Diversity Reading List

Abstract: Vague predicates, those that exhibit borderline cases, pose a persistent problem for philosophers and logicians. Although they are ubiquitous in natural language, when used in a logical context, vague predicates lead to contradiction. This paper will address a question that is intimately related to this problem. Given their inherent imprecision, why do vague predicates arise in the first place? I discuss a variation of the signaling game where the state space is treated as contiguous, i.e., endowed with a metric that captures a similarity relation over states. This added structure is manifested in payoffs that reward approximate coordination between sender and receiver as well as perfect coordination. I evolve these games using a variation of Herrnstein reinforcement learning that better reflects the generalizing learning strategies real-world actors use in situations where states of the world are similar. In these simulations, signaling can develop very quickly, and the signals are vague in much the way ordinary language predicates are vague - they each exclusively apply to certain items, but for some transition period both signals apply to varying degrees. Moreover, I show that under certain parameter values, in particular when state spaces are large and time is limited, learning generalization of this sort yields strategies with higher payoffs than standard Herrnstein reinforcement learning. These models may then help explain why the phenomenon of vagueness arises in natural language: the learning strategies that allow actors to quickly and effectively develop signaling conventions in contiguous state spaces make it unavoidable

Abstract: An important debate in the current literature is whether 'all truth-conditional effects of extra-linguistic context can be traced to [a variable at; LM] logical form' (Stanley, 'Context and Logical Form', Linguistics and Philosophy, 23 (2000) 391). That is, according to Stanley, the only truth-conditional effects that extra-linguistic context has are localizable in (potentially silent) variable-denoting pronouns or pronoun-like items, which are represented in the syntax/at logical form (pure indexicals like I or today are put aside in this discussion). According to Recanati ('Unarticulated Constituents', Linguistics and Philosophy, 25 (2002) 299), extra-linguistic context can have additional truth-conditional effects, in the form of optional pragmatic processes like 'free enrichment'. This paper shows that Recanati's position is not warranted, since there is an alternative line of analysis that obviates the need to assume free enrichment. In the alternative analysis, we need Stanley's variables, but we need to give them the freedom to be or not to be generated in the syntax/present at logical form, a kind of optionality that has nothing to do with the pragmatics-related optionality of free enrichment.

Introduction: With such a robust set of explanatory advantages, stereotype semantics are increasingly influencing the development of theories of slurring terms. My aim here is quite simply to quell the tide. I focus upon the two best developed and most general theories, those of Hom and Camp, whose accounts differ primarily in how the stereotype is expressed and how the encoding of the stereotype affects truth conditions.

Abstract: Racial epithets are derogatory expressions, understood to convey contempt toward their targets. But what do they actually mean, if anything? While the prevailing view is that epithets are to be explained pragmatically, I argue that a careful consideration of the data strongly supports a particular semantic theory. I call this view Combinatorial Externalism. CE holds that epithets express complex properties that are determined by the discriminatory practices and stereotypes of their corresponding racist institutions. Depending on the character of the institution, the complex semantic value can be composed of a variety of components. The account has significant implications on theoretical, as well as, practical dimensions, providing new arguments against radical contextualism, and for the exclusion of certain epithets from First Amendment speech protection

Abstract: A current debate in semantics and pragmatics is whether all contextual effects on truth-conditional content can be traced to logical form, or 'unarticulated constituents' can be supplied by the pragmatic process of free enrichment. In this paper, I defend the latter position. The main objection to this view is that free enrichment appears to overgenerate, not predicting where context cannot affect truth conditions, so that a systematic account is unlikely (Stanley, 2002a). I first examine the semantic alternative proposed by Stanley and others, which assumes extensive hidden structure acting as a linguistic trigger for pragmatic processes, so that all truth-conditional effects of context turn out to be instances of saturation. I show that there are cases of optional pragmatic contributions to the proposition expressed that cannot plausibly be accounted for in this way, and that advocates of this approach will therefore also have to appeal to free enrichment. The final section starts to address the question of how free enrichment is constrained: I argue that it involves only local development or adjustment of parts of logical form, any global developments being excluded by the requirement for the proposition expressed to provide an inferential warrant for the intended implications of the utterance.

Abstract: Most people working on linguistic meaning or communication assume that semantics and pragmatics are distinct domains, yet there is still little consensus on how the distinction is to be drawn. The position defended in this paper is that the semantics/pragmatics distinction holds between encoded linguistic meaning and speaker meaning. Two other 'minimalist' positions on semantics are explored and found wanting: Kent Bach's view that there is a narrow semantic notion of context which is responsible for providing semantic values for a small number of indexicals, and Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore's view that semantics includes the provision of values for all indexicals, even though these depend on the speaker's communicative intentions. Finally, some implications are considered for the favoured semantics/pragmatics distinction of the fact that there are linguistic elements which do not contribute to truth-conditional content but rather provide guidance on pragmatic inference

Introduction: Slurs are among the most rhetorically powerful and insidious expressions in a language. One key reason for this, I will argue, is that they present contents from a certain perspective, which is dif?cult to dislodge despite the fact that it is precisely what a nonbigoted hearer most wants to resist.

