Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: In this paper I identify a distinctive kind of gaslighting: communicative gaslighting. Communicative gaslighters intentionally misrepresent the communicative properties of an utterance—their own or their target’s—in a way which functions to undermine the target’s confidence in her abilities as a communicator. I argue that we can gaslight people as both speakers and hearers, and about (among other properties) the locutionary, perlocutionary, and illocutionary dimensions of utterances. Communicative gaslighting is concerning because not only does it undermine targets’ communicative agency, but also it can contribute to a general decay of communicative conventions.
Author: Lucy McDonald
Institution: King's College London
Language: English
Subfield: Philosophy
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W4403403987