Organon F

Volume 28, August 2021, Issue 3, Pages 726–744

ISSN 2585-7150 (online) ISSN 1335-0668 (print)

Research Article | Special issue on Value in Language

Unmentionables: Some Remarks on Taboo

Stefano Predelli

https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28312

Abstract

This paper discusses the phenomenon of linguistic taboo. It contrasts that phenomenon with the truth-conditional and non-truth-conditional dimensions of meaning, paying particular attention to slurs and coarseness. It then highlights the peculiarities of taboo and its meta-semantic repercussions: taboo is a meaning-related feature that is nevertheless directly associated with the tokening process. In the conclusion, it gestures to the role of taboo within a theory of linguistic action and the standard framework for conversational exchanges. On these results, I am going to end by looking at some of the harms that epistemic injustice inflicts upon its victims.

Keywords

Taboo; non-truth-conditional meaning; derogation; coarseness; register; David Kaplan.

Author(s) and affiliation(s)

Author

Stefano Predelli

Affiliation

University of Nottingham

Address

Department of Philosophy, University of Nottingham, Room C43 Humanities Building, NG7 2RD Nottingham, United Kingdom

E-mail

stefano.predelli@nottingham.ac.uk

About this article

Received

20 October 2020

Accepted

10 May 2021

Published online

30 August 2021

Publishers

Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences

Institute of Philosophy of the Czech Academy of Sciences

Cite as

APA

Predelli, S. (2021). Unmentionables: Some Remarks on Taboo. Organon F28(3), 726–744. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28312

Chicago

Predelli, Stefano. 2021. "Unmentionables: Some Remarks on Taboo." Organon F 28 (3): 726–744. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28312

Harvard

Predelli, S. (2021). Unmentionables: Some Remarks on Taboo. Organon F, 28(3), pp. 726–744. https://doi.org/10.31577/orgf.2021.28312

Copyright information

© Stefano Predelli

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This article is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0).


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