The Yale Information Society Project with Yale Philosophy Department present:
“Language and Authority Conference”
How does language mediate social rank, power, and authority? This is a central topic of the philosophical work of Rae Langton. In this conference, we bring together philosophers who have been working on these themes over the past two decades, together with theorists outside philosophy who have contributed significantly to this topic. Besides initiating an interdisciplinary discussion, the goal is to help further systematic work on language and authority in the field of philosophy.
Friday, April 20
2:00 – 3:15 pm
Nancy Bauer, “On Cultural Authority”
3:30 – 4:45 pm
Jack Balkin, “Why are Americans Originalists? Using History to Establish Authority in American Constitutional Law”
4:45 – 6:00 pm
Sally McConnell Ginet, “Semantic Authority: Learning from Humpty Dumpty”
Saturday, April 21
9:00 – 10:15 am
Eric Swanson, “Implicature, Authority, and the Social”
10:30 – 11:45 am
Ishani Maitra, “Authoritative Speech versus Authoritative Speakers”
12:45 – 2:00 pm
KEYNOTE: Rae Langton, “Blocking Speech”
2:00 – 3:15 pm
Mary Kate McGowan, “On the Role of Authority and its Recognition”
3:30 – 4:15 pm
Luvell Anderson, “Racial Realities”
Sunday, April 22
9:30 – 10:15 am
B.R. George, “Painfully literal dudes”
10:15 – 11:45 am
David Beaver, “Presupposing Practices”