Abstract In this essay I defend the view that dogwhistling is a a speech act performed with a narrative-evoking perlocutionary effect in the so-called target audience. What is evoked is a certain kind of narrative, previously endorsed by the relevant audience, which endows its members with the use of some linguistic expressions (and some non-linguistic representations) with non-conventional, derived meanings. In the dogwhistling scenarios, those derived meanings are recovered and put to work by means of different mechanisms, which has an impact on the emotional and practical attitudes of the target audience. The covert message is thus inferred as the product of the recovered meanings at work and their emotional and practical impacts on the audience in the new contexts of use, which determines a new pragmatic meaning dimension for the expressions in play. Although the phenomenon has been frequently analyzed in connection with examples of political discourse, it is common to cinematographic and literary intertextual references, and, more generally, to all those occasions in which communication relies on the narrative dependance of linguistic use. narrativeevoking evoking socalled so called nonlinguistic non representations nonconventional, nonconventional conventional, conventional non-conventional scenarios mechanisms play discourse references generally

Abstract The aim of this paper is to propose that thick aesthetic predicates, such as ‘shocking’, ‘sombre’ and ‘balanced’, can be considered to be assessment-sensitive, in the sense in which predicates of personal taste have been thought to be, and hence be analysed within the framework of truth relativism. The main reason offered in support of this thesis is that their use requires the application of an aesthetic standard. Moreover, a distinction between experiential and theoretical aesthetic predicates is introduced: the former involve standards that are constituted by contingent and random psychological states and, hence, characteristic of idiosyncratic aesthetic perspectives, whereas the latter rely on the adoption of stable ones, determined by canonical aesthetic perspectives. This distinction is used to account for differences between one another: experiential predicates feature in faultless disagreements, as is the case with predicates of personal taste, while this is not the case with theoretical ones.

Resumen La tesis principal del artículo es que los predicados estéticos densos, tales como ‘perturbador’, ’sombrío, ‘equilibrado’, son sensibles a la apreciación, en el mismo sentido en que lo son los predicados de gusto, y, por lo tanto, pueden ser analizados en el marco del relativismo de la verdad. La razón principal que se aduce en favor de esta tesis es que se trata de predicados cuyo uso requiere la aplicación de un estándar estético. Se distinguen dos tipos: por un lado, los predicados experienciales involucran estándares constituidos por estados psicológicos contingentes y aleatorios, característicos de perspectivas estéticas idiosincráticas; por otro, los predicados teóricos involucran la adopción de estándares estables, determinados por perspectivas estéticas canónicas. Esta distinción es utilizada para explicar diferencias entre unos y otros: el uso de predicados experienciales puede dar lugar a desacuerdos estéticos sin falta, semejantes a los desacuerdos sin falta generados por los predicados de gusto, pero eso no ocurre con los predicados teóricos.

Abstract In chapter 3 of the very welcome and enjoyable Roads to Reference, “Proper Names and Referential Indeterminacy”, Mario Gómez Torrente proposes a set of conventions establishing merely sufficient conditions for the fixation and transmission of the reference of proper names. There are some aspects of the undoubtedly very original and rigorous proposal that have prompted me the brief comments that follow, grouped into three sections.

ABSTRACT This paper is about group slurs, i.e., expressions that are prima facie associated with the speaker’s conveyance of a derogatory feeling for a certain group of people identified in terms of their origin or descent (“spic”), race (“nigger”), sexual orientation (“faggot”), ethnicity or religion (“kike”), political ideology (“snowflake”), habits or ways of living (“whore”), etc. Our purpose is twofold: (i) explaining the non-truth-conditional or expressive meaning dimension in terms of a version of stereotype semantics, and (ii) applying a speech act theory to the original and paradigmatic derogatory uses of such terms.

RESUMEN Este trabajo trata de los términos peyorativos de grupo, es decir, expresiones que se usan paradigmáticamente para hablar de manera despectiva acerca de ciertos grupos identificados en virtud de su origen o descendencia (“sudaca”), raza o nivel social (“negro”), orientación sexual (“maricón”), religión (“moishe”), ideología política (“zurdo”), modo de vida (“puta”), etc. Nos proponemos tanto (i) explicar el significado expresivo de este tipo de términos mediante una versión de la semántica de estereotipos como (ii) analizar sus usos originales y paradigmáticos, aquellos en los que funcionan como insultos, en el marco de una teoría de los actos de habla.

