On the definition of unconscionable racial and sexual slurs

Journal of Social Philosophy

Volumn 33, Issue 3, 2002, Pages 512-522

  Himma, Kenneth Einar ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 34247455757     PISSN: 00472786     EISSN: 14679833     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1111/0047-2786.00156     Document Type: Article

References (11)

1. Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, deluxe ed. (Springfield, MA: Merriam-Webster, Inc., 1998), 1232.
2. "NAACP Objects to Dictionary Definition of Racial Epithet", NAACP Press Release, October 14, 1997; .
3. Shannon Tangonan, "Slurs to Be Labeled as Such in Dictionary, but Not Deleted", USA Today, May 11, 1998, p. 2A.
4. John M. Morse, "Sparing Sensitivities Isn't Dictionary's Job", USA Today, May 11, 1998, p. 17A; emphasis added.
5. Others, however, have pushed Merriam-Webster to remove these slurs from the dictionary. Kathryn Williams, curator of the Museum of Afrikan American History in Flint, Michigan, has orchestrated a letter-writing campaign urging Merriam-Webster to remove racist terms. Tangonan, "Slurs to Be Labeled as Such in Dictionary, but Not Deleted", p. 17A. Williams believes that the first step toward eliminating the use of such words is to remove them from dictionaries.
6. The following analysis originates with Gottlob Frege. See, e.g., Frege, "On Sense and Nominatum", reprinted in A. P. Martinich (ed.), Philosophy of Language, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), 186-98.
7. For a classic explication of Frege's views on language, see Michael Dummett, Frege: Philosophy of Language, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993).
8. See, e.g., C. I. Lewis, A Survey of Symbolic Logic (Berkeley, CA: 1918), 373.
9. See W. V. O. Quine, "Two Dogmas of Empiricism", in From a Logical Point of View, 2nd ed. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961).
10. Merriam-Webster makes the same kind of mistake with the definition of "fuck." According to its definition, "fuck" means "to copulate; to engage in coitus with." Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, 740.
11. Toni Morrison, Sula (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973), 5.