice frontali dalla consegna della dopamina (e oltre 100 altre sostanze chimiche) attraverso il tegmentum ventrale e il nucleus e il nucleus èevidente, ma è vero. Mentre i fenomenologi hanno sprecato solo un sacco di tempo delle persone, stanno sprecando la terra e il futuro del loro discendente. (shrink)

Most theories of slurs fall into one of two families: those which understand slurring terms to involve special descriptive/informational content (however conveyed), and those which understand them to encode special emotive/expressive content. Our view is that both offer essential insights, but that part of what sets slurs apart is use-theoretic content. In particular, we urge that slurring words belong at the intersection of a number of categories in a sociolinguistic register taxonomy, one that usually includes [+slang] and [+vulgar] and always (...) includes [-polite] and [+derogatory]. Thus, e.g., what distinguishes ‘Chinese’ from ‘chink’ is neither a peculiar sort of descriptive nor emotional content, but rather the fact that ‘chink’ is lexically marked as belonging to different registers than ‘Chinese’. It is, moreover, partly such facts which makes slurring ethically unacceptable. (shrink)

ABSTRACT In Habgood-Coote : 1033–1065) I argued that we should abandon ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’, on the grounds that these terms do not have stable public meanings, are unnecessary, and function as vehicles for propaganda. Jessica Pepp, Eliot Michaelson, and Rachel Sterken and Étienne Brown : 144–154) have raised worries about my case for abandonment, recommending that we continue using ‘fake news’. In this paper, I respond to these worries. I distinguish more clearly between theoretical and political reasons for abandoning (...) a term, assemble more evidence that ‘fake news’ is a nonsense term, and respond to the worries raised by Pepp, Michaelson and Sterken, and Brown. I close by considering the prospects for anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian conceptual engineering. (shrink)

Slurs have become a big topic of discussion both in philosophy and in linguistics. Slurs are usually characterised as pejorative terms, co-extensional with other, neutral, terms referring to ethnic or social groups. However, slurs are not the only ethnic/social words with pejorative senses. Our aim in this paper is to introduce a different kind of pejoratives, which we will call “ethnic/social terms used as insults”, as exemplified in Spanish, though present in many other languages and mostly absent in English. These (...) are ethnic terms like gitano, ‘Romani’, which can have an extensional and neutral use, but also a pejorative meaning building on a negative stereotypical representation of the Romani community. (shrink)

This paper examines the function of language in the domain of education and it‘s vice versa. As we are aware of the fact that language and education are endemic elements of human development and evolution. According to Gandhi, education is the recognition of mind-body, soul and spirit. It is the attainment of the values through morality and ethics. Gandhi accepts communicative aspect of language where as Wittgenstein accepts analytical and conceptual aspect of language. Wittgenstein realized that education is the constituent (...) of what we know, believe and learn. Gandhi asserts on Mother tongue, primary- secondary languages and national languages whereas Wittgenstein emphasis on the natural languages, meta-languages and ideal languages. In this paper I shall demonstrate the problems of language which becomes hurdles in the process of education. For both Gandhi and Wittgenstein, there are problems not in language but in its ordinary usage, speaking, writing, meaning and communication. (shrink)

ABSTRACT It has become standard to conceive of metalinguistic disagreement as motivated by a form of negotiation, aimed at reaching consensus because of the practical consequences of using a word with one content rather than another. This paper presents an alternative motive for expressing and pursuing metalinguistic disagreement. In using words with given criteria, we betray our location amongst social categories or groups. Because of this, metalinguistic disagreement can be used as a stage upon which to perform a social identity. (...) The ways in which metalinguistic disagreements motivated in this way diverge in character from metalinguistic negotiations are described, as are several consequences of the existence of metalinguistic disagreements motivated in this way. (shrink)

The term "fake news" ascended rapidly to prominence in 2016 and has become a fixture in academic and public discussions, as well as in political mud-slinging. In the flurry of discussion, the term has been applied so broadly as to threaten to render it meaningless. In an effort to rescue our ability to discuss—and combat—the underlying phenomenon that triggered the present use of the term, some philosophers have tried to characterize it more precisely. A common theme in this nascent philosophical (...) discussion is that contemporary fake news is not a new kind of phenomenon, but just the latest iteration of a broader kind of phenomenon that has played out in different ways across the history of human information-dissemination technologies. While we agree with this, we argue that newer sorts of fake news reveal substantial flaws in earlier understandings of this notion. In particular, we argue that no deceptive intentions are necessary for fake news to arise; rather, fake news arises when stories which were not produced via standard journalistic practice are treated as though they had been. Importantly, this revisionary understanding of fake news allows us to accommodate and understand the way that fake news is plausibly generated and spread in a contemporary setting, as much by non-human actors as by ordinary human beings. (shrink)

У статті висвітлено особливості мовного законодавства трьох пострадянських країн – України, Грузії та Молдови. Окреслено історичну перспективу мовно-політичного дискурсу з часів розпаду Радянського Союзу. Особливу увагу приділено конституційному затвердженню статусу державних мов, нещодавньо ухваленим чи напрацьованим законам та законопроектам, ролі конституційних судів у регулюванні мовного питання. На додаток, розглянуто специфіку регулювання вжитку мов національних меншин.

У статті проаналізовано результати масового опитування щодо мовної ситуації в українських ЗМК. З’ясовано, що диференціація преференцій українців у сфері ЗМІ й культури обумовлена мовою повсякденного спілкування, рідною мовою та регіоном проживання, найменшою мірою віком, освітою та типом населеного пункту.

Статтю присвячено проблемі аналізу сучасної мовної ситуації в Україні. Дослідження здійснено на основі найновішого соціолінгвістичного опитування ТОВ «Перша рейтингова система», яке проводено в лютому 2017 року. Проаналізовано мовну поведінку мешканців різних міст України для виявлення їхнього ставлення до мовних проблем, а також схарактеризовано їхні погляди на використання української та російської мов сьогодні та у перспективі.

There is a clear intuitive difference between lying and attempting to mislead. Recent efforts to analyse this difference, and to define lying in ways that respect it, are motivated by the conviction that the difference is important or significant in some way. Traditionally, the importance of the lying-misleading distinction has been cashed out in moral terms, but this approach faces a number of challenges. The purpose of this paper is to suggest and develop a different way in which the lying-misleading (...) distinction might be important: it might matter aesthetically. I propose that the aesthetic significance of the distinction inheres in a more prominent experienced disharmony in lying as compared with attempting to mislead. (shrink)