In this paper I am concerned with the problem of applying the notion of rigidity to general terms. In Naming and Necessity, Kripke has clearly suggested that we should include some general terms among the rigid ones, namely, those common nouns semantically correlated with natural substances, species and phenomena, in general, natural kinds -'water', 'tiger', 'heat'- and some adjectives -'red', 'hot', 'loud'. However, the notion of rigidity has been defined for singular terms; after all, the notion that Kripke has provided us with is the notion of a rigid designator. But general terms do not designate single individuals: rather, they apply to many of them. In sum, the original concept of rigidity cannot be straightforwardly applied to general terms: it has to be somehow redefined in order to make it cover them. As is known, two main positions have been put forward to accomplish that task: the identity of designation conception, according to which a rigid general term is one that designates the same property or kind in all possible worlds, and the essentialist conception, which conceives of a rigid general term as an essentialist one, namely, a term that expresses an essential property of an object. My purpose in the present paper is to defend a particular version of the identity of designation conception: on the proposed approach, a rigid general term will be one that expresses the same property in all possible worlds and names the property it expresses. In my opinion, the position can be established on the basis of an inference to the best explanation of our intuitive interpretation and evaluation, relative to counterfactual circumstances, of statements containing different kinds of general terms, which is strictly analogous to our intuitive interpretation and evaluation, relative to such circumstances, of statements containing different kinds of singular ones. I will argue that it is possible to offer a new solution to the trivialization problem that is thought to threaten all versions of the identity of designation conception of rigidity. Finally, I will also sketch a solution to the so-called 'over-generalization and under-generalization problems', both closely related to the above-mentioned one.

In this introduction I start by presenting and examining the main positions on the current debate concerning the semantic analysis of sentences containing definite descriptions. As is known, the debate in question has started off with Russell's proposal (Russell 1905), which has been initially criticized by both Strawson (1950) and Donnellan (1966). Nowadays, waters are divided on this issue: some philosophers, representing the so-called univocality approach (Kripke 1977, Neale 1990), defend Russell's original analysis, according to which all definite descriptions are quantificational expressions, whereas there are others who, following Strawson´s and Donnellan´s objections, consider that at least some descriptions are genuine singular terms and hence have referential meanings. Among the defendants of the last approach, known as the ambiguity theory, we can find Michael Devitt (1981, 2004, 2007a, 2007b). In the second part of the paper, I then survey Devitt's stance on some traditional arguments for the ambiguity theory -mainly, the arguments from misdescription, incompleteness, opacity, and anaphora-, and finally I consider the new ones that he has put forward in favor of the existence of referential descriptions: the argument from regularity, the one based on the comparison with demonstratives, and the argument based on weak rigidity.

En esta introducción comienzo por presentar y analizar las distintas posiciones que caracterizan el debate actual en torno al análisis semántico de las oraciones que contienen descripciones definidas. Como es sabido, tal debate se origina a partir de la propuesta de Russell (1905), la cual fue inicialmente objetada por Strawson (1950) y por Donnellan (1966). En la actualidad las aguas están divididas: algunos filósofos, representantes del aquí llamado enfoque de la univocidad, defienden el análisis russelliano, según el cual todas las descripciones son susceptibles de ser analizadas como expresiones cuantificacionales (Kripke 1977, Neale 1990); otros, por el contrario, haciéndose eco de las objeciones anteriores, consideran que algunas descripciones son términos singulares genuinos y, en tanto tales, expresiones referenciales. Entre los defensores más conspicuos de este enfoque, conocido como teoría de la ambigüedad, se encuentra Michael Devitt (1981, 2004, 2007a, 2007b). En la segunda parte de esta introducción, resumo la posición de Devitt respecto de los argumentos tradicionales a favor del enfoque de la ambigüedad -fundamentalmente, los argumentos basados en las descripciones fallidas, las descripciones incompletas, los casos de opacidad y los de anáfora-, y luego presento y analizo los nuevos argumentos por él ofrecidos, a saber, el argumento basado en el uso regular, aquél basado en la comparación con los demostrativos y el que se vale de la noción de rigidez débil.

