Metaphysical Disputes and Metalinguistic Negotiation

2016 ◽  
Vol 58 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amie L. Thomasson
Keyword(s):  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

Metalinguistic Negotiation

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Herman Cappelen
Keyword(s):  
English Word ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

This chapter, along with the next two, discuss alternative accounts of conceptual engineering, both for their own sake and to help bring out the author’s theory more by contrast. This chapter discusses and criticizes the appeal to the notion of metalinguistic negotiation found in both Ludlow and Plunkett and Sundell. Ludlow’s claim that we are constantly negotiating meanings is inconsistent with the claim that changes in meaning are out of control, and so should be rejected, and his appeal to microlanguages is problematic. While Plunkett and Sundell can avoid these problems, their view that engineering is a matter of metalinguistic negotiation is bad because someone who is interested in improving our representational devices for talking about torture (for example) doesn’t care about English word ‘torture’, but about torture itself. It closes by discussing some worries about the examples used to motivate the idea of metalinguistic negotiation.

The Metaethics of Gender

2021 ◽  
pp. 27-53
Author(s):  
Sarah McGrath
Keyword(s):  
Carry Over ◽  
Thick Terms ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

This chapter argues that some of the traditional arguments for expressivism in metaethics carry over to the case of gender ascriptions. Descriptivist views about the semantics of gender ascriptions fall short in explaining certain kinds of disagreement in ways that are similar to the ways in which descriptivist views about normative terms fall short. This suggests an argument for expressivism about gender ascriptions. to The chapter explores the idea that if gender ascriptions are normative, we might understand gender terms on the model of ethically thick terms. One way of avoiding the conclusion that gender ascriptions are expressive and/or normative is to argue that the relevant kinds of disagreement are instances of metalinguistic negotiation. After presenting some concerns associated with this explanation, the chapter closes with a discussion of some of the reasons for thinking that the realist might get back in the game.

Methodological Advantages

2020 ◽  
pp. 185-208
Author(s):  
Amie L. Thomasson
Keyword(s):  
Conceptual Analysis ◽  
Thought Experiments ◽  
Metaphysical Modality ◽  
Conceptual Schemes ◽  
Conceptual Engineering ◽  
Modal Normativism ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

This chapter makes the case that modal normativism also brings significant methodological advantages. First, it can provide a much-needed justification of using intuitions, thought experiments, and a form of conceptual analysis, in answering metaphysical modal questions. Second, it provides a straightforward methodology for answering such questions—considered as “internal” questions—and gives reasons for thinking that some such questions are simply unanswerable. But such questions may also be addressed as external questions, where we are concerned not with what rules our terms do follow, but what rules they should follow, and what linguistic and conceptual schemes we should use. This gives us the means for understanding some debates about metaphysical modality as engaged in metalinguistic negotiation and conceptual engineering—and thereby preserving the idea that such debates may be deep and important.

scholarly journals Linguistic Hijacking

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Data ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
Social Externalism ◽  
Semantic Properties ◽  
Over Time ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

This paper introduces the concept of linguistic hijacking, the phenomenon wherein politically significant terminology is co-opted by dominant groups in ways that further their dominance over marginalized groups. Here I focus on hijackings of the words “racist” and “racism.” The model of linguistic hijacking developed here, called the semantic corruption model, is inspired by Burge’s social externalism, in which deference plays a key role in determining the semantic properties of expressions. The model describes networks of deference relations, which support competing meanings of, for example, “racist,” and postulates the existence of deference magnets that influence those networks over time. Linguistic hijacking functions to shift the semantic properties of crucial political terminology by causing changes in deference networks, spreading semantics that serve the interests of dominant groups, and weakening the influence of resistant deference networks. I consider an objection alleging the semantic corruption model gets the semantic data wrong because it entails those who hijack terms like “racist” speak truly, whereas it’s natural to see such hijacking misuses as false speech about racism. I then respond to this objection by invoking the framework of metalinguistic negotiation proposed by Plunkett and Sundell.

scholarly journals Scientific Models and Metalinguistic Negotiation

2019 ◽  
Vol 34 (2) ◽  
pp. 277 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirco Sambrotta
Keyword(s):  
Scientific Models ◽  
Ontological Status ◽  
Factual Question ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

The aim of this paper is to explore the possibility that, at least, some metaphysical debates are ‘metalinguistic negotiations’ (to employ a recent term coined by David Plunkett and Timothy Sundell). I will take the dispute between the dominant approaches of realism and the anti-realism ones (especially Fictionalism) about the ontological status of scientific models as a case-study. I will argue that such a debate may be better understood as a disagreement, at bottom normatively, motivated, insofar as a normative and non-factual question may be involved in it: how the relevant piece of language ought to be used. Even though I will generally assess the prospects for a broadly deflationist approach, I shall outline a sense in which the dispute can be recast as ‘minimally substantive’. 

scholarly journals Moral Relativism, Metalinguistic Negotiation, and the Epistemic Significance of Disagreement

Erkenntnis ◽  
2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katharina Anna Sodoma
Keyword(s):  
Moral Relativism ◽  
Moral Disagreement ◽  
Alternative Strategy ◽  
Nuanced Understanding ◽  
Metalinguistic Negotiation

AbstractAlthough moral relativists often appeal to cases of apparent moral disagreement between members of different communities to motivate their view, accounting for these exchanges as evincing genuine disagreements constitutes a challenge to the coherence of moral relativism. While many moral relativists acknowledge this problem, attempts to solve it so far have been wanting. In response, moral relativists either give up the claim that there can be moral disagreement between members of different communities or end up with a view on which these disagreements have no “epistemic significance” because they are always faultless. This paper introduces an alternative strategy: accounting for disagreement in terms of “metalinguistic negotiation”. It argues that this strategy constitutes a better solution to the challenge disagreement poses for moral relativists because it leads to a nuanced understanding of the epistemic significance of moral disagreement between members of different communities. The upshot is a novel account of disagreement for moral relativists that has consequences for how moral relativism should be understood.

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