This paper will explore some of the implications of attending to the performative aspects of language for the sociological understanding of issues of risk and trust among lay communities. Ulrich Beck and Anthony Giddens have alerted us to the way that in late or reflexive modernity trust in authority cannot be taken for granted, but increasingly has to be actively earned and actively invested. For his part, Brian Wynne has pointed out that lay judgements are relational and hermeneutic, including as (...) they do judgements about the behaviour of relevant expert institutions, and about the risk to one's self-identity incurred by being caught up in relationships of dependency. Wynne has also argued that public avowals of trust can often mask deep private distrust, and thus be expressions more of fatalistic acceptance than of genuine trust. However, all of these analyses work from a basic model of ' trust ' as being the result of a cognitive process – as a judgement as to the trustworthiness of others. Yet trust is frequently 'active' in an even stronger sense than this. To take a posture of trust towards another can often be best understood not just as a cognitive judgement but as an attempt to bind the 'trusted' into a relationship and attitude of responsibility – and thus perhaps to alter their behaviour – through the taking up of a position in a social ritual. Speech act theory can help us be sensitive to this sort of use of the language of ' trust ', by reminding us that language can perform a number of different functions – not just that of describing the world, or of acting out ascribed roles and identities, but also that of trying to change the world. The analysis of public discourse about risk, trust and mistrust must thus be sensitive to the range of things that people might be attempting to do when they are saying things if it is to avoid drawing misleading conclusions about public attitudes to risk. (shrink)

ABSTRACTP.F. Strawson claimed that forgiveness is such an essential part of our moral practices that we could not extricate it from our form of life even if we so desired. But what is it about forgiveness that would make it such a central feature of our moral experience? In this paper, I suggest that the answer has to do with what I will call the normative significance of forgiveness. Forgiveness is normatively significant in the sense that, in its paradigmatic instances, (...) forgiving alters the operative norms bearing on the interaction between the victim and the wrongdoer in certain characteristic ways. My project here is, first, to clarify the ways that paradigmatic cases of forgiveness alter the norms of interaction between victim and wrongdoer and to argue that it is in this respect that forgiveness is a normatively significant feature of our moral responsibility practices. Second, I show that most extant theories of forgiveness fail to explain the characteristic ways in which forgiving alters norms. Th... (shrink)

In 2010, pitcher Armando Galarraga was denied a perfect game when umpire Jim Joyce called Jason Donald safe at first with two outs in the bottom of the 9th. In the numerous media discussions that followed, Joyce’s ‘blown’ call was commonly referred to as ‘mistaken’, ‘wrong’, or otherwise erroneous. However, this use of language makes some not uncontroversial ontological assumptions. It claims that the fact that a runner is safe or out has nothing to do with the ruling of the (...) umpire himself, but rather with some state of the universe that does not depend on the umpire for its existence. In this paper, I recast the problem as a version of Plato’s Euthyphro Dilemma and argue that the view implied by the above assertions is actually misguided. Instead, I hope to show that an alternative view – what I call ‘restricted umpire voluntarism’ – is actually more in line with the spirit of the game of baseball and is not as counterintuitive as it may appear.. (shrink)

Scott Lash interviews John Searle, one of the foremost contemporary philosophers. Over the course of the conversation, Searle discusses his research into performativity, language and intentionality, the question of information and his account of social ontology. The conversation initially deals with the early influence of John Austin and Ludwig Wittgenstein as well as Searle's relationship to phenomenology and the rest of the philosophical tradition. This offers a conceptual reconstruction of Searle’s work from multiple perspectives. Crucial concepts are highlighted such as (...) performativity, speech acts, intentionality and natural language. The discussion also touches on Searle’s recent debates around the questions of information and consciousness. The conversation ends with an overview of Searle’s social ontology, his theory of institutions and his relationship with post-structuralism. (shrink)

Introduzione Articoli di enciclopedia, scommesse, profitti e perdite, progetti di ricerca, libri, lezioni, relazioni, voti, crediti, statini, esami, registri, lauree, studenti, professori, monsignori, opere d’arte e letteratura di consumo, cattedre, aule, moduli, assunzioni, rivoluzioni, convegni, conferenze, licenziamenti, sindacati, parlamenti, società per azioni, leggi, ristoranti, denaro, proprietà, governi, matrimoni, elezioni, giochi, ricevimenti, tribunali, avvocati, guerre, missioni u...

