Diversity Reading List

Abstract:

The most sustained and innovative recent work on metaphor has occurred in cognitive science and psychology. Psycholinguistic investigation suggests that novel, poetic metaphors are processed differently than literal speech, while relatively conventionalized and contextually salient metaphors are processed more like literal speech. This conflicts with the view of “cognitive linguists” like George Lakoff that all or nearly all thought is essentially metaphorical. There are currently four main cognitive models of metaphor comprehension: juxtaposition, category-transfer, feature-matching, and structural alignment. Structural alignment deals best with the widest range of examples; but it still fails to account for the complexity and richness of fairly novel, poetic metaphors.

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

Abstract:

It is a dominant view in the philosophical literature on the later Wittgenstein that Chomsky’s approach to the investigation of natural language stands in stark contrast to Wittgenstein’s, and that their respective conceptions of language and linguistic understanding are irreconcilable. The aim in this paper is to show that this view is largely incorrect and that the two approaches to language and its use are indeed compatible, notwithstanding their distinctive foci of interest. The author argues that there is a significant correspondence in at least five different areas of their work, and that once we pay attention to these there will be less temptation to see Wittgenstein and Chomsky as enemies.

Abstract:

Kristeva (b. 1941) is known for mixing psychoanalysis, literary criticism and philosophy. In this essay, she explores depression, melancholy and mourning, starting from one of its most exaggerated manifestation. Seeing pain as "the hidden side of [her] philosophy", she investigates it through language and aesthetics. In doing so, Kristeva uncover its meaning by relying heavily on the symbolic dimensions, demonstrating how depression destabilizes language itself. With a particular focus on the feminine experience of sadness, she discusses romantic relationships and maternity, using Freud, Klein and Lacan alongside empirical observations from her psychoanalytic practice. The main thesis locates the origin of true depression in the separation from the mother, where she finds the "lost Thing" which causes melancholy without a precise loss, leading to a ruin of identity itself through an impossible mourning. Engaging with Holbein, Nerval, Dostoevsky and Duras, a large part of Kristeva's book is dedicated to a quest for the sublimation of such emotions into works of art. Deliberately fragmented and linked with poststructuralism, Black Sun is a a personal account of how subjective emotions are tied with signs and the possibility of meaning. Part of a psychoanalytic, feminist reading of feminism, Kristeva has been accused of essentialism.

Summary (Diversifying Syllabi): Leslie argues that generic language has an effect on social cognition. Specifically, generic language plays a role in the way small children develop concepts related to abilities, which facilitates the transmission and development of social prejudices.

Abstract:
Experimental philosophers advocate expansion of philosophical methods to include empirical investigation into the concepts used by ordinary people in reasoning and action. We propose also including methods of qualitative social science, which we argue serve both moral and epistemic goals. Philosophical analytical tools applied to interdisciplinary research designs can provide ways to extract rich contextual information from subjects. We argue that this approach has important implications for bioethics; it provides both epistemic and moral reasons to use the experiences and perspectives of diverse populations to better identify underlying concepts as well as to develop effective interventions within particular communities.