Special Issue on Dogwhistles

Abstract

Philosophy of language has been witnessing for the last fifteen years or so, if not a turn, at least the rising of a new trend, with its usual methods applied to new non-semantic phenomena linked to language use in the context of politics, and with new methods arising from the distinctive features of the new subject matter. Among these phenomena, dogwhistles have taken somewhat of a center stage (other phenomena include ethnic slurs, testimonial and hermeneutical injustice, propaganda and gender-inclusive language, among others). This special issue is devoted to their study. In this brief introduction, we seek to succinctly review the key aspects of the phenomenon. First, we present some intuitive examples; second, we put forward a preliminary characterization of dogwhistles; then we discuss some of the main issues raised by these examples, as well as some basic notions found in the literature. We close by presenting an overview of the articles to be found in the current issue.