In his paper "Rigid Application", Michael Devitt defends a particular version of the socalled 'essentialist conception' of rigidity for general terms, according to which rigid general terms are rigid appliers, namely, terms that if they apply to an object in any possible world then they apply to that object in every possible in which the object exists. Devitt thinks that the thereby defined notion of rigidity makes for an adequate extension to general terms of Kripke's notion, originally defined for singular ones, inasmuch as it serves to accomplish its same primary task: namely, "to distinguish terms that are not covered by a description theory from ones that are". He then criticizes the alternative conception of rigidity for general terms as identity of designation -specifically, LaPorte´s (2000) version- on the basis of its entanglement with some controversial metaphysical theses regarding the existence of universals -including a commitment to a selective realism concerning them. In this paper, I try to defend the identity of designation conception from his criticisms: with this aim, I propose a version different from LaPorte's, and claim it to be the best one to accomplish the above-mentioned primary semantic task, namely, the one of showing that some general terms, just like most ordinary names, cannot be accounted for in descriptive terms.

En su artículo "Rigid Application", Michael Devitt defiende una versión particular de la llamada 'concepción esencialista' de la rigidez para términos generales, según la cual los términos generales rígidos son aplicadores rígidos, esto es, términos que si se aplican a un objeto en algún mundo posible, se aplican a ese objeto en todos los mundos posibles en los que existe. Devitt considera que tal noción de rigidez constituye una adecuada extensión del concepto kripkeano, definido originalmente para términos singulares, en la medida en que permite cumplir la misma función semántica fundamental que aquél: distinguir a los términos que pueden ser explicados mediante una teoría descriptivista de aquéllos para los cuales eso no es posible. De este modo, critica la concepción alternativa de la rigidez para términos generales, basada en la idea de identidad de designación -en la versión de LaPorte (2000)-, a la cual acusa de estar comprometida con discutibles tesis metafísicas, incluido un realismo selectivo acerca de los universales. En este trabajo, me propongo defender a esta concepción de sus críticas, para lo cual presento una versión de la misma diferente de la de LaPorte. En mi opinión, la versión propuesta supera además a la definición de rigidez ofrecida por Devitt en el logro de su objetivo principal, a saber, mostrar que algunos términos generales, al igual que la mayor parte de los nombres ordinarios, no pueden ser explicados en términos descriptivistas.

In "Identidad y hacedores de verdad", Castro Albano argues that strong theories of truthmakers have difficulties in assigning appropriate truthmakers to the propositions expressed by identity sentences containing names. In my paper, I defend two main ideas. In the first place, I think that if what is pointed out by Castro Albano were a genuine problem, it would be a problem not just for strong theories of truthmakers but for any of them. In the second place, I claim that the problem can be solved -or rather dissolved- by maintaining an adequate conception of truth-bearers, namely, those entities of which truth is predicated; more specifically, I defend the view that truth-bearers should be taken to be not propositions but sentences of a natural language, that is, linguistic entities that can be understood in terms of particular and concrete speech acts.

En "Identidad y hacedores de verdad", Castro Albano sostiene que las teorías fuertes de los hacedores de verdad tienen problemas para asignar hacedores de verdad apropiados a las proposiciones expresadas por oraciones de identidad que contienen nombres. En mi trabajo, defiendo dos ideas principales. En primer lugar, considero que si el problema señalado por Castro Albano fuera genuino, sería un problema no sólo para las teorías fuertes sino para toda teoría de los hacedores de verdad. En segundo lugar, sostengo que el problema puede ser resuelto -o disuelto- si se defiende una adecuada concepción de los portadores de verdad, es decir, aquellas entidades de las cuales se predica la verdad; más específicamente, considero que debería sostenerse que los portadores de verdad son, en lugar de las proposiciones, las oraciones del lenguaje natural, es decir, entidades lingüísticas que pueden concebirse en última instancia en términos de actos de habla particulares y concretos.