In this essay, Andrew Stables and Stephen Gough explore some of the implications for educational policy and practice of a view of living as semiotic engagement. Such a view, Stables and Gough argue, has the potential to displace or circumvent essentially Cartesian models currently dominant within learning theory and within neoclassical economics . It thus enables synergies between theories of learning and of economic behavior, allowing for greater consistency in thinking about both educational policy and provision, on the one hand, (...) and curriculum and pedagogy, on the other. In addition, the authors claim that giving semiotics a foundational role in educational thinking provides a basis for the broader development of liberal political thought within a postmodern cultural context. (shrink)

I discuss Lawlor’s Austinian account of knowledge ascriptions and argue that it is a brand of pragmatic encroachment. I then criticize the motivation for pragmatic encroachment theories that derives from assumptions about the functional role of knowledge ascriptions. I argue that this criticism also apply to contextualist followers of Craig. Finally, I suggest that the central lesson from reflection on the communicative functions of knowledge ascriptions is that they, upon reflection, motivate traditional invariantism.

This article surveys a range of current views on the semantics of imperatives, presenting them as more or less conservative with respect to the Truth-Conditional Paradigm in semantics. It describes and critiques views at either extreme of this spectrum: accounts on which the meaning of an imperative is a modal truth-condition, as well as various accounts that attempt to explain imperative meaning without making use of truth-conditions. It briefly describes and encourages further work on a family of views lying somewhere (...) in the middle. On such views, an imperative will semantically determine, without having as its meaning, a modal truth-condition, which figures centrally in accounting for various aspects of its meaning. (shrink)

This paper brings together the work of Nicholas Wolterstorff and William Alston in speech-act theory with the aim of providing a deeper understanding of the nature of divine speaking through the medium of Scripture. Despite the fecundity of Wolterstorff's seminal work on the philosophical theology of Scripture, aspects of his speech-act centric account are underdeveloped and would benefit from the contributions of William Alston. In particular, his account of divine speech-acts could be fruitfully expanded by incorporating the concept of ‘taking (...) responsibility’ that is central to Alston's analysis of the nature of illocutionary acts. This would elucidate both the way in which readers of Scripture encounter divine practical authority in the reading process and the nature of the response of faith that is demanded of them. (shrink)

Catharine MacKinnon claims that pornography silences women in a way that violates the right to free speech. This claim is, of course, controversial, but if it is correct, then the very free speech reasons for protecting pornography appear also to afford reason to restrict it. For this reason, it has gained considerable attention. The philosophical literature thus far focuses on a type of silencing identified and analyzed by Jennifer Hornsby and Rae Langton (H&L). This article identifies, analyzes, and argues for (...) the importance of a different type of silencing. As we shall see, there are compelling reasons in favor of regarding H&L silencing as a free speech violation and, as I argue here, the same can be said for sincerity silencing. Although additional work needs to be done to show that either one actually is a free speech violation, I demonstrate here that both types of silencing equally warrant this further attention. Moreover, I show that sincerity silencing is a fairly widespread phenomenon; so, therefore, is the harm it constitutes. As a result of these considerations, then, we can safely conclude that sincerity silencing also requires our attention. (shrink)

The concept of dignity figures prominently in legal and moral discussion on such topics as human rights, euthanasia, abortion, and criminal punishment. Yet the notion has been criticized for being indeterminate and either insufficient or redundant (or both) in justifying the kinds of legal and moral rights and views its proponents use it to vindicate. The criticisms have inspired some novel conceptions of dignity. One of them is Tarunabh Khaitan’s proposal that dignity should be understood as an expressive norm. In (...) this article, I assess Khaitan’s suggestion. I maintain that it faces two challenges that its advocates should be able to solve for the proposal to be plausible. (shrink)

I modify Grice's theory of conversational implicature so as to accommodate acts of implicating propositions by asking questions, acts of implicating questions by asserting propositions, and acts of implicating questions by asking questions. I describe the relations between a declarative sentence's semantic content (the proposition it semantically expresses), on the one hand, and the propositions that a speaker locutes, asserts, and implicates by uttering that sentence, on the other. I discuss analogous relations between an interrogative sentence's semantic content (the question (...) it semantically expresses), and the questions that a speaker locutes, asks, and implicates by uttering that sentence. (shrink)

The object of this paper is to throw light on the reciprocal exchanges between legal philosophy and the theory of speech acts (as developed by Austin and Searle). The first part concerns the contributions to legal philosophy made by the theory of speech acts with a view to developing new perspectives. The second part deals with the contributions of legal philosophy to speech act theory.

Contemporary societies are awash in rumor. Truth claims may have an uncertain provenance, but we tend to incorporate them into our belief system, act upon them, and recall them through collective memory. The question becomes who, what, where and when do we trust. The analysis of rumor belongs to the sociology of action. This paper sketches a brief analysis of the intersection of trust and rumors through the concepts of plausibility, credibility, frequency, diffusion, boundaries, divisiveness and stability or rumor. The (...) role of the ‘cultures of judgment’ is also outlined. (shrink)

This Philosophy Compass article continues the comparison between Confucian and mainstream Western views of personhood and their connection with ethics begun in Confucianism and Ethics in the Western Philosophical Tradition I: Fundamental Concepts , by focusing on the Western self conceived as an independent agent with moral and political rights. More specifically, the present article briefly accounts for how the more strictly and explicitly individualistic notion of self dominating Western philosophy has developed, leading up to a recent debate in modern (...) Western rights theory between Herbert Fingarette and Henry Rosemont, Jr., two contemporary Western philosophers who are both steeped in Confucian thought as well as moral and political philosophy. This discussion elucidates how Confucianism can be compared to, and even contrasted with some basic principles of modern Western rights theory and the more individualistic view of self they entail. In the end, a new view of personhood and "free will"? is offered that synthesizes insights from the Confucian treatment of persons as being essentially interdependent with the Western treatment of persons as being essentially independent. (shrink)

Is the wrongness of an action a reason not to perform it? Of course it is, you may answer. That an action is wrong both explains and justifies not doing it. Yet, there are doubts. Thinking that wrongness is a reason is confused, so an argument by Jonathan Dancy. There can’t be such a reason if ‘ϕ-ing is wrong’ is verdictive, and an all things considered judgment about what (not) to do in a certain situation. Such judgments are based on (...) all the relevant reasons for and against ϕ-ing. If that ϕ-ing is wrong, while being an all things considered verdict, would itself be a reason, it would upset the balance of reasons: it would be a further reason which has not yet been considered in reaching the verdict. Hence, the judgment wasn’t ‘all things considered' after all. I show that the argument against wrongness being a reason is unsuccessful, because its main assumption is false. Is main assumption is that a consideration which necessarily does not affect the balance of reasons is not a reason. I also argue that there can be no deontic buck-passing account. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper examines the question of whether recognition relations are based on trust. Theorists of recognition have acknowledged the ways in which recognition relations make us vulnerable to others but have largely neglected the underlying ‘webs of trust’ in which such relations are embedded. In this paper, I consider the ways in which the theories of recognition developed by Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth, not only point to our mutual vulnerability but also implicitly rely upon mutual relations of trust. (...) The paper first offers a novel examination of the relation between recognition, vulnerability and trust in Habermas’ account of communicative action with the aim of arguing that such a consideration helps to elucidate important features of recognition. My claim is that a consideration of the dynamics of recognition and vulnerability in language-use, leads to an acknowledgment of the forms of trust that not only underpin communicative action, but recognition more generally. I conclude by considering the elements that are underplayed in Habermas’ account by turning to an examination of Axel Honneth’s alternative affective theory of recognition, specifically considering the interrelation between vulnerability and recognition. In doing so, I also turn to a consideration of the kind of trust that must be assumed in Honneth’s account of mutual recognition and point to a recognitive notion of trust. (shrink)

This paper argues that an addressee's failure to recognize a speaker's authority can constitutes another form of silencing.

This article defends the counterintuitive conclusion that public assignments of credibility – including statements, by hearers, of ‘that’s right’, ‘she is credible’, or ‘I believe you’ – can actually constitute a pernicious form of epistemic wrong. Sometimes referred to colloquially as ‘lip service’, the wrong occurs when, owing to ethically poisonous epistemic failures, hearers outwardly validate testifiers’ credibility despite not fully or duly believing them. To explain this wrong, I introduce a distinction between performed and internal credibility assignments (PCA and (...) ICA) and describe an epistemic dysfunction in which they misalign. I focus on cases in which misaligned PCA of ‘credible’ falsely – although sometimes non-deliberately – signal to testifiers and bystanders that testifiers have been believed; Republican hearers’ positive reception of Christine Blasey Ford’s 2018 testimony serves as a central case. Although some misaligned PCA are not wrongful, when epistemic and ethical failures including forms of identity prejudice and pernicious ignorance lead PCA of ‘credible’ to misalign, the PCA wrong testifiers in their capacities as knowers. These epistemic wrongs are particularly pernicious because the PCA conceal that testimony has not been efficacious, inflicting and exacerbating distinct harms. (shrink)

This paper comments on some of the different senses of the notion of discourse in the various relevant literatures and then overviews the basic features of a coherent discourse analytic programme in Psychology. Parker's approach is criticised for (a) its tendency to reify discourses as objects; (b) its undeveloped notion of analytic practice; (c) its vulnerability to common sense assumptions. It ends by exploring the virtues of 'interpretative repertoires' over 'discourses' as an analytic/theoretical notion.