Abstract: In *Insensitive Semantics*, Herman Cappelen and Ernie Lepore argue for a minimalist approach to semantics and against the currently more popular contextualist stance. I agree with this overall outlook, but will suggest in this chapter that their way of framing the debate between these two semantic programmes actually serves to obscure some key issues. Specifically, I will argue that the version of radical contextualism they give is not radical enough, while their version of semantic minimalism is not minimal enough.

Abstract: The mainstream view in philosophy of language is that sentence meaning determines truth-conditions. A corollary is that the truth or falsity of an utterance depends only on what words mean and how the world is arranged. Although several prominent philosophers (Searle, Travis, Recanati, Moravcsik) have challenged this view, it has proven hard to dislodge. The alternative view holds that meaning underdetermines truth-conditions. What is expressed by the utterance of a sentence in a context goes beyond what is encoded in the sentence itself. Truth-conditional content depends on an indefinite number of unstated background assumptions, not all of which can be made explicit. A change in background assumptions can change truth-conditions, even bracketing disambiguation and reference assignment. That is, even after disambiguating any ambiguous words in a sentence and assigning semantic values to any indexical expressions in the sentence, truth-conditions may vary with variations in the background.

Abstract: Increasingly philosophers (and linguists) are turning their attention to slurs - a lexical category not much explored in the past. These are expressions that target groups on the basis of race ('nigger'), nationality ('kraut'), religion ('kike'), gender ('bitch'), sexual orientation ('fag'), immigrant status ('wetback') and sundry other demographics. Slurs of a racial and ethnic variety have become particularly important not only for the sake of theorizing about their linguistic distribution adequately but also for the implications their usage has on other well?worn areas of interest. In 'Reference, Inference, and The Semantics of Pejoratives,'Timothy Williamson discusses the merits of Inferentialism by looking at Dummett's treatment of the slur 'boche.'Mark Richard attempts to show that, contrary to a commitment to minimalism about truth, one is not conceptually confused in holding that slurring statements are not truth?apt discursive discourses, i.e. statements that are neither true nor false, but still represent the world to be a certain way. Others, like David Kaplan, argue that slurs force us to expand our very conception of meaning. Slurs also rub up against various other issues like descriptivism versus expressivism as well as the semantic/pragmatic divide (cf. Potts). Slurs' effects on these issues make it difficult to ignore them and still give an adequate theory of language. In this paper, we will be particularly interested in the potential slurs carry to offend. Though xenophobes are not offended by slurs, others are - with some slurs more offensive than others.2 Calling an Asian businessman 'suit' will not rouse the same reaction as calling him 'chink'. Even co?extensive slurs vary in intensity of contempt. Christopher Darden once branded 'nigger' the 'filthiest, dirtiest, nastiest word in the English language' (Kennedy, p. 23); we doubt anyone reacts as such to 'negro,' yet it too has become a slur. How can words fluctuate both in their status as slurs and in their power to offend? Targeted members themselves are not always offended by confrontations with slurs, for example, so?called appropriated or reclaimed uses (the camaraderie use of 'nigger' among African?Americans and 'queer' among homosexuals). These various data focus our investigation around three questions: Why are some confrontations with slurs offensive? Why do some impact audiences more forcefully than others? How do targeted members sometimes succeed in mollifying them? The consensus answer to the first question is that slurs, as a matter of convention, carry negative attitudes towards targeted groups. Since we know so much about how words communicate content, a brief canvass and evaluation of available explanatory alternatives is appropriate; in particular, do slurs offend audiences because of what they semantically express, presuppose, linguistically display (but not describe), or conventionally implicate? Or are their effects determined by negative tone - i.e. the subjective images they summon? These strategies - whether semantic and not - are committed to the view that slurs (or their uses) get across offensive content; they disagree only over the mechanism of implementation. Our overarching aim in this paper is to deflate all content?strategies: each, no matter how it is conceived, we will argue, is irrelevant to an understanding of how slurs function and why they offend. Our positive proposal, in brief, is that slurs are prohibited words not on account of any content they get across, but rather because of relevant edicts surrounding their prohibition. This raises more than a few pertinent questions we will address below, including how words become prohibited, what's the relationship between their prohibition and their offense potential, and why is it sometimes appropriate to flout such prohibitions?