Conférence - Robert May : The Semantics of Ideological Words

François Recanati

Philosophie du langage et de l'esprit

Collège de France

Année 2023-2024

Ideology and Propaganda

Conférence - Robert May : The Semantics of Ideological Words

Robert May

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Linguistics, University of California, Davis

Résumé

In the second lecture, we turn to an application of the account of propaganda, ideological words that abstractly encapsulate core values of an ideology as their meaning. The focus will be on pejorative words – racist, sexist, homophobic, religious epithets, and so on. These words, we argue, are expressions of a type of defective ideology; they express a norm that people are morally unworthy just because they are black, female, gay, Jewish, etc, and thus tolerating oppression and discrimination. But such norms are unjustified: No one is morally unworthy solely on the basis of their race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, etc. The norms justifying racism, sexism, homophobia, anti-semitism, and the like are irrevocably morally flawed; they fail to accurately represent the moral fabric of the world, and accordingly, pejorative words are a failed form of language: Given that they express these norms as their meanings, they will, by necessity, have no reference.