ATS2865 - Language, truth and power

Our everyday experience suggests that abstract things like money, social status, and human rights are every bit as real as gravity, concrete walls, and subatomic particles. But how are we to make sense of this? What kind of status do we accord to, e.g., money, and how does it differ - if at all - from the statuses we attribute to physical things? How does an abstract thing hold so much sway - power - over our decisions and behaviour? This unit will examine how ways of speaking and communicating create, modify or conform to specific social roles, and how these roles exert pressure on our everyday actions. In order to give students the tools they need to address these issues, the unit will introduce them to speech-act theory, the pragmatics of communication, and social ontology before moving on to analyse the social construction of science, gender, derogatory speech, pornography, and social injustice. Texts to be studied may include work from John Searle, H.P. Grice, Ian Hacking, Rae Langton, Judith Butler, Daniel Whiting, and Miranda Fricker.