Most accounts of the derogatory meaning of slurs are semantic. Recently, Nunberg proposed a purely pragmatic account offering a compelling picture of the relation between derogatory content and social context. Nunberg posits that the semantic content of slurs is identical to that of neutral counterparts, and that derogation is a result of the association of slur use with linguistic conventions of bigoted speakers. The mechanism responsible for it is a special kind of conversational implicature. However, this paper argues that Nunberg’s (...) proposal suffers from technical and conceptual problems regarding the application of the concepts of implicature and convention. It is proposed that the implicature mechanism should be replaced by expressive commitment attribution. The account advocated here preserves crucial insights of Nunberg’s analysis, 25–48, 2013a, Analytic Philosophy 54, 350–363, 2013b; Bolinger Nous, 51, 439–462, 2017), giving them a firmer conceptual basis. It supports a distinction between derogation and offensiveness of slurs that improves on the one proposed by Hom and May, 293–313 2013), and sheds light on puzzling borderline cases: the use of slurs by ignorant speakers and controversies surrounding the status of some words as potentially slurs. (shrink)

[English] Overlooked Generic Masculine Forms – Consistency in Usage of Gender-Conscious Language in the "Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie" (German Journal of Philosophy) in 2020 The present article examines to what extent and how consistently gender-conscious language is used in academic papers. We analysed every paper published in 2020 in the journal “Deutsche Zeitschrift für Philosophie” (transl.: German Journal for Philosophy) that contained overlooked usages of generic masculine forms in otherwise gender-conscious language. Our results showed that only 16 out of 35 (...) papers used gender-conscious language. Out of those 16, only 5 used gender-conscious language in more than 50% of possible usages. None of the articles consistently used gender-conscious language. This means that in each of those 16 papers that used gender-conscious language, at least one “overlooked generic masculine form” was detected. Our hypotheses that generic masculine forms are more often overlooked if they are either (i) not related to the thematic focus of the article, or (ii) technical terms, were confirmed. -/- [German] Der vorliegende Artikel untersucht, inwiefern und wenn ja wie konsequent in wissenschaftlichen Artikeln gegendert wird. Analysiert wurden alle 2020 erschienen Artikel in der Deutschen Zeitschrift für Philosophie, in denen übersehene generische Maskulina vorkommen. Unsere Ergebnisse zeigen, dass lediglich in 16 von 35 Artikeln gegendert wurde. Von diesen 16 Arbeiten gendern wiederum nur fünf in mehr als 50% der Fälle. In keinem der analysierten Artikel wird jede Personenbezeichnung, die potentiell gegendert werden könnte, auch tatsächlich gegendert. Das heißt, in jedem einzelnen dieser 16 Artikel gibt es mindestens ein “übersehenes generisches Maskulinum”. Unsere Hypothesen, dass generische Maskulina öfter “übersehen” werden, wenn sie entweder nicht im thematischen Fokus des Artikels stehen oder Fachbegriffe sind, konnten bestätigt werden. (shrink)

We live in a world saturated in both racial and gendered divisions. Our focus is on one place where attitudes about these divisions diverge: language. We suspect most everyone would be horrified at the idea of adding race-specific pronouns, honorifics, generic terms, and so on to English. And yet gender-specific terms of the same sort are widely accepted and endorsed. We think this asymmetry cannot withstand scrutiny. We provide three considerations against incorporating additional race-specific terms into English, and argue that (...) these considerations also support eliminating the analogous gender-specific terms. With respect to these parts of speech, English should be no more gender-specific than it already is race-specific. (shrink)

Much of feminist philosophy of language so far can be described as critical—critical either of language itself or of philosophy of language, and calling for change on the basis of these criticisms. Those making these criticisms suggest that the changes are needed for the sake of feminist goals — either to better allow for feminist work to be done or, more frequently, to bring an end to certain key ways that women are disadvantaged. In this entry, I examine these criticisms. (...) I also examine work by feminists that seems to suggest some of the criticisms are misplaced: that, for example, philosophy of language is better able to help in feminist projects than critics suppose. My focus in this entry will generally be on the analytic tradition. For continental approaches, see the entries on feminist approaches to the intersection of analytic and continental philosophy , feminist approaches to the intersection of pragmatism and continental philosophy. (shrink)

Book synopsis: The thirteen specially-commissioned essays in this volume are written by philosophers at the forefront of feminist scholarship, and are designed to provide an accessible and stimulating guide to a philosophical literature that has seen massive expansion in recent years. Ranging from history of philosophy through metaphysics to philosophy of science, they encompass all the core subject areas commonly taught in anglophone undergraduate and graduate philosophy courses, offering both an overview of and a contribution to the relevant debates. Together (...) they testify to the intellectual value of feminism as a radicalizing energy internal to philosophical inquiry. This volume will be essential reading for any student or teacher of philosophy who is curious about the place of feminism in their subject. (shrink)