Abstract

Saul’s Dogwhistles and Figleaves gives an account of dogwhistles, which, as Saul’s wide range of examples shows, is easy to apply to a great deal of problematic speech that philosophers of language have been interested in. This paper raises the worry that this account applies too easily to speech received by bigoted audience members. While Saul is quite right to be interested in the ways that speakers can unwittingly dogwhistle, her definition also applies to speech that primes problematic attitudes because of idiosyncrasies in the audience and not because there is something wrong with what the speaker said. In particular, Saul’s account will frequently treat anodyne speech acts by discriminated-against individuals as dogwhistles simply because they will make problematic attitudes more salient for bigoted audience members. Section one presents this problem for Saul’s account of dogwhistles, and section two proposes a solution. Section three gives a methodological defense of narrowing the account in this way.