A psychologically plausible analysis of the way we assign illocutionary forces to utterances is formulated using a 'contextualist' analysis of what is said. The account offered makes use of J. L. Austin's distinction between phatic acts (sentence meaning), locutionary acts (contextually determined what is said), illocutionary acts, and perolocutionary acts. In order to avoid the conflation between illocutionary and perlocutionary levels, assertive, directive and commissive illocutionary forces are defined in terms of inferential potential with respect to the common ground. Illocutionary (...) forces are conceived as automatic but optional components of the process of interpretation. (shrink)

Cet article se propose d’examiner en détail une construction peu souvent étudiée, kiss goodbye. Le grand nombre de propriétés que possède cette-ci s’explique aisément si nous l’intégrons parmi les formations à prédicat complexe qui produisent les constructions résultatives de l’anglais. Cependant, cette construction coïncide structurellement et sémantiquement avec une construction à double objet, ce qui explique son caractère hybride. Il s’agit d’une résultative qui forme une structure à double objet, et qui possède alors des propriétés sémantiques et syntaxiques des deux (...) types de construction. Ce travail s’inscrit dans le cadre chomskien, dont le but est de rendre compte des propriétés particulières des constructions comme dérivant de l’articulation des divers processus grammaticaux qui les produisent, ce qui signifie que cette construction devrait nous éclairer sur les résultatives en général, s’il est vrai que celle-ci est un exemplaire particulier de cette famille de constructions. (shrink)

The meaning of κερτομω and its congeners in Homer has been the subject of debate in this journal. Jones has argued that ‘to κερτομω someone is to speak in such a way as to provoke a powerful emotional reaction’, whether of anger or fear, and thus means ‘“to utter stinging words at [someone]”, “pierce to the heart”, “cut to the quick”, rather than merely “provoke” This definition seems to work well enough for some cases, but certainly not for all, and (...) especially not for the passage from which the whole controversy began: Iliad 24.649, where Achilles speaks to Priam ༐πικερτομέωυ. As Richardson says in his Iliad commentary, ‘there is no sign that Akhilleus’ speech has this direct effect [i.e. arouses fear] on Priam’. Jones's article was responding to an earlier one by J. T. Hooker, who attempted to ascertain the sense of Achilles’ ༐πικερτομέυ by surveying the usage of kertom- words throughout Homeric epic. He concluded that the basic meaning is ‘to taunt’ or, more abstractly, it ‘indicates the provocation of another person into behaving in a certain way, whether that is the behaviour desired by the speaker… or is not desired by the speaker’. The problem was that this definition did not seem to fit the very line from which his inquiry began, the words of Achilles to Priam. Hooker then hypothesized that the verse betrayed signs of an ‘imperfect adaptation’ of a different version of the poem in which Achilles taunted a defeated enemy or perhaps preserved his grudge against Agamemnon to its end. This explanation is unpersuasive. (shrink)

Pornography deserves special protections, it is often said, because it qualifies as speech. Therefore, no matter what we think of its content, we must afford it the protections that we extend to most speech, but don’t extend to other actions.1 In response, Jennifer Hornsby and Rae Langton have argued that the case is not so simple: one of the harms of pornography, they claim, is that it silences women’s speech, thereby preventing women from deriving from speech the very benefits that (...) warranted the special protections in the first place.2 At first glance, it is hard to see how to make sense of this response. If the claim is that pornography prevents women from actually uttering words, then it just seems false; on the other hand, if that isn’t the claim, then it isn’t clear how anyone can be said to be silenced. Faced with such worries, many have been inclined to dismiss these claims about silencing as confused. (shrink)

According to Horwich’s use theory of meaning, the meaning of a word W is engendered by the underived acceptance of certain sentences containing W. Horwich applies this theory to provide an account of semantic stipulation: Semantic stipulation proceeds by deciding to accept sentences containing an as yet meaningless word W. Thereby one brings it about that W gets an underived acceptance property. Since a word’s meaning is constituted by its (basic) underived acceptance property, this decision endows the word with a (...) meaning. The use-theoretic account of semantic stipulation contrasts with the standard view that semantic stipulation proceeds by assigning the meaning (reference) to W that makes a certain set of sentences express true propositions. In this paper I will argue that the use-theoretic account does not work. I take Frege to have already made the crucial point: "a definition does not assert anything but lays down something ["etwas festsetzt"]” (Frege 1899, 36). A semantic stipulation for W cannot be the decision to accept a sentence containing W or be explained in terms of such an acceptance. Semantic stipulation constitutes a problem for Horwich's use theory of meaning, especially his basic notion of acceptance. (shrink)

