Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky
Biographic Data
| ID | 993067 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Paul-Mikhail Catapang Podosky |
| GIVEN NAMES | Paul-Mikhail Catapang |
| FAMILY NAME | Podosky |
| SIGNATURE | PODOSKY P C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Macquarie University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5636-416X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 16 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 19 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2018 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Philosophy in the Margins
To decolonise philosophy, one might attempt to recover excluded traditions and expand the canon. While historically necessary, this approach is inadequate. Drawing on Fanon's conception of decolonisation as rupture, this paper argues that philosophy's Eurocentrism is not merely the result of forgetting histories but of epistemic destruction whose effects structure the discipline's present. Historical retelling matters not as recovery alone but as…
Still owed something
In the age of so-called ‘cancel culture’, we seem to know when to condemn but have less sense of when to stop. I argue that wrongdoers themselves hold moral claims on others qua wrongdoer. I call these after-wrong duties: obligations of proportionality, non-duplication, reply, and closure. They rest on a simple thought: wrongdoers still possess moral standing in the aftermath of wrongdoing. I show that to sanction without regard for its stopping …
Scope of Epistemic Reparations
Mitova (2025) claims that certain epistemic wrongs are irreparable on dominant backward-looking accounts of epistemic reparations. I argue that this conclusion has not been successfully defended. The epistemic reparations framework is far more resilient than she acknowledges. Mitova’s case for irreparability rests on two assumptions: that only agents can undertake reparative action; and that recognition of epistemic wrongs must be granted to vict…
Legacy and the Politics of Racial Terminology
When a term carries a sordid past, it is tempting to think it should have no future use. Yet the normative life of a word is rarely exhausted by its origins. This article develops legacy analysis as a method for enriching evaluation of what should be done with historically burdened terms. Rather than treating origins as decisive, the framework examines how a term's past is inherited, how its residues reverberate at present, and whether it retains…
Don’t count truth out just yet
This paper continues a debate on the normative limits of conceptual engineering. In particular, it responds to [Isaac, Manuel Gustavo. 2021. “Post-truth conceptual engineering.” Inquiry. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2021.1887758] claim, in response to [Simion, Mona. 2018a. “The ‘Should’ in Conceptual Engineering.” Inquiry 61(8): 914–928 and Podosky, Paul-Mikhail Catapang. 2018. “Ideology and Normativity: Constraints on Conceptual Engineering.” Inquiry. d…
Conceptual economics Contra conceptual engineering
We are invited to picture conceptual improvement as a kind of engineering. Extract the concept, repair what is defective, and return it to use. But the picture requires a background assumption that is rarely examined: that concepts can step outside the practices that give them life. I deny that assumption. Concepts are social phenomena sustained through ongoing labour: created, reproduced, contested, and policed within what I call conceptual econ…
Ideals of implementation
I argue, contrary to Queloz, Matthieu, and Friedmann Bieber. 2022. “Conceptual Engineering and the Politics of Implementation.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 103 (3): 670–691, that institutionalising control over conceptual uptake can overcome the implementation challenge of conceptual engineering without violating liberal-democratic ideals. Institutional control can render implementation easy without generating unchecked concentrations of powe…
‘Amplify Marginalized Voices!’ the What, the Why, and the How
Calls to amplify marginalized voices are common. In this paper, we examine these calls by paying close attention to how the structure of online environments shape practices of amplification, and what this means for political communication and digital activism. We develop a conceptual and normative framework for understanding amplification as a technologically mediated practice of digital activism by answering three questions. Firstly, what is amp…
Grief-bots and affective paternalism
Grief-bots present a unique issue for the bereaved. As technology that can mimic the bespoke linguistic dispositions of a recently deceased loved one, grief-bots pose the heightened risk of the bereaved becoming dependent on them. One way to solve this problem is to restrict access to such technology, whether it is in the form of a complete ban, therapist-aided use, or technological limitations. I argue that such restrictions would constitute unj…
On Taking Offence
What attitude should we take to conceptual engineering
Call-Outs and Call-Ins
The phenomena of call-outs and call-ins are fiercely debated. Are they mere instances of virtue signaling? Or can they actually perform social justice work? This paper gains purchase on these questions by focusing on how language users negotiate norms in speech. The authors contend that norm-enacting speech not only makes a norm salient in a context but also creates conversational conditions that motivate adherence to that norm. Recognizing this …
The conceptual exportation question
Debate over the normativity of virtual phenomena is now widespread in the philosophical literature, taking place in roughly two distinct but related camps. The first considers the relevant problems to be within the scope of applied ethics, where the general methodological program is to square the intuitive (im)permissibility of virtual wrongdoings with moral accounts that justify their (im)permissibility. The second camp approaches the normativit…
