No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
Politics, Words, and Concepts: On the Impossibility and Undesirability of ‘Amelioration’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 13 May 2024
Abstract
Recently, several philosophers have argued that there is a political necessity to alter certain important concepts, such as WOMAN, in order to give us better tools to understand and change oppressive conditions. I argue that conceptual change of this sort is impossible. But I also argue that it is politically unnecessary – we can effect progressive change using the same old concepts we've always had.
- Type
- Paper
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © The Royal Institute of Philosophy and the contributors 2024
References
Andrews, Kristin and Monsó, Susana, ‘Animal Cognition’, in Zalta, Edward N. (ed.), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2021), accessed October 2023 at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2021/entries/cognition-animal.Google Scholar
Boroditsky, Lera, ‘Linguistic Relativity’, in Nadel, L. (ed.), Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science (London: Macmillan Publishers, 2003), 917–22.Google Scholar
Haslanger, Sally, ‘What are We Talking About? The Semantics and Politics of Social Kinds’, Hypatia, 20:4 (2005), 10–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jacob, Pierre, ‘Intentionality’, in Zalta, Edward N. and Nodelman, Uri (eds), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2023), accessed January 2024 at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2023/entries/intentionality.Google Scholar
Jelbert, Sarah A., Taylor, Alex H., Cheke, Lucy G., Clayton, Nicola S., and Gray, Russell D., ‘Using the Aesop's Fable Paradigm to Investigate Causal Understanding of Water Displacement by New Caledonian Crows’, PLOS ONE (2014), np.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Pinker, Steven, The Language Instinct (New York, NY: William Morrow Publishers, 1994).CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rescorla, Michael, ‘The Language of Thought Hypothesis’, in Zalta, Edward N. & Nodelman, Uri (eds), The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2023), accessed October 2023 at https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2023/entries/language-thought.Google Scholar
Ryan, Rebecca M., ‘The Sex Right: A Legal History of the Marital Rape Exemption’, Law & Social Inquiry, 20:4 (1995), 941–1001.10.1111/j.1747-4469.1995.tb00697.xCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spelke, Elizabeth, What Babies Know: Core Knowledge and Composition, Volume 1 (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2023).Google Scholar
Whorf, Benjamin Lee, Language, Thought, and Reality. Selected Writings of Benjamin Lee Whorf (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1956).Google Scholar