François Recanati

Philosophie du langage et de l'esprit

Collège de France

Année 2023-2024

Ideology and Propaganda

Conférence - Robert May : The Meta-Semantics of Ideological Words

Robert May

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Linguistics, University of California, Davis

Résumé

The first lecture will develop the notion of ideologies as folk scientific theories, the institutionalization of those ideologies, and how propaganda supports the principles and values of ideologies so construed through aesthetic and linguistic expression. The central thesis we will explore is that propaganda derives its power of persuasion by expressing ideological content, which may be semantically asserted or pragmatically implied. Propaganda as ideological language may be used approvingly to signal virtue, or pejoratively, to signal vice; which it is will depend upon the normative value of the ideological principle that is expressed. This language will be particularly evocative when those values pertain to moral worth, to those who have it, and to those who do not, as per the ideology.

Robert May is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Linguistics at the University of California, Davis.

Prof. May received his doctorate from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1977. He has held faculty positions at Barnard College, Columbia University, and at the University of California, Irvine, and has held visiting positions at Sophia University, University of Venice, Columbia University, École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, and Institut Jean-Nicod, École Normale Superieure.

In 2018 and 2019, Prof. May served as Chair of the University of California Academic Senate, and he is currently affiliated with the Center for Studies in Higher Education at the University of California, Berkeley. Prof. May is an editor of The Journal of Philosophy.

Prof. May is well-known for his contributions to theoretical linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of logic. His publications include the books Logical Form: Its Structure and Derivation, Indices and Identity, and De Lingua Belief (the latter two in collaboration with Robert Fiengo), along with many influential articles. His current research is devoted primarily to studies of Frege, and to the meaning of pejorative words.