Social Metaphysics

I argue in this paper for a critical social ontology, or an approach to theorizing social reality and social institutions that is more than descriptive of social reality, but is also able to provide practical reasoning with an ontological dimension for judgment. At the heart of this idea is a different take on social metaphysics from most standard current accounts in that it begins with empirical, phylogenetic capacities of human beings for social practices (realizing abstract thought in the world) as well as relationality (the need for attachments to others). The combination of these two essential human capacities, what I call the practical-relational nexus, is generative of more complex social reality. The ontogeny of any social reality is the result of the ways that this practical-relational nexus has been organized and shaped by external social structures and systems, themselves the product of certain kinds of social power. I then explore the metaphysics of social power before considering the ways that this approach to social metaphysics can inform practical reasoning with the capacity for social and political criticism.

In this course, we survey recent work in social metaphysics within the analytic tradition, with the goal of gaining deeper insight into the ontology of the social world – conceived broadly to include facts about social objects (United Nations, #MeToo Movement), kinds and properties (mayor, unemployed), events and processes (Olympic Games, Brexit), states and relations (groupthink, oppression), institutions (family, prison), practices (helicopter parenting, potlucks), actions and attitudes (class-action lawsuits, collective intentionality), and artifacts (money, peer-to-peer networks). The metaphysical investigation of these facts is unified by a common theme: how exactly are individual people related to the social world? In what sense do they depend on one another, and the material and symbolic environments which they inhabit? In recent years, philosophers in the analytic tradition have developed a variety of frameworks and tools for thinking about these questions. In the first half of the course, we sneak up on our theme by considering two widely held “standard” views about social ontology: a) the view that social entities are “made up” of interacting people, in possibly emergent ways, much like traffic being made up of cars; and b) the view that social entities are rooted in “collective projections” of our attitudes onto the non-social world, such as certain pieces of paper being treated as dollar bills. After raising a host of problems for these views, we then work through an alternative “non-anthropocentric” view of social ontology as proposed by Brian Epstein and others.

In the second half of the course, we turn our attention to the ontology of social construction. Over the past few decades, the list of things that have been said to be “socially constructed” has expanded tremendously. Although these claims are made in different contexts, and different disciplines, a central thrust of social-constructionist explanations is to call into question the presumption that “the way things are” – e.g., concerning gender, race, disability – is fixed by the natural world, including human nature. By revealing how certain seemingly “natural” categories and distinctions are in fact produced by unacknowledged parts of the social world, social constructionists aim to show that they are not exempted from critique, and identify levers for ameliorative social change. Despite yielding important insights, the sheer diversity in how the term “social construction” is used, and what it is taken to imply, has produced much confusion and heated debates over the import and scope of social-constructionist claims (cf. the “science wars”). In our course, we strive to disentangle some of these conceptual knots, first by considering the vexed history of the term, and by distinguishing types and grades of social construction. We then examine the thesis – defended by Sally Haslanger, Ron Mallon, and others – that important varieties of social constructionism, without losing their critical edge, are compatible with significant forms of realism, objectivism about social kinds, and philosophical naturalism. In doing so, we also draw on extant work in psychology, cognitive science, and the philosophy of language to shed light on the plurality of mechanisms by which socially constructed kinds are produced and sustained. This will prompt a general reflection on the relationship between (what one might call) explanation-driven and justice-driven social metaphysics.

Der Text argumentiert, dass Adornos Konzept einer 'Negativen Dialektik' zu einer Form von moralischem Solipsismus führt, dem es daran mangelt, die Kategorie 'Praxis' als zent-rales Mittel von Kritik und sozialer Transformation zu fassen. Zweitens argumentiere ich, dass dies Konzept Adornos nur dann gerettet werden kann, wenn wir es zu einer kritischen Metaphysik verschmelzen, so dass die Bedeutung der Hegelschen Idee von Dialektik da-rin liegt, als ontologisch verstandenes Konzept einem bloß epistemischen zu opponieren. Adornos Negativismus kann so helfen, eine kritische soziale Ontologie zu fassen, indem verdinglichte Formen des Denkens aufgebrochen werden. Adorno mangelt es an dieser so-zialen Ontologie, die uns mit einer praxisorientierten Form immanenter Kritik und einem zwingenden Konzept von sozialer Transformation ausstatten kann.