Imperatives cannot be true or false, so they are shunned by logicians. And yet imperatives can be combined by logical connectives: "kiss me and hug me" is the conjunction of "kiss me" with "hug me". This example may suggest that declarative and imperative logic are isomorphic: just as the conjunction of two declaratives is true exactly if both conjuncts are true, the conjunction of two imperatives is satisfied exactly if both conjuncts are satisfied—what more is there to say? Much more, (...) I argue. "If you love me, kiss me", a conditional imperative, mixes a declarative antecedent ("you love me") with an imperative consequent ("kiss me"); it is satisfied if you love and kiss me, violated if you love but don't kiss me, and avoided if you don't love me. So we need a logic of three -valued imperatives which mixes declaratives with imperatives. I develop such a logic. (shrink)

In a series of papers, Sperber provides the following analysis of the phenomenon of ill-understood belief (or 'quasi-belief', as I call it): (i) the quasi-believer has a validating meta-belief, to the effect that a certain representation is true; yet (ii) that representation does not give rise to a plain belief, because it is 'semi-propositional'. In this paper I discuss several aspects of this treatment. In particular, I deny that the representation accepted by the quasi-believer is semantically indeterminate, and I reject (...) Sperber's claim that quasi-belief is a credal attitude distinct from plain belief. (shrink)

Recently, there has been much debate about the role and nature of political theories. Jeremy Waldron has argued that we misconstrue a theory’s purpose if we summarize it in terms of ‘What Plato Would Allow’, because a normative theory is a conceptual exploration and should not be reduced to a policy wish list. To make sense of such phrases beyond Waldron’s critique, this paper provides some conceptual tools to clarify the practical purpose of normative political theories. First, it draws on (...) Bernard Williams’ distinction between the enactive and structural models in political theory. Second, it seeks to reconstruct normative political theories as sets of speech acts having an illocutionary point that expresses the relation between theory and practice. Third, the paper outlines five types of illocutionary points (Intervention, Justification, Reconciliation, Critique, and Imagination of alternatives). The idea of an illocutionary point can make sense of the practical import of a theory in a multifaceted manner and without subscribing to a specific conception of practicality. (shrink)

Existing analyses of slurs emphasize how linguistic mechanisms make slurs derogatory. I will argue that, in addition to linguistic mechanisms, there are overlooked doxastic and epistemic features of standard slurring utterances that can be sources of offense. Additionally, I argue that the doxastic feature that distinguishes slurring utterances from other negatively valenced utterances is fundamental to understanding slurring terms. Clinical Trial Registration: Not applicable.

The central pillar of Austin’s theory of speech acts is the three-way distinction between locutionary acts like saying, illocutionary acts like asserting, and perlocutionary acts like persuading (Austin 1962: VIII-IX). While the latter distinction has been widely accepted, the former distinction has been frequently rejected due to Searle’s objections, who argued that since Austin’s locutionary acts are supposed to be forceful in the sense contrasting with neutral expression of a content and all force is by Austin’s own definition illocutionary, the (...) notion of a locutionary act collapses into that of an illocutionary act (Searle 1968). In this paper, I provide an interpretation of Austin’s distinction between locutionary and illocutionary acts and defend it against Searle’s objections. I argue that Searle’s main objection relies on mistakenly running together two notions of ‘force’: the Fregean notion of representational force as presentation-as-true and the Austinian notion of illocutionary force as the social-communicative significance of the speech act. Once we distinguish these we can see that although Searle is correct that Austin’s locutionary acts are forceful in the former sense, he’s mistaken in thinking that such force is illocutionary. Given this, his objection that locutionary acts collapse into illocutionary acts misses its mark. (shrink)

The Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development’s (OECD) global governance of education has been gradually increasing. Its field of interest is currently expanding from educational evaluation through the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to curriculum reform through the Education 2030 project. Here, it is interesting to note that the nature of the terms the OECD has been creating reveals a ‘humanistic turn’. This shows up well in the frequent occurrence of terms such as ‘well-being’, ‘attitudes and values’, ‘inclusiveness’, ‘responsibility’, (...) and ‘sustainability’ in the ongoing Education 2030 project. Perhaps this new humanistic discourse increases the likelihood of the smooth adoption of the OECD’s proposed curriculum redesign in more countries. If the OECD’s new discourse captures and transforms contemporary people’s ways of thought and practice about education, then this is related to the problem of colonialism in our era. It is also worth noting that language plays a vital role in colonization. In particular, the need for translation between different languages serves as a useful means for colonization. Conversely, it is also seen as having a potential decolonizing power. In this context, I would like to examine the new language the OECD has adopted, specifically regarding student experience and the nature of knowing. Next, I shall attempt to criticize the underlying educational assumptions in the OECD’s pronouncements. Following this, I shall explore how the OECD’s new discourse has been translated in South Korea, taking this as an example of wider experience in the East Asian context and possibly elsewhere. Finally, I shall conclude by considering the direction of curriculum decolonization in terms of translation. (shrink)

