Publications
- "Rejecting the 'Implicit Consensus': A Reply to Jenkins," Thought, forthcoming [here].
- “Hermeneutical Injustice,” Routledge Handbook of Social and Political Philosophy of Language, forthcoming [here].
- “Social Ontology,” (with Katherine Ritchie), Routledge Handbook of Metametaphysics, 2020 [here].
- “Social Metaphysics,” Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, 2018.
- “The Metaphysics of Social Kinds.” Philosophy Compass, 2016: 841-850.
- “Two Kinds of Unknowing.” Hypatia, 2011: 294-307.
- “Reorienting Deliberation: Identity Politics in Multicultural Societies,” Studies in Social Justice, 2011: 7-23.
Book Reviews
- Review of Categories We Live By: The Construction of Sex, Gender, Race, and Other Social Categories. Hypatia Reviews Online, forthcoming.
- Review of Out from the Shadows: Analytical Feminist Contributions to Traditional Philosophy. Hypatia Reviews Online, 2013.
Work in Progress
Social Kinds are Essentially Mind-Dependent [here]
Against Social Kind Anti-Realism [here]
Social Ontology Naturalized
In my monograph, Social Ontology Naturalized, I defend a novel and systematic view of social kinds that promises to transform the way that we think about society and nature. Philosophers have traditionally drawn a sharp contrast between social and natural kinds. According to the philosophical orthodoxy, social kinds like money and marriage differ radically from so-called natural kinds like protons and potassium. I argue that the orthodoxy is mistaken. The intuitive distinction between social kinds and natural kinds presents a false dichotomy. According to the view I defend, a kind can be both social and natural. In particular, I argue that many social kinds are natural kinds in the following sense: they license inductive inferences, support reliable predictions, warrant empirical generalizations, and feature in fruitful explanations. If natural kinds are those that enable us to successfully predict and explain phenomena, there is reason to believe that many social kinds are natural. This is because many social kinds are loci of inductive and explanatory potential. For example, the fact that some individuals live in poverty, or are women, enables us to predict and explain various properties that kind members instantiate: children who live in poverty are more likely to do poorly in school than children from middle class and affluent families, and women are more likely to be victims of sexual violence and domestic abuse than men. These considerations, I argue, demonstrate that social kinds can also be natural kinds. By philosophically vindicating the scientific legitimacy of social kinds, Social Ontology Naturalized constitutes an important theoretical bridge between work on social kinds in the humanities and social sciences.
Social Ontology Naturalized makes a number of significant contributions to the philosophical literature on the metaphysics of social kinds. First, there is no book-length defense of the thesis that social kinds can be natural kinds. Some philosophers have asserted that races and genders can be natural (without being biological) across piecemeal publications; however, these claims have not been generalized in a systematic way. Thus, Social Ontology Naturalized presents the first comprehensive defense of the claim that social kinds can be natural. Second, no one in the social ontology literature offers a full-throated defense of social kind essentialism. Although some philosophers implicitly defend essentialist theories of particular social kinds, there is no explicit and systematic defense of the view that social kinds have properties that are essential to them. Social Ontology Naturalized provides one. Third, the novel theory of gender that I defend offers a new way of thinking about what it is to be a woman, man, or neither and undermines pernicious trans exclusionary arguments.
Social Ontology Naturalized also makes an original and important contribution to feminist scholarship. Although my account of the metaphysics of social kinds will appeal to anyone interested in social metaphysics, it is of particular interest to feminists looking for a framework for understanding categories central to feminist theory and practice. The thesis that social kinds like gender are not natural has been virtually axiomatic among feminist theorists since the beginning of feminism’s second wave. However, I defend the surprising and provocative claim that feminism actually requires that genders are natural kinds. For example, the ability to make empirical generalizations about women is what supports the feminist claim that sexual violence and other forms of unequal treatment and abuse to which women are subject qua women are systematic and thus constitute gender oppression. Similarly, feminist interventions into public policy and law rely on the inductively justified belief that women are more likely to experience domestic abuse, sexual assault, poverty, and homelessness than men. Given the epistemic role of social kinds within feminist theory and practice, I argue, it follows that feminists must accept the naturalness of gender categories.
Social Ontology Naturalized makes a number of significant contributions to the philosophical literature on the metaphysics of social kinds. First, there is no book-length defense of the thesis that social kinds can be natural kinds. Some philosophers have asserted that races and genders can be natural (without being biological) across piecemeal publications; however, these claims have not been generalized in a systematic way. Thus, Social Ontology Naturalized presents the first comprehensive defense of the claim that social kinds can be natural. Second, no one in the social ontology literature offers a full-throated defense of social kind essentialism. Although some philosophers implicitly defend essentialist theories of particular social kinds, there is no explicit and systematic defense of the view that social kinds have properties that are essential to them. Social Ontology Naturalized provides one. Third, the novel theory of gender that I defend offers a new way of thinking about what it is to be a woman, man, or neither and undermines pernicious trans exclusionary arguments.
Social Ontology Naturalized also makes an original and important contribution to feminist scholarship. Although my account of the metaphysics of social kinds will appeal to anyone interested in social metaphysics, it is of particular interest to feminists looking for a framework for understanding categories central to feminist theory and practice. The thesis that social kinds like gender are not natural has been virtually axiomatic among feminist theorists since the beginning of feminism’s second wave. However, I defend the surprising and provocative claim that feminism actually requires that genders are natural kinds. For example, the ability to make empirical generalizations about women is what supports the feminist claim that sexual violence and other forms of unequal treatment and abuse to which women are subject qua women are systematic and thus constitute gender oppression. Similarly, feminist interventions into public policy and law rely on the inductively justified belief that women are more likely to experience domestic abuse, sexual assault, poverty, and homelessness than men. Given the epistemic role of social kinds within feminist theory and practice, I argue, it follows that feminists must accept the naturalness of gender categories.