NDPR David Beaver & Jason Stanley The Politics of Language
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Jan 25, 2026, 6:02:13 PM (10 days ago) Jan 25
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Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
2026.01.5 View this Review Online View Other NDPR Reviews
David Beaver & Jason Stanley, The Politics of Language, Princeton University Press, 2023, 520pp., $24.95 (pbk), ISBN 9780691181981.
Reviewed by Paul Catapang-Podosky, Macquarie University
“Do what’s easy first; deal with the harder stuff later”. I heard this routinely when introduced to the philosophy of language. It was offered as an explanation, perhaps even an apology, for why the discipline was slow to engage with the political dimensions of language, at least in the analytic tradition. The thought was that once we had settled the fundamentals, such as reference, truth-conditions, compositionality, the messier questions about power and ideology would simply fall into place. Whatever its initial plausibility, the promise now rings hollow. The philosophy of language has become extraordinarily sophisticated in its treatment of representation,...Reply all
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