Hostname: page-component-7b7567c8c-wxvwp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-14T16:56:17.006Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

On Pornography: MacKinnon, Speech Acts, and “False” Construction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Mary Kate Mcgowan
Get accessRights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although others have focused on Catharine MacKinnon's claim that pornography subordinates and silences women, I here focus on her claim that pornography constructs women's nature and that this construction is, in some sense, false. Since it is unclear how pornography, as speech, can construct facts and how constructed facts can nevertheless be false, MacKinnon's claim requires elucidation. Appealing to speech act theory, I introduce an analysis of the erroneous verdictive and use it to make sense of MacKinnon's constructionist claims. I also show that the erroneous verdictive is of more general interest.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 20 , Issue 3 , Summer 2005, pp. 22 - 49
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

American Booksellers, Inc. v. Hudnut. 1985. 771 F.2nd 323 (7th Circuit).Google Scholar
Austin, J. L. 1979. Performative utterances. In Philosophical papers, ed. Urmson, J. O. and Warnock, G. J.Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Austin, J. L. 1962. How to do things with words. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Bertolet, Rod. 1994. Are there indirect speech acts? In Foundations of speech act theory, ed. Tsohatzidis, Savas and Kegan, Paul. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carse, Alisa. 1995. Pornography: An uncivil liberty. Hypatia 10 (1): 155–82.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grice, H. P. 1975. Logic and conversation. In Syntax and semantics, vol. 3, ed. Cole, and Morgan, . New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1999. Why ask what. In The social construction of what? Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hacking, Ian. 1994. The looping effects of human kinds. In Causal cognition: A multidisciplinary approach, ed. Sperber, D., Premack, D., and Premack, A.J.Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Haslanger, Sally. 1993. On being objective and being objectified. In A mind of one's own, ed. Anthony, Louise and Witt, Charlotte. Boulder: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Holdcroft, David. 1994. Indirect speech acts and propositional content. In Foundations of speech act theory, ed. Tsohatzidis, Savas and Kegan, Paul. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Holdcroft, David. 1978. Words and deeds. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Hornsby, Jennifer. 1997. Disempowered speech. Philosophical Topics 23 (2): 127–47.Google Scholar
Hornsby, Jennifer. 1995. Speech acts and pornography. In The problem of pornography, ed. Dwyer, Susan. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
Kendall, Christopher. 1995. The gay male syndrome: Gay male pornography and the eroticization of masculine identity. In The price we pay, ed. Lederer, Laura and Delgado, Richard. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Langton, Rae. Forthcoming. Response to Critics and Speaker's Freedom and Maker's Knowledge. In Sexual Solipsism, ed. Langton, Rae. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Langton, Rae. 1998. Subordination, silencing, and pornography's authority. In Censorship and silencing, ed. Post, Robert C.Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute.Google Scholar
Langton, Rae. 1993. Speech acts and unspeakable acts. Philosophy & Public Affairs 22 (4): 293–330.Google Scholar
Langton, Rae, and West, Caroline. 1999. Scorekeeping in a pornographic language game. Australasian Journal of Philosophy 77 (3): 300–322.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Latour, Bruno, and Woolgar, Steve. 1986. Laboratory life: The construction of scientific facts. Princeton: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lewis, David. 1983. Truth in Fiction. In Philosophical papers, vol. 1. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. 1997. The roar on the other side of silence. In In harm's way: The pornography civil rights hearings, ed. MacKinnon, Catharine and Dworkin, Andrea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. 1993. Only words. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine. 1987. Feminism unmodified. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, Catharine, and Dworkin, Andrea, 1997. In harm's way: The pornography civil rights hearings, ed. MacKinnon, Catharine and Dworkin, Andrea. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
McGowan, Mary Kate. 2003. Conversational exercitives and the force of pornography. Philosophy & Public Affairs 31 (2): 155–89.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Michelman, Frank. 1995. Civil liberties, silencing, and subordination. In The price we pay, ed. Lederer, Laura and Delgado, Richard. New York: Hill and Wang.Google Scholar
Parent, W. A. 1990. A second look at pornography and the subordination of women. journal of Philosophy 87 (4): 205–211.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russell, Diana E. H. 2000. Pornography and rape: A causal model. In Feminism and pornography. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Searle, John. 1979. Expression and meaning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Searle, John. 1968. Austin on locutionary and illocutionary acts. Philosophical Review 77 (4): 405–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar