Showing papers in "Analytic Philosophy in 2013"

What did you call me? slurs as prohibited words

Abstract: Recent literature in the philosophy of language and linguistics divides the explanatory landscape into two broad camps: content-based and non-contentbased, with the consensus being that (uses of) slurs express negative attitudes toward their targets. Content-based theorists adopt different strategies for implementing this view, but all agree that slurs (or their uses) communicate offensive content. In this essay, we will challenge the consensus and defend a non-contentbased view. According to us, slurs are prohibited not on account of offensive content they manage to get across, but rather because of relevant edicts surrounding their prohibition. We will argue that Prohibitionism, a term we coined, accounts for all the relevant data, namely, both variation in degrees of offense among slurs and their nonoffensive uses, better than the content-based competitors. We will proceed as follows: First, we will present our positive view and address specific issues that arise for it. Next, we will defend our view from objections, possible and actual. And finally, we will compare Prohibitionism with certain alternatives and show why we believe it to be superior. Before we dive in, several clarifications are in order. bs_bs_banner

Slurs and stereotypes

Abstract: A number of theorists have recently advocated semantic analyses of slurring terms that advance a common source of slurs’ offensiveness: stereotypes of the group to which the slur is standardly applied. A stereotype semantics of slurs (SSS) takes (nonappropriated) uses of slurring terms to semantically encode and express or conventionally implicate stereotypes of the group that is referenced by the slur’s neutral counterpart. So, for example, on an SSS, “S is a Nigger” expresses or implicates that S is lazy, stupid, dangerous; “S is a Kike” expresses or implicates that S is a greedy, penny-pinching schemer. Though oversimplified, these examples display how an SSS explains slurs’ offensiveness—in terms of the offensiveness of properties included in stereotypes. Lynn Tirrell, Tim Williamson, Christopher Hom, Adam Croom, and Liz Camp have each proposed some variety of SSS. While stereotype views differ in various crucial respects, all can be seen as motivated by at least some of the following considerations. First, uses of slurs bring stereotypes of the referenced group to mind almost effortlessly. Second, slurs are widely regarded as extraordinarily pernicious, far more so than many other pejoratives like “jerk” or “idiot”—harming their target’s self-conception and self-worth, often in ways that are common to the social group as a whole. Stereotypes seem to be a natural explanation of this effect. Third, and correlatively, slurring terms are strongly taboo in society, much more so than other pejoratives like “jerk,” “asshole,” and even “fucker.” While many of these are taboo in various contexts, societal taboos against using slurs seem stronger and differently rooted, so an SSS appears to account for why slurs are more strongly prohibited. Fourth, some slurs seem to be more heinous, more offensive, than others. “Nigger” is said to be more offensive than “honkey” and “limey.” By appealing to stereotypes, proponents of SSS possess a compelling explanation of slurs’ “derogatory variation.” Stereotypes of Caucasians or the French are

Moral and Semantic Innocence

Abstract: Moral Innocence is a term meant to describe that facts like the following obtain: that no Jews are kikes, that there are no kikes, but that there are Jews. It is the view, to be more prosaic, that the world we live in contains no such things as kikes, niggers, or chinks, but that it does contain Jews, African-Americans, and Chinese. These facts are the contents of the thoughts that no Jews are kikes, that there are no kikes, but that there are Jews; the thoughts that are expressed by the sentences:

It's Not What You Said, It's the Way You Said It: Slurs and Conventional Implicatures

Abstract: In this paper, I defend against a number of criticisms an account of slurs, according to which the same semantic content is expressed in the use of a slur (e.g. 'chink') as is expressed in the use of its neutral counterpart (e.g. 'Chinese'), while in addition the use of a slur conventionally implicates a negative, derogatory attitude. Along the way, I criticise competing accounts of the semantics and pragmatics of slurs, namely, Hom's 'combinatorial externalism' and Anderson and Lepore's 'prohibitionism'.

Existence and number

Abstract: The Frege-Russell view is that existence is a second-order property rather than a property of individuals. One of the most compelling arguments for this view is based on the premise that there is an especially close connection between existence and number. The most promising version of this argument is by C.J.F. Williams (1981, 1992). In what follows, I argue that this argument fails. I then defend an account according to which both predications of number and existence attribute properties to individuals.

The orders of public reason

Abstract: This paper is about the book The Order of Public Reason by Gerald Gaus. Before considering some of the key arguments of that book and raising some issues about some of the apparatus Gaus deploys, I would like to begin by saying something about my own trajectory across the terrain of public-reason philosophy. I recount this trek, not only because it is always nice to talk about one's own work but also because Gaus and I have been tracking each other across this landscape for a long time now, so that the story of my enquiries can provide a way of introducing his own current approach and also, and more importantly, some salutary warnings, as it might be said, about how not to do it. My ways of approaching this problem led over and over again to dead ends in the middle of nowhere. And Gaus's approach is "the road not taken," but, in this case (if not in the poem), the unequivocally better approach, one that opens out, I think, into an interesting vista not much explored so far and worthy of the consideration it is indeed already receiving.

Higher‐Order Vagueness and Borderline Nestings: A Persistent Confusion

Abstract: This paper shows that authors who have recently argued that higher-order vagueness is incoherent, paradoxical, illusory or non-existent 1 invariably confound elements of higher-order vagueness (of the kind relevant to the Sorites paradox) with elements of a different paradigm of borderline borderline cases; and that, once the elements of that other paradigm are removed from the description of higher-order vagueness, the basis for the claims of paradoxicality, etc., disappears. 2 The paper sets out in detail the two paradigms (higher-order vagueness and borderline nestings) and their logics (iterated modalities vs. mixed-order non-empty predicates), illustrates how the prevalent notion of hierarchical higher-order vagueness gains its persuasiveness largely from a conflation of these paradigms, and shows how the alternative of columnar higher-order vagueness not only preserves coherence, but also is the sort of higher-order vagueness that is relevant to the Sorites paradox. As a corollary, the paper provides support for the increasing number of vagueness theorists who renounce clear borderline cases (such as Sainsbury, Wright, Williamson, Shapiro, Fara, Raffman, Cobreros and Smith). 3

A Priori Knowledge that I Exist

Abstract: I exist. That is something I know. Most philosophers think that Descartes was right that each of us knows that we exist. Furthermore most philosophers agree with Descartes that there is something special about how we know it. Agreement ends there. There is little agreement about exactly what is special about this knowledge. I shall present an account that is in some respects Cartesian in spirit, although I shall not pursue interpretive questions very far. On this account, I know that I exist a priori; and I shall advance an explanation of how this a priori knowledge is possible and actual. I then consider the question of whether the belief that I exist is justified and, if so, how. I argue that the situation is different in important ways from the knowledge that I exist. We are considering the knowledge that each of us has that we exist, rather than what “cogito” means for Descartes—“I think” rather than “I exist.” The focus is not on self-knowledge of this or that characteristic of the self, but knowledge of the very existence of the self. The thought in question is the thought that each of us expresses to ourselves with the thought or words “I exist.” I shall argue that the knowledge that I exist is a relatively unproblematic case of a priori knowledge—which is not to say that it is unproblematic. I shall attempt to show how a priori knowledge with this content is possible. The knowledge that I exist, I will argue, is a case where a priori knowledge can be explained—something that is notoriously hard to do. In the larger picture, this generates hope for other problematic cases of a priori knowledge.

Old Adams Buried

Abstract: I present some counterexamples to Adams's Thesis and explain how they undermine arguments that indicative conditionals cannot be truth-evaluable propositions.