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The Philosophy of Derogatory Language Use: Normative Meaning and Immanent Criticism
Third-party funded project
Project title The Philosophy of Derogatory Language Use: Normative Meaning and Immanent Criticism
Principal Investigator(s) Mühlebach, Deborah
Project Members Mühlebach, Deborah
Organisation / Research unit Departement Künste, Medien, Philosophie / Fachbereich Philosophie
Project start 01.09.2015
Probable end 31.05.2018
Status Completed
Abstract

Insults, hate speech, or the use of sexist or racist terms as problematic cases of language use are part of various political discussions. As these discussions on the reasons for and the importance of criticisms of language uses seem to be rather confused regarding their underlying assumptions about the functioning of (harmful) language uses, the aim of the present project is to examine what philosophy of language can contribute to the explanation of what it is about language itself that it can be an instrument of harm on the one hand, and to the provision of standards and criteria for a reasonable criticism of stigmatizing language use on the other.These two examinations are entangled. For providing standards and criteria for reasonable criticism of stigmatizing language use requires giving an answer to the question of what lets language be potentially harmful. In order to do this, I discuss some relevant semantic and pragmatic problems regarding pejorative language use: By drawing on inferentialist and thick semantic externalist accounts of the meaning of pejoratives, I argue that the pejorative aspects of pejorative language use are best explained as part of semantics and pragmatics, rather than as only located in pragmatics. This, in turn, leads to reconsidering discussions on the distinction between semantics and pragmatics, and to critically examine from a semantic point of view if the categories provided by speech act theory and so often drawn on in moral, political, and legal philosophy regarding harmful speech acts are appropriate to framing the problem concerning such speech acts on the other. Finally, these investigations in philosophy of language are used to provide a framework of standards and criteria for a reasonable criticism of pejorative language uses. Because stigmatizing speech is the focal point of the various philosophical and political discussions taken into account at different theoretical levels, the present project also contributes to an understanding between discussing parties that, until now, have not systematically referred to each other.

Keywords Stigmatizing Speech; Critique; Meaning of Pejoratives; Semantics; Pragmatics; Philosophy of Language; Speech Act
Financed by Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF)
   

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29/03/2024