Proleptic Praise

Abstract What is praise? This chapter argues we can make progress by examining what praise does. It articulates some desiderata for a more adequate understanding of praise. It argues that praise has a largely overlooked social function: praise functions to affirm and entrench values, exerting pressure in praise’s audiences to affirm the values expressed. This chapter articulates the mechanisms that make praise an effective vehicle for entrenching values. This analysis is responsive to, and places at the foreground of our analysis, the possibility that praise can serve bad and oppressive ends. But it also illuminates a function of praise that is an important contribution to our practices, when attuned to non-oppressive ends. This account better meets the desiderata than recently developed accounts, which focus on praise as a second-personal communicative act.