Category Archives: Volume 12, no. 3 (2017)

The Rhetoric of Prejudice: Can Europe Still Be Inclusive? Some Remarks

Introductory note, ,

On May 9, 2017, Europe Day, a date chosen as a sign of goodwill for the future of Europe, a group of philosophers, linguists, historians, political scientists and media experts, coming from Belgium, France, Greece, Iceland, Norway, Poland, and Italy of course, gathered in Genoa (Italy) to debate The Rhetoric of Prejudice. The subtitle of the Conference, which should not to be overlooked, posed a crucial question: can Europe still be inclusive?

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Populism, Prejudice and the Rhetoric of Privilege

Conference proceedings (double non-blind peer review), , , , , ,

The paper aims to show, by means of a close look at the most recent samples of political discourse in Europe and America, how much and how frequently populists set up their narratives around a relatively small number of patterns, such as the worship of the people, a (more or less) overt appeal to prejudice and the rhetoric of privilege. In so doing, it offers some useful insights into the nature of contemporary populism.

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Prejudice and Presupposition in Offensive Language

Conference proceedings (double non-blind peer review), , , , , , , , , , , ,

In this paper I give a short introduction to the standard way to treat offensive language in contemporary philosophy of language, without giving details on the very rich contemporary literature on the problem. My aim here is to connect what is called a “presuppositional point of view” on pejoratives to the topic of prejudice. At the same time, I want to develop some hints given by Flavio Baroncelli, a political philosopher and colleague who offered some provocative suggestions on the educative role of politically correct language. I will show that some of his ideas are still workable, and at the same time I eventually will try to show what is really new in the diffusion of prejudice through social networks and which kinds of reactions can be foreseen.

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Poets/Trump/Philosophers: Reflections on Richard Rorty’s Liberalism, Ten Years after His Death

Conference proceedings (double non-blind peer review), , , , , , , ,

Starting with a prescient 1998 quote on the impending decline of US liberal democracy into right-wing, strong-man-based demagogy, this paper outlines Richard Rorty’s political philosophy, which I believe can help us understand perplexing political trends in today’s political reality well beyond the US alone. Specifically, I tackle three key-terms encapsulating the thrust of Rorty’s political philosophy, i.e. “liberalism of fear”, “bourgeois” and “postmodernism”. Also, I address a contraposition that explains how Rorty would approach and attempt to defend liberal democracy from contemporary right-wing, strong-man-based degenerations, namely the priority of “poetry” over “philosophy”. Essentially, if one wishes to win in the political arena, she must be armed with the most effective rhetorical weaponry, however good, solid and well-argued her political views may be. Finally, some remarks are offered on the role that “philosophy” can still play within the same arena.

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Prejudices, Philosophies and Language: Spinoza and His Strategies of Liberation

Conference proceedings (double non-blind peer review), , , ,

The Enlightenment idea that prejudice is to be fought with rational knowledge and the later position of hermeneutics calling for an awareness that distinguishes positive, fertile prejudices from negative, infertile ones, do not seem able to produce strategies of liberation. In order to understand why it is so difficult to fight prejudices, the author goes back to the beginning of the modern reflection about prejudice made by Spinoza and his “atypical” modernity, which can allow us to shed light on this complex phenomenon. According to Spinoza, prejudice lies at the confluence of different elements: language, habit, experience, and daily morality.

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Inner Speech and Prejudice in Proust’s À la recherche du temps perdu

Conference proceedings (double non-blind peer review), , ,

In this paper, I present some remarks about inner speech and prejudice based on an analysis of one passage of Marcel Proust’s A la recherche du temps perdu (In search of lost time). It shows how stereotypes are build and maintained and how the process of prejudice can be understood when one pay a phenomenological attention to what happens in inner speech. It allows to understand the connection between prejudice as prejudgement and prejudice as damage done which are the two meanings of the term « prejudice » in English. Moreover, Proust suggests that the rules that governs large pieces of historical episodes, like a war, are the same as those that are observable in trivial errors of ordinary life. The suggestions is made through the use of a certain kind of reasoning (which are neither metaphorical nor linguistic) that takes place in inner speech which is presented and discussed.

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Exercising Empathy: Ancient Rhetorical Tools for Intercultural Communication

Conference proceedings (double non-blind peer review), , ,

Can multiculturalism work? Can people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds live side by side peacefully and, even better, enrich each other? There are two ways social scientists can deal with this question. The first one, which I would label as “macro”, focuses on statistics and opinion surveys. A macro approach would, for instance, analyze the effects of an increase in religious and ethnic diversity on social indicators such as trust in neighbors, civic engagement or political participation. The second one, which I would label as “micro”, focuses on the skills citizens need for a better management of cultural diversity. This paper falls into the second category and will provide support for two claims: (1) training for intercultural communication should focus first and foremost on empathy; (2) ancient rhetorical exercises offer an effective way to develop empathy. To support the first claim, it will be argued that for a multicultural society to be peaceful, citizens need to be willing and able to use empathy when interacting with their fellow citizens of different religious, ethnic or ideological background (section I). A method to develop empathy using rhetorical exercises will then be described (section II). Finally, I present the results of an experiment to test its effectiveness with secondary school teachers (section III).

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