El jueves 16 de abril, a las 12:30 tendrá lugar, en formato exclusivamente online, una nueva sesión del seminario TeC-FiloLab. En esta ocasión contaremos con Maru Bibiloni, PhD en Filosofía por la Universidad de Aberdeen (Reino Unido). Más abajo tenéis el título y el resumen de su charla, así como una breve nota sobre la trayectoria de Maru.
Title: A Decolonial Criticism of Content-Based Theories of Slurs
Abstract: The talk will consist of a brief presentation of the findings of my PhD dissertation.
A central challenge for content-based theories of slurs is how to conceptualise the evaluative content. Despite their differences, all the accounts agree on one thing: the descriptive meaning of slurs refers to a social group via a supposedly neutral, recognised description. My project questions this last assumption. I contend that viewing the alleged descriptive content of slurs as neutral leads these theories to adopt a ‘categorial separation’ (Lugones 2007) of social groups: the belief that human groups can be univocally singularised based on natural or fixed properties, and that these categories reflect the world in a straightforward, unproblematic way. These categories are, ultimately, fictional.
Additionally, I argue that part of the slurs’ mechanics is to help establish their target subjects as if they bear such univocal properties. However, rather than uncovering such an establishment of social subjects as part of the meaning of slurs, TVS considers it a given aspect of social reality that slurs merely draw upon. I demonstrate that neglecting the normative imposition of categorial social groups leads to serious problems in how the tradition explains its subject matter and related phenomena.
In contrast, I emphasise that such classifications are shaped by normative and epistemic structures that are historically entrenched. These classificatory schemes are largely exclusionary, and slurs users draw upon them in ways that reinforce social exclusions. A theory of slurs, I contend, must account for this normative dimension – otherwise, it risks complicity in sustaining the very systems of oppression it aims to explain.
Bio: María Bibiloni is Doctor in Philosophy by the University of Aberdeen (UK), and previously obtained their «Licenciatura» in Philosophy at the National University of La Plata (Argentina). Their interests lie within decolonial thought, epistemology, and philosophy of language. Current projects engage with critical analysis of Anglo philosophy of language, as well as the importance of Argentinian philosopher María Lugones to decolonial feminist thought in America.