Can conceptual engineering actually promote social justice
Agency, Power, and Injustice in Metalinguistic Disagreement
In this paper, I explain the kinematics of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement. This occurs when one speaker has greater control in the joint activity of pairing contents with words in a context. I argue that some forms of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement are deeply worrying, namely those that involves certain power imbalances. In such cases, a speaker possesses illegitimate control in metalinguistic disagreement owing to the operation of …
Privileged Groups and Obligation
Assuming that there is an obligation to combat structural injustice, what does it look like? I suggest that discerning what this obligation is, and on whom it falls, first requires being sensitive to facts about social structure. Importantly, we need to know how social structure is constituted, and the ways in which it can be disrupted. I argue that since social structure is constituted, in part, by concepts that undergird social practices, then …
Gaslighting, First- and Second-Order
In what sense do people doubt their understanding of reality when subject to gaslighting? I suggest that an answer to this question depends on the linguistic order at which a gaslighting exchange takes place. This marks a distinction between first-order and second-order gaslighting. The former occurs when there is disagreement over whether a shared concept applies to some aspect of the world, and where the use of words by a speaker is apt to caus…
A Linguistic Method of Deception
I examine how the use of moral language is tactically employed by the meat-eating industry to exploit and manipulate the moral community. In particular, I discuss the treatment of the word humane in the context of factory farming. I argue that when the meat-eating industry employs phrases such as killing humanely, it deceitfully directs the attention of the moral community by inviting us to make judgments about the method of killing farmed animal…
Hermeneutical Injustice and Animal Ethics
Miranda Fricker (2007) explains that hermeneutical injustice occurs when an area of one’s social experience is obscured from collective understanding. However, Fricker focuses only on the injustice suffered by those who cannot render intelligible their own oppression. I argue that there is another side to hermeneutical injustice that is other-oriented; an injustice that occurs when one cannot understand, to a basic extent, the oppression of other…
Agency, Power, and Injustice in Metalinguistic Disagreement
In this paper, I explain the kinematics of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement. This occurs when one speaker has greater control in the joint activity of pairing contents with words in a context. I argue that some forms of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement are deeply worrying, namely those that involves certain power imbalances. In such cases, a speaker possesses illegitimate control in metalinguistic disagreement owing to the operation of …
Gaslighting, First- and Second-Order
In what sense do people doubt their understanding of reality when subject to gaslighting? I suggest that an answer to this question depends on the linguistic order at which a gaslighting exchange takes place. This marks a distinction between first-order and second-order gaslighting. The former occurs when there is disagreement over whether a shared concept applies to some aspect of the world, and where the use of words by a speaker is apt to caus…
What attitude should we take to conceptual engineering
Can conceptual engineering actually promote social justice
Hermeneutical Injustice and Animal Ethics
Miranda Fricker (2007) explains that hermeneutical injustice occurs when an area of one’s social experience is obscured from collective understanding. However, Fricker focuses only on the injustice suffered by those who cannot render intelligible their own oppression. I argue that there is another side to hermeneutical injustice that is other-oriented; an injustice that occurs when one cannot understand, to a basic extent, the oppression of other…
A Linguistic Method of Deception
I examine how the use of moral language is tactically employed by the meat-eating industry to exploit and manipulate the moral community. In particular, I discuss the treatment of the word humane in the context of factory farming. I argue that when the meat-eating industry employs phrases such as killing humanely, it deceitfully directs the attention of the moral community by inviting us to make judgments about the method of killing farmed animal…
Gaslighting, First- and Second-Order
In what sense do people doubt their understanding of reality when subject to gaslighting? I suggest that an answer to this question depends on the linguistic order at which a gaslighting exchange takes place. This marks a distinction between first-order and second-order gaslighting. The former occurs when there is disagreement over whether a shared concept applies to some aspect of the world, and where the use of words by a speaker is apt to caus…
Privileged Groups and Obligation
Assuming that there is an obligation to combat structural injustice, what does it look like? I suggest that discerning what this obligation is, and on whom it falls, first requires being sensitive to facts about social structure. Importantly, we need to know how social structure is constituted, and the ways in which it can be disrupted. I argue that since social structure is constituted, in part, by concepts that undergird social practices, then …
Can conceptual engineering actually promote social justice
Agency, Power, and Injustice in Metalinguistic Disagreement