How might a society wrong people by the way in which it remembers its past? In recent years, philosophers have articulated serval ways in which people may be wronged by dominant historical narratives. My focus will be on a way in which we may wrong people which has yet to feature in this discussion: the consigning of people to history. This paper investigates the wrongs involved in collective narratives that consign certain identities to a country’s past but not its present (...) or future. I will argue that these narratives can wrong people by exiling them from the imagined community, which in turn leads to several other significant harms. I will begin by examining this phenomenon before going on to articulate the distinctive wrongs and harms involved in consigning to history. I then argue that people have a prima facie duty not to develop or employ national narratives that consign people to history and a responsibility to challenge and resist the use of such narratives. This responsibility will be especially strong for powerful and privileged people, for people with a special interest in resisting such narratives and for those able to draw on the resources of existing collectives. (shrink)

Background Informed consent is one of the key principles of conducting research involving humans. When research participants give consent, they perform an act in which they utter, write or otherwise provide an authorisation to somebody to do something. This paper proposes a new understanding of the informed consent as a compositional act. This conceptualisation departs from a modular conceptualisation of informed consent procedures. Methods This paper is a conceptual analysis that explores what consent is and what it does or does (...) not do. It presents a framework that explores the basic elements of consent and breaks it down into its component parts. It analyses the consent act by first identifying its basic elements, namely: a) data subjects or legal representative that provides the authorisation of consent; b) a specific thing that is being consented to; and c) specific agent(s) to whom the consent is given. Results This paper presents a framework that explores the basic elements of consent and breaks it down into its component parts. It goes beyond only providing choices to potential research participants; it explains the rationale of those choices or consenting acts that are taking place when speaking or writing an authorisation to do something to somebody. Conclusions We argue that by clearly differentiating the goals, the procedures of implementation, and what is being done or undone when one consent, one can better face the challenges of contemporary data-intensive biomedical research, particularly regarding the retention and use of data. Conceptualising consent as a compositional act enhances more efficient communication and accountability and, therefore, could enable more trustworthy acts of consent in biomedical science. (shrink)

The phenomena of call-outs and call-ins are fiercely debated. Are they mere instances of virtue signaling? Or can they actually perform social justice work? This paper gains purchase on these questions by focusing on how language users negotiate norms in speech. The authors contend that norm-enacting speech not only makes a norm salient in a context but also creates conversational conditions that motivate adherence to that norm. Recognizing this allows us to define call-outs and call-ins: the act of calling-out brings (...) with it the presupposition that its target's behavior is norm-violating, whereas the act of calling-in simply presupposes its target's willingness to revise their belief. With these definitions at hand, we evaluate whether call-outs and call-ins are suitable tools for combating social injustice. (shrink)

The reactions that science triggers on the people it studies, describes, or theorises about, can affect the science itself and its claims to knowledge. This phenomenon, which we call reactivity, has been discussed in many different areas of the social sciences and the philosophy of science, falling under different rubrics such as the Hawthorne effect, self-fulfilling prophecies, the looping effects of human kinds, the performativity of models, observer effects, experimenter effects and experimenter demand effects. In this paper we review state-of-the-art (...) research that falls under the remit of the philosophy of reactivity by considering ontological, epistemic and moral issues that reactivity raises. Along the way, we devote special attention to articles belonging to this journal's Topical Collection entitled “Reactivity in the Human Sciences”. (shrink)

The world is witnessing a rise in speech-enabled devices serving as epistemic informants to their users. Some philosophers take the view that because the utterances produced by such machines can be phenomenologically similar to an equivalent human speech, and they may deliver the same function in terms of delivering content to their audience, such machine utterances should be conceptualized as “assertions”. This paper argues against this view and highlights the theoretical and pragmatic challenges faced by such a conceptualization which seems (...) to be based on a “functionalist” account of assertion. Instead, the paper argues that the view that some such machine utterances can be “proxy assertions”, made on behalf of the designers and/or deployers of such machines is more tenable. Existing accounts of such a view, however, need further refinement, which is provided here. The paper then discusses implications of this view for design of such machines, particularly those enabled and equipped with machine learning capabilities. (shrink)

