Metasemantics and Intersectionality in the Misinformation Age

“I am extremely excited to see this book. Debates about language—words like‘woman’ and ‘racism’—have been absolutely central to vital political issues forsome time. They have also been weaponised, used to argue that important issuesare “just about language.” This book takes these debates seriously—bothpolitically and linguistically. It is wonderfully wide-ranging, deeply grounded inboth intersectional theory and analytic philosophy of language. We’ve beenneeding a book like this for a long time!”—Jennifer Saul, University of Waterloo, Canada.
“This timely work draws together various themes—knowledge and oppression,truth and misinformation, language and power—and grounds them in adiscussion of practical issues that should concern us all. Bridging conversationsin linguistics and politics, this book is a long overdue and necessary complementto debates that examine the intersection of the political with other philosophicalsub-disciplines, like epistemology and ethics. To come across a work that revealssomething you have understood but have been unable to express, that examineshow language can empower and disempower, is both exciting and will speak tomany who have felt themselves silenced without fully understanding why.”—Briana Toole, Claremont McKenna College, USA
“A truly impressive melding of hard-core analytic philosophy and serious politics.”—Naomi Scheman, University of Minnesota, USA
This book investigates the impact of misinformation and the role of truth inpolitical struggle. It develops a theory of objective truth for political controversyover topics such as racism and gender, based on the insights of intersectionality,the Black feminist theory of interlocking systems of oppression. Truth is definedusing the tools of model theory and formal semantics, but the theory alsocaptures how social power dynamics strongly influence the operation of theconcept of truth within the social fabric. Systemic ignorance, propagated throughfalse speech and misinformation, sustains oppressive power structures andperpetuates systemic inequity. Truth tends to empower marginalized groupsprecisely because oppressive systems are maintained through systemic ignorance.If the truth sets people free, then power will work to obscure it. Hence, the rise ofmisinformation as a political weapon is a strategy of dominant power toundermine the political advancement of marginalized groups.
Derek Egan Anderson is a lecturer in the philosophy department at BostonUniversity, USA.