Filosofisk fredagsseminar, 17. november 2017

-Bilde: Netherlandish Proverbs, Bruegel (1559)-

Høstsemesterets siste Filosofisk fredagsseminar vil bli holdt av Mirela Fuš, Doctoral Research Fellow ved IFIKK (UiO) og medlem av ConceptLab. Seminaret vil bestå av et foredrag på omtrent en time, etterfulgt av en pause på et kvarter, og avsluttes med en spørsmålsrunde på 30 minutter.

Abstract: Generic expressions or generics are statements that express generalizations but do not specify how many members of the kind have the property being expressed (e.g. “Dogs are mammals,” “Tigers have stripes,” “Mosquitos carry the West Nile virus”). In recent years, there has been an ongoing discussion on how to treat socalled pernicious generics since their use is considered to pave the way for discrimination, stereotypes, (implicit) biases, hate speech, social injustice, etc. In particular, there has been a burgeoning interest in generics about social groups such as “Blacks are violent,” “Muslims are terrorists,” “Latinos are lazy,” “Women are submissive,” “Girls like pink,” “A woman puts family before career.”

In this talk, I discuss pernicious generics in the context of conceptual engineering. First, I focus on the role generic expressions play in the pernicious uses of generics, and examine whether generics can be considered as deficient linguistic expressions. Second, with reference to this role, I compare and evaluate three ameliorative strategies for pernicious generics: Haslanger’s (2011) metalinguistic negation, Leslie’s (forthcoming) rephrasing and eradication of our use of such generics, and Saul’s (2017) getting better at talking and thinking not only about generics but other pernicious linguistic expressions as well.

Tid: 17. november 2017, kl. 18.15-20.00 Sted: Seminarrom 219, Georg Morgenstiernes hus. Tittel: Generic and Pernicious Language Foredragsholder: Mirela Fuš, Doctoral Research Fellow og medlem av ConceptLab ved IFIKK (UiO)

Alle interesserte er velkomne.