Overview
What makes a word bad? Bad Words is a philosophical examination of slurs and other derogatory and problematic language, by some of the leading contributors to the field. Slurs are an interesting case for the philosophy of language. On the one hand, they seem to be meaningful in something like the way many other expressions are meaningful - different slurs might seem in some way to refer to different groups, for example. But on the other hand, it's clear that slurs also have distinctive practical effects and roles: they can seem to be just an arbitrary tool for insulting or enabling harm. How are those aspects related? Just how the use of words is related to their significance is of course one of the deepest issues in philosophy of language: slurs not only refine that issue, by presenting a kind of use that presents novel challenges, but also give the issue a compelling practical relevance.The Engaging Philosophy series is a new forum for collective philosophical engagement with controversial issues in contemporary society.
Full Product Details
Author: David Sosa (Temple Centennial Professor in the Humanities, Temple Centennial Professor in the Humanities, University of Texas, Austin)
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Imprint: Oxford University Press
Dimensions:
Width: 16.30cm
, Height: 2.20cm
, Length: 24.10cm
Weight: 0.540kg
ISBN: 9780198758655
ISBN 10: 0198758650
Pages: 244
Publication Date: 09 August 2018
Audience:
General/trade
,
General
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: To order
Stock availability from the supplier is unknown. We will order it for you and ship this item to you once it is received by us.
Reviews
Sosa ... has brought together nine leading scholars of philosophy of language to produce the first serious philosophical analysis and examination of pejorative language, slurs in particular ... Recommended. * D. B. Boersema, CHOICE *
a valuable resource for readers who want to become informed about some of the most popular and widely discussed positions among philosophers of language on the semantics and pragmatics of words that are slurs * Ralph DiFranco, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews * Sosa ... has brought together nine leading scholars of philosophy of language to produce the first serious philosophical analysis and examination of pejorative language, slurs in particular ... Recommended. * D. B. Boersema, CHOICE *
There should be no doubt that Bad Words is an excellent read of superb quality. No other extant volume can compete with the high standards and comprehensiveness of this volume. It is a necessary reference for all current and future research on the complex matter of the meaning of slurs. * Bjoern Technau, Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict * Sosa ... has brought together nine leading scholars of philosophy of language to produce the first serious philosophical analysis and examination of pejorative language, slurs in particular ... Recommended. * D. B. Boersema, CHOICE * a valuable resource for readers who want to become informed about some of the most popular and widely discussed positions among philosophers of language on the semantics and pragmatics of words that are slurs * Ralph DiFranco, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews *
Author Information
David Sosa is Temple Centennial Professor in the Humanities at UT Austin. He has been at Austin since 1997, after spending two years on a postdoctoral fellowship at UC Berkeley. Before that, he completed his PhD at Princeton. Sosa serves as editor of the journal Analytic Philosophy, and he is co-editor of Philosophy of Language (Oxford, 6th edition), Analytic Philosophy: An Anthology (Wiley/Blackwell), and Analytic Philosophy: A Companion (Wiley/Blackwell).