Sometimes, thinking a thought and saying something to oneself are the same event. Call this the ‘thinking-as-speaking’ thesis. It stands in opposition to the idea that we think something first, and then say it. One way to argue for the thesis is to show that the content of a token thought cannot be fully represented by a token mental state before the production of the utterance which expresses it. I make an argument for that claim based on speech act theory. (...) Many inner speech utterances are inner speech acts; as such they are individuated by an amalgam of semantic content and illocutionary force, which only come together with the performance of the speech act. Call the performance of a speech act its meaning and call its meaning its content. Since a token thought is individuated by its content it follows that the content of the speech act is not represented by any token mental state before the speech act is performed. Metaphysically, a thought, when it is an inner speech act, is not an object of any kind, but an action – the action of performing the speech act. I illustrate my argument with the action of deciding something. (shrink)

In this paper, I discuss two roles for the concept of joking in political speech. First, I discuss how claiming to have been joking can provide speakers with a powerful form of deniability. I argue that the aesthetic dimension of jokes makes such a denial especially well placed to undermine both a hearer's evidence for an utterance having been sincere, and, separately, their belief that it was sincere—I call the latter ‘aesthetic gaslighting’. Second, I discuss the use of jokes to (...) influence hearers’ thinking and behaviour under the radar. I show that not only does the fact that an utterance was a joke fail to prevent it from influencing hearers, but in some cases, the fact that it was a joke actually makes it more influential than a sincere utterance would have been. (shrink)

Can fictions lie? According to a classic conception, works of fiction can never contain lies, since their content is not presented as true, nor is it meant to deceive us. But this classic view can be challenged. Sometimes fictions appear to make claims about the actual world, and these claims can be designed to convey falsehoods, historical misconceptions, and even pernicious stereotypes. Should we conclude that some fictional statements are lies? This article introduces two views that support a positive answer, (...) and two that support a negative one. After examining various ways in which fictions can deceive, it concludes in favour of the view that fictional statements can mislead, but never lie. (shrink)

Frankfurt gave an account of “bullshit” as a statement made without regard to truth or falsity. Austin argued that a large amount of language consists of speech acts aimed at goals other than truth or falsity. We don't want our account of bullshit to include all performatives. I develop a modification of Frankfurt's account that makes interesting and useful categorizations of various speech acts as bullshit or not and show that this account generalizes to many other kinds of act as (...) well. I show that this illuminates some of Graeber's classification of “bullshit jobs,” though it doesn't fully agree with it. (shrink)

Building on Wittgenstein’s ideas, I defend a brand of pluralism that associates words with conceptual families and appeals to this notion in the course of philosophical problem solving. I argue that certain problems that the received view of conceptual engineering (‘improvement by replacement’) faces can be more easily overcome if we adopt a pluralist perspective. I show that the proposed approach can circumvent the problem of topic discontinuity, whilst also avoiding the threat of trivialisation, since it can easily accommodate both (...) coarse-grained and fine-grained topics. Finally, I argue that my variant of pluralism is compatible with de novo conceptual engineering insofar as it allows that the paradigm associated with a word may shift overtime thus creating an opportunity for new candidate members to join a conceptual family. (shrink)

