Justina Berškytė
Biographic Data
| ID | 1287466 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Justina Berškytė |
| GIVEN NAMES | Justina |
| FAMILY NAME | Berškytė |
| SIGNATURE | BERŠKYTĖ J |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manchester |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5356-6698 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 0 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 7 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 0 |
Taboos as Drivers for Counterculture
Countercultures are defined in opposition to the mainstream. They permit the exploration, promotion, and adoption of ideas and practices placed outside the status quo. One way to do so is by exploiting taboo utterances that are prohibited in mainstream culture. We define taboo utterances as those that either constitute socially prohibited acts (e.g., slurs), express elements of a prohibited ideology (e.g., claims advocating the subjugation of wom…
When feeling under threat
This paper identifies a novel function of slurs— compensatory manhood acts (CMAs)—alongside their more widely recognised subordinating, weaponised, and insider/outsider functions. CMAs occur when men perceive their masculinity as being under threat and respond by engaging in hypermasculine behaviours, including the use of misogynistic and homophobic slurs. Drawing on sociological findings, we argue that in their compensatory function, slurs are e…
When are conceptual innovations empowering? The case of incels
We admit concepts like ‘sexual harassment’ into our collective hermeneutical pool, yet hesitate to do the same with the incel notion of ‘blackpill’ or ‘monkeybranching.’ Why this disparity? Incels present themselves as marginalized, and their own efforts to create new conceptual tools as legitimate responses to such marginalization. At face value, such a standpoint aligns with anti-oppression epistemologies, according to which we should take conc…
Exploring incel group dynamics
Incels (involuntary celibates) are part of a broader misogynistic culture known as the manosphere. Some communities within the manosphere, including incels, promote gender-based violence through misogynistic rhetoric and ideology. Incels are men who struggle to form romantic relationships and thus seek solace in online forums to find a sense of purpose and community. The community is organised around an ideology and a hierarchical classification …
Faultless disagreement without contradiction
In this paper we motivate and develop a new approach to predicates of personal taste within the framework of semantic relativism. Our primary goal is to explain faultless disagreement—the phenomenon where two parties disagree, yet both have uttered something true—which is often thought to arise from the use of predicates of personal taste. We combine semantic relativism with an expressivist semantics to yield a novel hybrid theory which we call E…
Rollercoasters are not Fun for Mary
Indexical contextualism (IC) is an account of predicates of personal taste (PPTs) which views the semantic content of PPTs as sensitive to the context in which they are uttered, by virtue of their containing an implicit indexical element. Should the context of utterance change, the semantic content carried by the PPT will also change. The main aim of this paper is to show that IC is unable to provide a satisfactory account of PPTs. I look at what…
Jeremy is a… Expressive-relativism and expressives in predicative positions
Expressives are words that convey speakers’ attitudes towards a particular object or situation. Consider two examples: Attributive : That f**khead Jeremy forgot the turkey. Predicative : Jeremy is a f**khead. In both examples the word f**khead communicates some expressive content - the negative attitude of the speaker. However, only in Predicative does it appear to contribute to the truth-conditional content. The task is to explain the semantics …
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Rollercoasters are not Fun for Mary
Indexical contextualism (IC) is an account of predicates of personal taste (PPTs) which views the semantic content of PPTs as sensitive to the context in which they are uttered, by virtue of their containing an implicit indexical element. Should the context of utterance change, the semantic content carried by the PPT will also change. The main aim of this paper is to show that IC is unable to provide a satisfactory account of PPTs. I look at what…
Jeremy is a… Expressive-relativism and expressives in predicative positions
Expressives are words that convey speakers’ attitudes towards a particular object or situation. Consider two examples: Attributive : That f**khead Jeremy forgot the turkey. Predicative : Jeremy is a f**khead. In both examples the word f**khead communicates some expressive content - the negative attitude of the speaker. However, only in Predicative does it appear to contribute to the truth-conditional content. The task is to explain the semantics …
Faultless disagreement without contradiction
In this paper we motivate and develop a new approach to predicates of personal taste within the framework of semantic relativism. Our primary goal is to explain faultless disagreement—the phenomenon where two parties disagree, yet both have uttered something true—which is often thought to arise from the use of predicates of personal taste. We combine semantic relativism with an expressivist semantics to yield a novel hybrid theory which we call E…
Taboos as Drivers for Counterculture
Countercultures are defined in opposition to the mainstream. They permit the exploration, promotion, and adoption of ideas and practices placed outside the status quo. One way to do so is by exploiting taboo utterances that are prohibited in mainstream culture. We define taboo utterances as those that either constitute socially prohibited acts (e.g., slurs), express elements of a prohibited ideology (e.g., claims advocating the subjugation of wom…
When feeling under threat
This paper identifies a novel function of slurs— compensatory manhood acts (CMAs)—alongside their more widely recognised subordinating, weaponised, and insider/outsider functions. CMAs occur when men perceive their masculinity as being under threat and respond by engaging in hypermasculine behaviours, including the use of misogynistic and homophobic slurs. Drawing on sociological findings, we argue that in their compensatory function, slurs are e…
When are conceptual innovations empowering? The case of incels
We admit concepts like ‘sexual harassment’ into our collective hermeneutical pool, yet hesitate to do the same with the incel notion of ‘blackpill’ or ‘monkeybranching.’ Why this disparity? Incels present themselves as marginalized, and their own efforts to create new conceptual tools as legitimate responses to such marginalization. At face value, such a standpoint aligns with anti-oppression epistemologies, according to which we should take conc…
Exploring incel group dynamics
Incels (involuntary celibates) are part of a broader misogynistic culture known as the manosphere. Some communities within the manosphere, including incels, promote gender-based violence through misogynistic rhetoric and ideology. Incels are men who struggle to form romantic relationships and thus seek solace in online forums to find a sense of purpose and community. The community is organised around an ideology and a hierarchical classification …
Philosophy (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Metaphysics (4 works) · Philosophy of language (4 works) · Computer Science (3 works) · Epistemology, Ethics, and Metaphysics (3 works) · Contextualism (2 works) · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies (2 works) · Gender, Feminism, and Media (2 works)