Bad Language (Contemporary Introductions to Philosophy of Language)

The philosophy of language aims to understand how language works. However, traditional philosophy of language has focused primarily on understanding how knowledge (information) is successfully transmitted through language. To this end, philosophers of language have studied conversations under various idealizations (simplifications). For example, they have often assumed that “the common goal of a conversation is to share knowledge” or “the meaning of words is stable and mutually shared.” Such idealizations have proved useful to some extent in understanding the fundamental functions of language, leading to significant accomplishments. However, these assumptions are at best applicable to relatively well-behaved conversations, such as those found in a classroom. To understand a wider range of linguistic phenomena that are directly related to social and ethical issues, such as fake news or verbal oppression, examining what happens in situations that deviate from these idealizations is necessary.
 
In recent years, a growing movement called the “applied philosophy of language” applies insights from the existing philosophy of language to real-world linguistic issues beyond well-behaved conversations. The original work of this translation, Bad Language by Herman Cappelen and Josh Dever (Oxford University Press, 2019), an introductory textbook on the philosophy of language that focuses on the dark side of language, can also be positioned within this movement.
 
The topics covered in this book are diverse and include lying, misleading, bullshitting, engaging in verbal oppression, and casting slurs. Other topics covered are fallacious reasoning related to generic expressions, issues concerning sexual consent, problems associated with the use of “likes” on social media, and the effects of language beyond the transmission of knowledge (e.g., lexical effects). This book organizes these topics through the lens of deviations from idealizations and discusses the nature and sources of their “badness” concerning language. The book does not present original arguments or theories. Rather, it concisely and neutrally introduces conceptual tools and existing perspectives that will be useful to readers who wish to investigate these issues further.
 
In the chapter on slurs, for example, the book explores the following questions: What is the semantic content of slurs? How is this content communicated to others (is it “said” or “presupposed”)? Does the harm caused by slurs stem solely from their semantic content, the speaker’s expressed attitudes, or historical facts associated with the term? How do slurs differ from other “bad words,” such as insults? These questions are discussed along with concise introductions to conceptual tools, such as “presupposition” and “expressionism,” as well as various positions, including “descriptive content views,” “presuppositional views,” “expressivist views,” and “prohibitionist views.”
 
Notably, this book does not offer concrete solutions to real-world problems caused by bad language. None of us has such solutions yet, and achieving them will require interdisciplinary collaboration across ethical, legal, social, and psychological fields, in addition to the field of philosophy. However, a deep understanding of the linguistic phenomena in question is undoubtedly useful (and, in some cases, indispensable) in the search for such solutions. This book is an excellent guide to a field that seeks such an understanding—that is, the applied philosophy of language.
 

(Written by KUZUYA Jun, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology / 2025)