It is commonly claimed that Ibn Khaldun did not have predecessors or followers. This article argues otherwise. It is asserted here that Ibn Khaldun was a node within the Transoxanian philosophical tradition
and his main contribution was applying the classical metaphysics of
the Razi-School to the historical and social being. Grounding this claim
requires exploring the metaphysics of the Transoxanian philosophers.
In particular we need to focus on a peculiar method called ‘critical investigation’ (tahqiq) which led to the development of metaphysics as a science during this period. Grounding the above claim also requires demonstrating how Ibn Khaldun applied this method systematically. As a step in this direction, this article contributes to the history of Turkish thought through the study of Fakhr al-Din al-Razi, Adudddin al-‘Ici and Sa‘daddin al-Taftazani with the purpose of unearthing the historical
and philosophical roots of social metaphysics of Ibn Khaldun.

In this article, I offer an account of how the individualized and medicalized conception of disability that prevails in philosophy is naturalized in bioethics, cognitive science, feminist philosophy, political philosophy, and other subfields of the discipline. By the end of the article, I will have both indicated how disabled people are constituted in philosophical discourse as a problem to be rectified or eliminated and explained how the prevalence in philosophy of this naturalized conception of disability contributes to and reinforces the exclusion of disabled philosophers from the profession of philosophy. Critical philosophical work on disability is an important means with which to resist and subvert this exclusion.

Was bisexuality a widespread feature of ancient Greek society? This question is an instance of cross-cultural projection -- of taking the means through which people are categorized in one culture and applying it to members of another. It’s widely held by those who think that sexual orientation is socially constructed that its projection poses a problem. In this paper, I offer a more careful analysis of this alleged problem. To analyze projection, I adapt Iris Einheuser’s substratum-carving model of conventionalism to fit the specific needs of social construction (and social metaphysics more broadly). Using this model, I show that projection is conceptually coherent, and so does not for that reason pose any problem. Along the way, I identify some of the epistemic difficulties facing projection. While these difficulties are formidable, they are not substantially affected by the constructivist claim. I therefore conclude that there is no unique problem facing the projection of a socially constructed sexual orientation.

Realists about mental disorder have been hasty about dismissing social explanations of how mental disorder is constituted. However, many social ontologies are realist ontologies. In order to create a meaningful distinction between realism and social metaphysics about mental disorder, I propose that realism about mental disorder is best understood as Individual Trait Realism (ITR) about them. For ITR, mental disorders exist in virtue of traits. I defend the view that ITR is compatible with social metaphysics, arguing that, in asking whether constituents in the social sphere figure the metaphysics of psychopathology, we are asking questions on three different strata of explanation: the strata of demarcation, instantiation, and individual traits. Distinguishing between these strata allows for nuanced realism that need not reject the social constitution of mental disorder.

Errefuxiatu, gizon, emakume edo trans moduko kategoria sozialek gure ekintzak mugatzen eta
gure identitatea eta auto-ulermena zehazten dituzte. Baina, zer dira zehazki kategoria sozialak?
Zein da beraien izaera? Nola sortzen dira? Zein mekanismoren bidez ahalbidetzen edota mugatzen
dituzte zenbait portaera?
Liburu honetan, bai galdera horiei, bai antzeko beste batzuei, erantzuna ematen saiatu da
Ásta2, kategoria sozialen teoria metafisiko berria aurkeztuz. Conferralism izena jarri dio teoria
horri, eta, bertan, norbanakoaren propietate sozialak beste pertsonen uste eta praktiken ondorioz
sortuak direla defendatzen du; norbanakoak dituen propietate sozialak besteek emanak
(conferred) izan direla, hain zuzen.

What is it for something to be a disability? Elizabeth Barnes, focusing on physical disabilities, argues that disability is a social category. It depends on the rules undergirding the judgements of the disability rights movement. Barnes’ account may strike many as implausible. I articulate the unease, in the form of three worries about Barnes’ account. It does not fully explain why the disability rights movement is constituted in such a way that it only picks out paradigmatic disability traits, nor why only the traits identified by the movement as constituting experiences of social and political constraint count as disability. It also leaves out the contribution of people other than disability activists, to the definition of disability. I develop Barnes’ account. On my account, a person is disabled if she is in some state which is constitutive of some constraint on her legitimate interests. This state must be the subject of legitimate medical interest and be picked out by the disability rights movement as among the traits for which they are seeking to promote progress and change. My account addresses the worries about Barnes’ account. It is also able to include all disabilities, rather than only physical ones.