Mirela Fus-Holmedal

Risky politically manipulative speech has unexpectedly been on the rise. This paper investigates the role that the phenomenon of linguistic plausible deniability plays in the increasing prevalence of politically manipulative speech through dogwhistles, racial figleaves, and generic stereotypes. The paper unfolds in three main stages. First, it suggests that these linguistic devices share the phenomenon of plausible deniability, which, by offering cover for their overtness, mitigates (some) risks of such political speech. Second, it argues that the plausible deniability of these linguistic devices makes them powerful tools for politically manipulative speech as it helps it to spread more efficiently and appear more acceptable. Finally, it elevates the ethical and political dimensions of language to a more central position within the philosophy of language by discussing two normative claims stemming from conceptual engineering: (i) we should combat such pernicious political manipulation, and (ii) we should exploit the effects of plausible deniability for beneficial purposes.

This chapter presents a novel resolution to the terminological dispute concerning the philosophical method underlying engineering projects in philosophy. Firstly, I introduce a general definition of a terminological dispute and, as a case study, apply this to the philosophical method in question. Secondly, I evaluate the most prominent terminological choice, ‘conceptual engineering’ (see Scharp 2013, 2020, Eklund 2015, Cappelen 2018, Burgess, Cappelen and Plunkett 2020, Chalmers 2020), against the two main conditions that I propose one should take on board when making terminological choices for this philosophical method: (i) the semantic correctness condition, drawing on Belleri (2018), and (ii) the beneficial lexical effects condition, drawing on Cappelen (2018) and Chalmers (2011, 2020). Thirdly, I engage in resolving the terminological dispute by arguing that we should introduce a new term: ‘philosophical engineering.’ I contend that, for the philosophical method in question, this terminological choice fares better against its competition in meeting both of the aforementioned conditions. Lastly, I address objections concerning the terminological dispute resolution I propose.

My aim in this paper is to present and discuss Miscevic's position on pejorative terms. Pejorative terms, for Miscevic, are negative hybrid social kind terms that refer directly and pick out social kinds as their referents. Despite sharing some of Miscevic's intuitions on pejorative terms, I raise three main objections to his account. First, I argue that introducing pluralistic commitments about propositions is not helpful in any way for his account. On the contrary, I show that it brings about the falsity of meaning and the failure of reference. Furthermore, I point out that Miscevic is mistaken in trying to avoid the problem of co-reference between terms such as "Boche" and "German". I argue that there is no co-reference present because the referents of these two terms belong to two different social kinds. Finally, I raise a more general objection connected to the reference of social kind terms and, consequently, to pejorative terms as well. I bring up a worry that certain referential theories about pejorative terms, Miscevic's account included, might lack an explanation of what ties a social kind token to a particular social kind type.

In this paper I comment on Inan’s notions of propositional and objectual curiosity. Even though Inan offers an interesting and intuitive distinction between propositional and objectual curiosity, I want to question two aspects of his theory of curiosity. One aspect concerns his thesis that propositional curiosity is interdependent on epistemic attitudes such as belief, certainty and interest. Another aspect of his theory that I discuss is his thesis that objectual curiosity is not reducible to propositional curiosity. In more detail, in the fi rst part, I start off by explaining what propositional curiosity is according to Inan and I bring up two worries that I call: (i) over-complexity as a result of subjectivity and (ii) overcomplexity as a result of dynamics for the above mentioned epistemic attitudes. Both worries stress the problem of over-complexity of Inan’s theory of propositional curiosity. In the second part, I argue that objectual curiosity is, contrary to Inan’s hypothesis, reducible to propositional curiosity. I further argue that the object of wh- questions that, according to Inan, express objectual curiosity can either be about the truth value of general or singular proposition. In addition, I suggest that only the reading where wh- questions express curiosity in a form of de re reading and have a singular proposition as their content is the one that is compatible with Inan’s notion of objectual curiosity.

My aim in this paper is to examine how Kent Bach's theory of singular thought about material objects meets the requirements of transmitting de re thought. I identify a certain possible paradox haunting Bach's move of extending acquaintance in order to widen the scope of singular thought and I attempt to answer this possible paradox. First, I briefly present the manner in which Bach motivates extended acquaintance and which constraints he puts on it. I then address the problem of the sorites paradox which might lead not only to Bach's communication-based de re thoughts, but perception-based de re thoughts in general, thus defined. Finally, I offer my tentative solution to the problem of extended acquaintance which consists in introducing two constraints on singular thought, namely (i) the (external) acquaintance constraint and (ii) the (internal) cognitive significance constraint, and two types of representations, namely indexical-iconic representations and indexical-discursive representations which are together crucial for having a singular thought.

We all think we know who Batman and Superman are. They are polar opposites who both happen to wear their underwear over spandex pants, or at least they once did. So, for comic purists and fans of the cinematic DC Universe it may seem bold to claim that Batman is a true superhero and that Superman is not a true superhero. As a matter of a fact, we want to claim something even stronger: something we will prove independently, without only comparing them and without having to worry if one comic character happens to depend on the other. We plan to demonstrate that it is not a matter of comparison between Batman and Superman when it comes to the concept: a true superhero. There is something else that is crucial for each comic character that makes one a true superhero, whereas the other is not—and we are going to reveal what this is exactly.

Among Singularists, it has been widely accepted that one can have singular thought by acquaintance, and that acquaintance encompasses the perceptual acquiring, memorizing and communicating of singular thoughts. I defend the possibility of having a singular thought via extending acquaintance to intermediaries other than just through written and spoken words. On my account, singular thought includes two types of representations, namely indexical-iconic representation and indexical-discursive representation. Also, it is determined by two constraints: (i) the acquaintance constraint: singular thought includes a causal-historical relation to the object; and (ii) the cognitive significance constraint: we have a cognitive capacity to deliberately encode an indexical-iconic representation into an indexical-discursive representation, which enables us to have a singular thought.