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On Insults

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

HELEN L. DALY Open the ORCID record for HELEN L. DALY [Opens in a new window]
HELEN L. DALY*
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COLORADO [email protected]
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Abstract

Some bemoan the incivility of our times, while others complain that people have grown too quick to take offense. There is widespread disagreement about what counts as an insult and when it is appropriate to feel insulted. Here I propose a definition and a preliminary taxonomy of insults. Namely, I define insults as expressions of a lack of due regard. And I categorize insults by whether they are intended or unintended, acts or omissions, and whether they cause offense or not. Unintended insults are of particular concern since greater understanding may help us to avoid them. And insults by omission warrant special consideration because they suggest an interesting extension of Grice's theory of conversational implicature.

Keywords

impolitenesspragmaticsimplicatureomissionsmeaning
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of the American Philosophical Association , Volume 4 , Issue 4 , Winter 2018 , pp. 510 - 524
Copyright
Copyright © American Philosophical Association 2018 

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Footnotes

I am very grateful to all the participants in the 2015 ECOM workshop (Expression, Communication, and the Origins of Meaning) at the University of Connecticut, and especially Mitch Green who insisted upon a point and was right, and Bianca Cepollaro whose insightful objection reshaped the project in its infancy. Thanks also, to my delightful, helpful audiences at the 2016 Colorado College Fall Conference, the 2016 Mountain Plains Philosophy Conference, and at my colloquium lectures at Southern Illinois University, Edwardsville, and at Colorado College. I enjoyed your questions and your insults, and this paper is better for both. I am grateful to the Dean's Office and the HEC at Colorado College, which provided financial support for the project, and to my departmental colleagues for their unflagging encouragement and intellectual support. Finally, thanks to those friends and colleagues who have generously read drafts of this essay or otherwise thought deeply about insults with me: Laura Bernhardt, Jacob Daly, Jason Gutierrez, Nicole Hassoun, Paul Hurtado, Marc Johansen, Marjan Moshayedi, J. P. Rosensweig, Amanda Udis-Kessler, Jeff Watson, and Sam White. To anyone I have inadvertently left out, I am sorry for the slight.

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