This article contributes to an ongoing revival of interest in the intellectual history of the German Vormärz, and to an emerging body of scholarship on the influential political philosopher and Bible scholar Bruno Bauer (1809–1882). While, during much of the twentieth century, Bauer was remembered primarily for his relationship with the Young Marx, more recent scholarship has attempted to examine his work on its own terms, and to consider his unique contributions to the history of republicanism and radicalism in particular. (...) But to date, no one has provided a systematic and synoptic account of his theology during the crucial years of 1838 to 1843. This article aims to fill that gap in the literature. It argues that Bauer’s political thought cannot be understood independently of his theology, his church and religious histories, and his Bible criticism. In doing so, it provides new insights into the significance of theology for the polemical debates of the Vormärz more generally. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Casting a Vote for Subordination Using a SlurDuckkyun Lee1. IntroductionIn this paper, I develop an account of slurs focusing on their two underappreciated features. The first underappreciated feature is what I call their "communal nature." Slurs are communal. The meaning of a slur depends on the existence of a significant number of people who are bigoted against the target. When this condition is not satisfied, a slur loses its (...) power to offend. This can be seen when we consider how philosophers choose examples of slurs to avoid offending people. For example, Williamson, in his essay "Reference, Inference and the Semantics of Pejoratives," uses a slur for Germans as his main example. What makes the slur for Germans a safe example to use is the fact that there is no widespread bigotry against Germans in any Anglophone country. Had there been strong enmity between Germans and the people in the Anglophone countries, even if Williamson had chosen an outdated slur, his example would not have been such a safe choice. Slurs are words that bigots use to offend and harm the people they are bigoted against. When there are no bigots, neither are there slurs.The focus on the communal nature of slurs leads to the second underappreciated feature of slurs. A bigot does not use a slur just to express his beliefs or feelings, but to subordinate his target. To subordinate others, a bigot needs to cooperate and coordinate with other bigots. In this paper, I will propose a mechanism for how slurs work as a tool for coordinating subordination. To account for the communal and subordinating nature of slurs, I turn to speech act theory and explain what kind of illocutionary act is performed when one uses a slur.1My proposal is to understand utterances made using a slur, or slurring,2 as an act of casting a vote for ranking the target as socially inferior. On this [End Page 37] view, a slur is a conventional tool used to cast a vote demanding the subordination of its target. The considerations that motivate this view are as follows: First, the uses of a slur are the results of consciously choosing it over its neutral counterpart. By explicitly avoiding a neutral counterpart term, one can show their support for fellow bigots and the willingness to participate in whatever activity they do. Second, the point of using a slur does not seem to be exhausted by its role of expressing the bigot's negative beliefs about the target. We can see this when we consider that the way to fight a slur is to impose strict prohibitions against its use, not by objecting to the content of the slurring utterance. This can be better explained when we understand the slur as a conventional tool for the performance of a certain type of action, rather than a word that has distinctive descriptive content different from the descriptive content of its neutral counterpart. Finally, the point of some speech acts is not just expressing the state of the mind of the speaker. The point of some speech acts is to change what is the case in society. To make an utterance using a slur seems to fall into this latter category of speech acts. What would bigots be up to if they were not engaged in the project of creating a society where their target was inferior to them? This consideration suggests that making an utterance using a slur might fall into the kind of speech act Searle calls declaration (Taxonomy 361–68). As a declaration, slurring is an attempt to change society such that the target is subordinated.Insofar as an election is understood as a process within which people collectively decide on what should be the case in society by indicating their stance for or against a proposal, slurring can be understood as a casting of a vote in the election bigots' proposal to subordinate their target. I argue that this account can better explain why a slur cannot function as a slur without there being a significant number of bigots, and how it is used to coordinate the bigots' effort of subordinating their target.The paper... (shrink)

Discussions of uptake in the philosophy of language focus our attention on what role other people have in fixing the import, success, influence and social life of a speech act. The general idea in most discussions of uptake, despite their differences and disagreements, is whether and how an audience is cooperative or uncooperative when a speaker plays a critical role in how speech acts function. This essay is primarily concerned with “refusals”, or uncooperative uptakes. The essay analyzes the varieties of (...) refusal; when refusal is possible why it might be challenging and when it is ethical. It examines how and when the uptake of a speech act can constitute the pragmatic form and force of the original speech act. (shrink)

Wittgenstein mentions “forms of life” only on a limited number of occasions in his writings; however, this concept is at the core of his approach to language, as the vast literature on the subject shows. My aim in this paper is neither to adjudicate which of the many competing interpretations of “forms of life” is correct nor to propose a new one. I start with a methodological take on this notion and test it by applying it to a specific case. (...) In my view, the notion of forms of life is a methodological tool that Wittgenstein uses to draw attention to the embeddedness of language in our lives and practices. This reading, I suggest, allows us to oppose those who want to see in Wittgenstein a conservative thinker, based on his remark on forms of life as “the given” that must be accepted. In particular, it becomes possible to put his notion to use in the study of linguistic and social change. Hence, I propose as an example the case of innovative language games in trans communities. In this context, the notion of forms of life enables us to see with more clarity how linguistic change occurs, which also helps us better understand phenomena such as disagreement, conflict, and hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

Epistemic injustice is a widely discussed phenomenon in many sub-disciplines (including epistemology, ethics, feminist philosophy, social and political philosophy). Yet, there is very little literature on its connection to the philosophy of sports. Here I explore the intersection between epistemic injustice and sports, focusing on testimonial injustice. I argue that there exist clear-cut cases of testimonial injustice in sport that arise when athletes attempt to communicate information. After highlighting the theoretical connections between various cases, I explore the more ambitious claim (...) that sport performances themselves carry linguistic content. This claim allows us to see the biased negative judgment of sport performances in a new light, as constituting a further and distinctive form of testimonial injustice. I show how the case of figure-skater Surya Bonaly can be understood as a real-life instantiation of this form of testimonial injustice. I conclude by explaining why it is philosophically fruitful to understand these wrongs through the lens of testimonial injustice. (shrink)