In this paper, I explain the kinematics of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement. This occurs when one speaker has greater control in the joint activity of pairing contents with words in a context. I argue that some forms of non-ideal metalinguistic disagreement are deeply worrying, namely those that involves certain power imbalances. In such cases, a speaker possesses illegitimate control in metalinguistic disagreement owing to the operation of …
Call-Outs and Call-Ins
The phenomena of call-outs and call-ins are fiercely debated. Are they mere instances of virtue signaling? Or can they actually perform social justice work? This paper gains purchase on these questions by focusing on how language users negotiate norms in speech. The authors contend that norm-enacting speech not only makes a norm salient in a context but also creates conversational conditions that motivate adherence to that norm. Recognizing this …
The conceptual exportation question
Debate over the normativity of virtual phenomena is now widespread in the philosophical literature, taking place in roughly two distinct but related camps. The first considers the relevant problems to be within the scope of applied ethics, where the general methodological program is to square the intuitive (im)permissibility of virtual wrongdoings with moral accounts that justify their (im)permissibility. The second camp approaches the normativit…
Grief-bots and affective paternalism
Grief-bots present a unique issue for the bereaved. As technology that can mimic the bespoke linguistic dispositions of a recently deceased loved one, grief-bots pose the heightened risk of the bereaved becoming dependent on them. One way to solve this problem is to restrict access to such technology, whether it is in the form of a complete ban, therapist-aided use, or technological limitations. I argue that such restrictions would constitute unj…
On Taking Offence
What attitude should we take to conceptual engineering
Philosophy in the Margins
To decolonise philosophy, one might attempt to recover excluded traditions and expand the canon. While historically necessary, this approach is inadequate. Drawing on Fanon's conception of decolonisation as rupture, this paper argues that philosophy's Eurocentrism is not merely the result of forgetting histories but of epistemic destruction whose effects structure the discipline's present. Historical retelling matters not as recovery alone but as…
Still owed something
In the age of so-called ‘cancel culture’, we seem to know when to condemn but have less sense of when to stop. I argue that wrongdoers themselves hold moral claims on others qua wrongdoer. I call these after-wrong duties: obligations of proportionality, non-duplication, reply, and closure. They rest on a simple thought: wrongdoers still possess moral standing in the aftermath of wrongdoing. I show that to sanction without regard for its stopping …
Scope of Epistemic Reparations
Mitova (2025) claims that certain epistemic wrongs are irreparable on dominant backward-looking accounts of epistemic reparations. I argue that this conclusion has not been successfully defended. The epistemic reparations framework is far more resilient than she acknowledges. Mitova’s case for irreparability rests on two assumptions: that only agents can undertake reparative action; and that recognition of epistemic wrongs must be granted to vict…
Legacy and the Politics of Racial Terminology
When a term carries a sordid past, it is tempting to think it should have no future use. Yet the normative life of a word is rarely exhausted by its origins. This article develops legacy analysis as a method for enriching evaluation of what should be done with historically burdened terms. Rather than treating origins as decisive, the framework examines how a term's past is inherited, how its residues reverberate at present, and whether it retains…
Don’t count truth out just yet
This paper continues a debate on the normative limits of conceptual engineering. In particular, it responds to [Isaac, Manuel Gustavo. 2021. “Post-truth conceptual engineering.” Inquiry. doi:10.1080/0020174X.2021.1887758] claim, in response to [Simion, Mona. 2018a. “The ‘Should’ in Conceptual Engineering.” Inquiry 61(8): 914–928 and Podosky, Paul-Mikhail Catapang. 2018. “Ideology and Normativity: Constraints on Conceptual Engineering.” Inquiry. d…
Conceptual economics Contra conceptual engineering
We are invited to picture conceptual improvement as a kind of engineering. Extract the concept, repair what is defective, and return it to use. But the picture requires a background assumption that is rarely examined: that concepts can step outside the practices that give them life. I deny that assumption. Concepts are social phenomena sustained through ongoing labour: created, reproduced, contested, and policed within what I call conceptual econ…
Ideals of implementation
I argue, contrary to Queloz, Matthieu, and Friedmann Bieber. 2022. “Conceptual Engineering and the Politics of Implementation.” Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 103 (3): 670–691, that institutionalising control over conceptual uptake can overcome the implementation challenge of conceptual engineering without violating liberal-democratic ideals. Institutional control can render implementation easy without generating unchecked concentrations of powe…
‘Amplify Marginalized Voices!’ the What, the Why, and the How
Calls to amplify marginalized voices are common. In this paper, we examine these calls by paying close attention to how the structure of online environments shape practices of amplification, and what this means for political communication and digital activism. We develop a conceptual and normative framework for understanding amplification as a technologically mediated practice of digital activism by answering three questions. Firstly, what is amp…
Epistemology (10 works) · Philosophy (10 works) · Feminist Epistemology and Gender Studies (9 works) · Political science (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Sociology (7 works) · Law (6 works) · Politics (6 works) · Conceptual framework (5 works) · Injustice (5 works)