TOMASZ ZYGLEWICZ

research

WORK IN PROGRESS

  • A paper on desire reports (revise and resubmit)

  • A paper on color predicates. (with Adrian Ziółkowski) (revised and resubmitted)

  • A paper on gossip. (Title TBD) (with Shannon Brick)

  • Polysemy, homonymy, reclamation.

    • Reclamation of a slur involves a creation of a new, positively-valenced meaning that gradually replaces the old pejorative meaning. This means that at a critical stage, the slur is ambiguous. It has been claimed that this ambiguity is polysemy. However, this view fails to explain why the introduction of the new meaning forces the old one out of existence. I argue that this datapoint can be explained by invoking the mechanism of homonymic conflict, and, therefore, that the ambiguity involved in reclamation is homonymy. I argue that my account provides a neat way of conceptualizing the difference between two types of conceptual engineering, namely reclamation and amelioration. I conclude by suggesting that we need to rethink the standard ways of drawing the distinction between polysemy and homonymy.

    keywords: polysemy, homonymy, ambiguity, slurs, reclamation, homonymic conflict

PUBLICATIONS

  • Associative exportation. P. Stalmaszczyk & M. Hinton (eds.), "Philosophical Approaches to Language and Communication," Berlin: Peter Lang, 2022: 343-357.

  • Sophisticated textualism and sanctions. Studia Iuridica 2019 82: 343-357.

  • Against ‘the input view’ of legal gaps. Archiwum Filozofii Prawa i Filozofii Społecznej 2019 2(20): 75-88.

  • Objective and epistemic gradability: is the New Angle on the Knobe Effect empirically grounded? (with Bartosz Maćkiewicz), Philosophical Psychology 2019 32(2): 234-256.

  • Can a consequentialist be a good friend? Etyka 2016 52: 56-79.