Diversity Reading List

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 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.

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.

Publisher's Note: Only human beings have a rich conceptual repertoire with concepts like tort, entropy, Abelian group, mannerism, icon and deconstruction. How have humans constructed these concepts? And once they have been constructed by adults, how do children acquire them? While primarily focusing on the second question, in The Origin of Concepts , Susan Carey shows that the answers to both overlap substantially.

Carey begins by characterizing the innate starting point for conceptual development, namely systems of core cognition. Representations of core cognition are the output of dedicated input analyzers, as with perceptual representations, but these core representations differ from perceptual representations in having more abstract contents and richer functional roles. Carey argues that the key to understanding cognitive development lies in recognizing conceptual discontinuities in which new representational systems emerge that have more expressive power than core cognition and are also incommensurate with core cognition and other earlier representational systems. Finally, Carey fleshes out Quinian bootstrapping, a learning mechanism that has been repeatedly sketched in the literature on the history and philosophy of science. She demonstrates that Quinian bootstrapping is a major mechanism in the construction of new representational resources over the course of childrens cognitive development.

Carey shows how developmental cognitive science resolves aspects of long-standing philosophical debates about the existence, nature, content, and format of innate knowledge. She also shows that understanding the processes of conceptual development in children illuminates the historical process by which concepts are constructed, and transforms the way we think about philosophical problems about the nature of concepts and the relations between language and thought.

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:

A French Jew born in Algeria, philosopher and novelist Cixous (b. 1937) blends and bends the categories of theory. Originally written for a journal issue on Beauvoir, this essay tries to map out a strategy against the alienation of women through the re-apropriation of their own identity, via written work. A literary interpretation of feminism, it articulates the idea of écriture féminine (feminine writing), a type of writing particular to women. This is Cixous' strategic essentialism: according to her, the difference in women's expression should be underlined, and thus women should write in a specific style allowing for a reclamation and a reinvention of their identities, against the patriarchal system. This literary strategy is heavily embodied, and relies on representations as much as lived, practical experiences to criticize a male-centered system. However, Cixous remains a structuralist: identity is not given, but built within discourse in complex relation with other poles, and feminine writing can be found in men through sexual subversion (Genet is one example). This essay marks a specific period in both French feminism and post-structuralism, providing a perfect example of the philosophical, political and artistic questions of the period.

Abstract: In this paper it is argued that contemporary conceptualisation of rape obscure the real but often unexamined connections between racism and sexual assault. Indeed, women of color are more likely to be victimised by sexual assault than white women. They are also less likely to report their assault, less likely to be believed and less likely to participate in the anti rape movement. This suggests that the racial factor should be involved in any discussion on sexual assault.

Abstract: In this paper, we defend two main claims. The first is a moderate claim: we have a negative duty to not use binary gender-specific pronouns he or she to refer to genderqueer individuals. We defend this with an argument by analogy. It was gravely wrong for Mark Latham to refer to Catherine McGregor, a transgender woman, using the pronoun he; we argue that such cases of misgendering are morally analogous to referring to Angel Haze, who identifies as genderqueer, as he or she. The second is a radical claim: we have a negative duty to not use any gender-specific pronouns to refer to anyone, regardless of their gender identity. We offer three arguments in favor of this claim (which appeal to concerns about inegalitarianism and risk, invasions of privacy, and reinforcing essentialist ideologies). We also show why the radical claim is compatible with the moderate claim. Before concluding, we examine common concerns about incorporating either they or a neologism such as ze as a third-person singular gender-neutral pronoun. These concerns, we argue, do not provide sufficient reason to reject either the moderate or radical claim.

Abstract:
Some visual artworks constitute hate speech because they can perform oppressive illocutionary acts. This illocution-based analysis of art reveals how responsive curation and artmaking undermines and manages problematic art. Drawing on the notion of counterspeech as an alternative tool to censorship to handle art-based hate speech, this article proposes aesthetic blocking and aesthetic spotlighting. I then show that under certain conditions, this can lead to eventual metaphysical destruction of the artwork; a way to destroy harmful art without physically destroying it.

Abstract:

In his post-Tractatus work on natural language use, Wittgenstein defended the notion of what he dubbed the autonomy of grammar. According to this thought, grammar - or semantics, in a more recent idiom - is essentially autonomous from metaphysical considerations, and is not answerable to the nature of things. The argument has several related incarnations in Wittgenstein's post-Tractatus writings, and has given rise to a number of important insights, both critical and constructive. In this paper I will argue for a potential connection between Wittgenstein's autonomy argument and some more recent internalist arguments for the autonomy of semantics. My main motivation for establishing this connection comes from the fact that the later Wittgenstein's comments on grammar and meaning stand in opposition to some of the core assumptions of semantic externalism.