Session 2 | MLAG Seminars Series 2025-2026 (27 November 2025, 14h00, Anfiteatro 2 - FLUP & Online)

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Nov 20, 2025, 12:14:09 PM (12 days ago) Nov 20

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MLAG Seminars Series 2025-2026

Session 2

Slurs and neutral counterparts: An inferentialist perspective

| Leopold Hess (Jagiellonian University, Krakow)

27 November 2025 | 14h00 | Anfiteatro 2 - FLUP & Online

The Mind, Language and Action Group (MLAG), a research group of the Institute of Philosophy - University of Porto, invites you to the second event of the new MLAG Seminar Series featuring talks by international researchers on topics of interest to the group. The talk, given by Leopold Hess (Jagiellonian University, Krakow), is titled "Slurs and neutral counterparts: An inferentialist perspective" (abstract below) and will take place on November 27, 14:00-15:30 Western European Time (WET). The meeting is in a hybrid format.

In-person: Anfiteatro 2 – FLUP

ONLINE | LINK MICROSOFT TEAMS
Meeting ID: 333 525 999 219 0
Passcode: DG7tU3tX

Abstract: A major controversy in recent philosophical literature on slurs concerns the issue of so-called neutral counterparts. It is often assumed that the reference of a slur is either identical to or functionally related to the reference of a non-offensive term for the same group. Important arguments have been levelled against this assumption by Ashwell, Croom, Falbo and Foster among others. The most important problem appears to be that slurs are in fact often used with an extension that does not match the extension of the putative counterpart. In this talk I will suggest that an inferentialist semantics of slurs can elegantly account for both the canonical and non-canonical uses of slurs. What is usually considered a problem of the inferentialist approach – that it does not attribute determinate extensions to objectionable expressions – can be turned into an advantage.

MLAG Seminars Series 2025-2026: https://ifilosofia.up.pt/activities/mlag-seminars-series-2025-2026

The seminar is jointly organised by Sofia Miguens (MLAG-IF), Dan Zeman (MLAG-IF), James Grayot (MLAG-IF), Rafael Antunes Padilha (MLAG-IF|IFCH-UNICAMP), Samuel Lima (FLUP) and João Carlos Rocha Lima (FLUP).

Information about MLAG can be found here: https://ifilosofia.up.pt/research-groups/mlag

To contact the organisers, please send an email to mlag....@gmail.com

RG Mind, Language and Action Group (MLAG)
Instituto de Filosofia da Universidade do Porto – UID/00502/2025
Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT)

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Instituto de Filosofia (UI&D 502)
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4150-564 Porto
Tel. 22 607 71 80
E-mail: ifilo...@letras.up.pt
http://ifilosofia.up.pt/