Collège De France (général)

François RecanatiPhilosophie du langage et de l'espritCollège de FranceAnnée 2023-2024Ideology and PropagandaConférence - Robert May : The Meta-Semantics of Ideological WordsRobert MayDistinguished Professor Emeritus of Philosophy and Linguistics, University of California, DavisRésuméThe first lecture will develop the notion of ideologies as folk scientific theories, the institutionalization of those ideologies, and how propaganda supports the principles and values of ideologies so construed through aesthetic and linguistic expression. The central thesis we will explore is that propaganda derives its power of persuasion by expressing ideological content, which may be semantically asserted or pragmatically implied. Propaganda as ideological language may be used approvingly to signal virtue, or pejoratively, to signal vice; which it is will depend upon the normative value of the ideological principle that is expressed. This language will be particularly evocative when those values pertain to moral worth, to tho