Laura Caponetto- PhD in Philosophy
- Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Milan
Laura Caponetto
- PhD in Philosophy
- Postdoctoral Fellow at University of Milan
About
14
Publications
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Introduction
I am a Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Milan, Department of Philosophy. Before joining Milan, I was the Sarah Smithson Research Fellow at Newnham College, University of Cambridge, from 2022 to 2024.
I work in philosophy of language, social philosophy, and feminist philosophy.
Current institution
Additional affiliations
January 2022 - present
Publications
Publications (14)
Retraction maneuvers are common currency and play a significant role in our discursive practices, as well as in our social and political lives. By expanding upon previous work (Caponetto, Synthese 197: 2399–2414, 2020) and engaging with recent contributions to the topic (esp., Kukla, Steinberg, ‘I really didn’t say everything I said’: The pragmatic...
It is prima facie uncontroversial that the justification of an assertion amounts to a collection of other (inferentially related) assertions. In this paper, we point at a class of assertions, i.e. mathematical assertions, that appear to systematically flout this principle. To justify a mathematical assertion (e.g. a theorem) is to provide a proof-a...
Moorean constructions are famously odd: it is infelicitous to deny that you believe what you claim to be true. But what about claiming that p, only to immediately put into question your evidence in support of p? In this paper, we identify and analyse a class of quasi-Moorean constructions, which we label counterevidentials. Although odd, counterevi...
The chapter aims to provide the theoretical background that is necessary to understand the research questions addressed by the chapters in this collection. We identify and discuss the key claims grounding Sbisà’s deontic approach to speech actions, while locating her contribution within the broader literature on speech acts and their nature. In par...
This paper sets out to unpack the pragmatic structure of refusal—its illocutionary nature, success conditions, and normative effects. I argue that our ordinary concept of refusal captures a whole family of illocutions, comprising acts such as rejecting, declining, and the like, which share the property of being ‘negative second-turn illocutions’. O...
In this paper, we identify and examine an overlooked strategy to counter bigoted speech on the spot. Such a strategy we call ‘bending’. To ‘bend’, in our sense, is to deliberately give a distorted response to a speaker’s harmful move – precisely, an ameliorative response, which may turn that move into a different, less harmful, contribution. To sub...
A widespread thesis in contemporary philosophy of language is that certain speech constitutes, rather than merely causes, harm. McGowan develops a prescriptive account of harm constitution, according to which harm-constituting speech enacts norms that prescribe harm. Ordinary verbal bigotry, she claims, is harmful in this sense. We submit that the...
A recurring concern within contemporary philosophy of language has been with the ways in which speakers can be illocutionarily silenced, i.e. hindered in their capacity to do things with words. Moving beyond the traditional conception of silencing as uptake failure, Mary Kate McGowan has recently claimed that silencing may also involve other forms...
Over the last five decades, philosophers of language have looked into the mechanisms for doing things with words. The same attention has not been devoted to how to undo those things, once they have been done. This paper identifies and examines three strategies to make one’s speech acts undone—namely, Annulment, Retraction, and Amendment. In annulli...
The notion of ‘illocutionary silencing’ has been given a key role in defining the harms of pornography by several feminist philosophers. Though the literature on silencing focuses almost exclusively on the speech act of sexual refusal, oddly enough, it lacks a thorough analysis of that very act. My first aim is to fill this theoretical gap. I claim...
The aim of this paper is to offer a map of the dynamics through which pornography may silence women’s illocutions. Drawing on Searle’s speech act theory, I will take illocutionary forces as sets of conditions for success. The different types of silencing, I claim, originate from the hearer’s missed recognition of a specific component of the force o...
