168 - Una Stojnić: Slurs, Linguistic Conventions, and the Philosophy of Language

Una Stojnić is an assistant professor in the Department of Philosophy at Princeton University, where she works in the philosophy of language, formal semantics and pragmatics of natural language, and philosophical logic. In this episode, Robinson and Una discuss three of her projects. First, they talk about linguistic conventions, and how language consists of more than just the words we might find in a dictionary. Second, they talk abut slurs and pejoratives, and how philosophers have attempted to determine just what it is that makes them offensive. Finally they talk about a problem with word individuation—just how much can our spelling or pronunciation of a word vary from its canonical spelling or pronunciation and still be that same word? Una’s latest book is Context and Coherence: The Logic and Grammar of Prominence (Oxford, 2021).

Una’s Website: https://www.unastojnic.com

Context and Coherence: https://a.co/d/0wjOoaM

OUTLINE

00:00 In This Episode…

00:51 Introduction

03:04 An Interest in Language

07:31 A Problem with Word Individuation

11:52 Context Sensitivity and Linguistic Convention

30:07 Word Individuation and Speaker Intentions 

45:30 Slurs and Pejoratives

01:01:55 An Articulation Account of Slurs

Robinson’s Website: http://robinsonerhardt.com

Robinson Erhardt researches symbolic logic and the foundations of mathematics at Stanford University. Join him in conversations with philosophers, scientists, weightlifters, artists, and everyone in-between.