Sally Haslanger - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Sally Haslanger

Philosophy of Education

I am honored to be asked to give this year's Kneller Lecture to the Philosophy of Education Socie... more I am honored to be asked to give this year's Kneller Lecture to the Philosophy of Education Society. I am also humbled, because I am not a specialist in philosophy of education, and those of you here are much more knowledgeable about the subject matter than I am. However, I believe deeply in the value of both intra-and interdisciplinary work and knowledge gained through practice. I hope that my discussion today offers you some tools to enrich your thinking, and I look forward to learning from you. BACKROUND: IDEOLOGY AND SOCIAL REPRODUCTION In the world as we know it, injustice and oppression take many forms and are upheld in a variety of ways, many of them coercive. Ideological oppression, unlike more direct affronts to our freedom and dignity, "gets under the skin" and appropriates our agency; we become complicit in oppressive structures, whether as subordinated or privileged. As a result, ideological oppression is harder to identify and critique. It structures our everyday lives and shapes our experience, because ideology functions as "doxa" that is taken for granted as common sense. Political and legal theorists and judges are as subject to ideology as anyone else. And because power relations grant them status as authorities, their insights may simply reinforce the background unjust social structure. But what is ideology exactly? How does it function, and how is it maintained? 1 On my account, social practices depend on a set of social meanings-what I call a "cultural technē"-that provide the basis for coor-Reproducing Social Hierarchy (or Not!)

How should we explore the relationship between race and educational opportunity? One approach to ... more How should we explore the relationship between race and educational opportunity? One approach to the Black-White achievement gap explores how race and class cause disparities in access and opportunity. In this paper, I consider how education contributes to the creation of race. Considering examples of classroom micropolitics, I argue that breakdowns of trust and trustworthiness between teachers and students can cause substantial disadvantages and, in the contemporary United States, this happens along racial lines. Some of the disadvantages are academic: high achievement is more difficult when one faces mistrust, ego depletion, effort pessimism, and insult. And within a knowledge economy, exclusion from knowledge work makes one vulnerable to injustice. But the problem goes deeper than achievement, for schools are contexts in which we develop self-understandings and identities that situate us as members of society. If students of color are systematically denied full participation in t...

The Routledge Handbook of Practical Reason, 2020

Taylor & Francis, Dec 22, 2015

The idea of a natural kind purports to be of something that constitutes "the world's joints" and ... more The idea of a natural kind purports to be of something that constitutes "the world's joints" and is captured in good explanations. Traditionally, natural kinds are assumed to be "mind-independent." But a plausible account of explanation takes it to be a practice of asking and answering questions. Explanations should be evaluated as answers to legitimate questions; good answers are not always in terms of "mindindependent" kinds. Drawing on the example of sex, this paper explores some of the ways differences in the word are either marked or created by us, and how these differences matter for our explanatory purposes. I argue, following Epstein (2015), that explanatory kinds can be both anchored and grounded in social facts and, moreover, that explanatory projects-like other practical projects-depend on theoretical scaffolds to provide means toward our ends.

Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society (Hardback), 2006

In debates over the existence and nature of social kinds such as 'race' and 'gender', philosopher... more In debates over the existence and nature of social kinds such as 'race' and 'gender', philosophers often rely heavily on our intuitions about the nature of the kind. Following this strategy, philosophers often reject social constructionist analyses, suggesting that they change rather than capture the meaning of the kind terms. However, given that social constructionists are often trying to debunk our ordinary (and ideologyridden?) understandings of social kinds, it is not surprising that their analyses are counterintuitive. This article argues that externalist insights from the critique of the analytic/synthetic distinction can be extended to justify social constructionist analyses.

Philosophical Studies, 1989

The Cambridge companion to feminism in …, 2000

SALLY HASLANGER Feminism in metaphysics Negotiating the natural Introduction1 Metaphysics has nev... more SALLY HASLANGER Feminism in metaphysics Negotiating the natural Introduction1 Metaphysics has never been without critics. Plato's efforts have repeatedly been a target of attack; Hume ranted against the metaphysicians of his day; and one of the founding missions of logical ...

We live in a world where injustice is rampant. The injustice takes many forms, and is upheld in a... more We live in a world where injustice is rampant. The injustice takes many forms, and is upheld in a variety of ways. For example, in the United States and across the world, legal and other institutional measures are defended as protecting liberal values, but in fact restrict religious and cultural freedom, sexuality and gender expression, bodily autonomy, and integrity. They undermine democracy, enable and reinforce plutocracy, oligarchy, and autocracy. Neo-liberal economic systems not only allow, but reward, exploitation, environmental degradation, and corruption. The list could go on. Such institutions are backed up by incarceration, torture, military blockades, police brutality, and war. In addition, injustice is maintained by ideology. Ideology critique is essential to lessen the wrongs that are perpetrated not only on the battlefield and in government, but in practices of everyday life. In what follows, I will consider how the body, and our embodied agency, is shaped by culture, ...

The Routledge Handbook of Epistemic Injustice

Shifting Concepts

This chapter considers several ways, within a Stalnakerian externalist semantics, we might unders... more This chapter considers several ways, within a Stalnakerian externalist semantics, we might understand the project of improving our concepts to promote greater justice. The tools that culture provides us—language, concepts, inferential patterns—provide frames for coordination and shape our interaction. There are multiple ways these tools can fail us, e.g. by the limited structure of possibilities and options they make intelligible. However, we can sometimes reconfigure the resources so that our practical orientations are more responsive to what is good and coordinate in ways that are just. This chapter argues that, in some cases, the necessary amelioration is epistemic, but in other cases it is properly semantic. Such reconfiguration often happens in law; it also occurs in social movements, counter-publics, subaltern communities, and in fascist propaganda. Contestation over meaning is not ‘mere semantics’ for—together with political and material change—it can shape our agency and our...

Crisis and Critique: Philosophical Analysis and Current Events

Journal of Social Philosophy

The aim of this paper is argue that methodological individualism is inadequate because at least s... more The aim of this paper is argue that methodological individualism is inadequate because at least some social phenomena are best understood as systems, and parts of systems, that involve more than individuals and their attitudes. In particular, I will argue that there is an interdependence between the material, the cultural, and the psychological in social systems, and this interdependence is crucial for many forms of social explanation. Moreover, recognizing the interdependence between different parts of social systems is important for understanding social critique and the potential of social activism. An individualist social ontology places tremendous emphasis on the power of “collective intentionality” to constitute the social world. But our powers are limited by the material conditions, the complexity and fragmentation of societies, our embodiment, our ignorance, and the accidental bad effects of good intentions (not to mention the bad intentions). To understand societies, we must take all this into account. Understanding the multiple factors – material, cultural, historical, psychological – affecting our terms of coordination is necessary for critique, and for our efforts to promote social justice. My hope is to provide a framework within which we can better understand and critique the social world.

Australasian Philosophical Review

Philosophy and Phenomenological Research

Disputatio

In response to commentaries by Esa Díaz León, Jennifer Saul, and Ra- chel Sterken, I develop more... more In response to commentaries by Esa Díaz León, Jennifer Saul, and Ra- chel Sterken, I develop more fully my views on the role of structure in social and metaphysical explanation. Although I believe that social agency, quite generally, occurs within practices and structures, the relevance of structure depends on the sort of questions we are asking and what interventions we are considering. The emphasis on questions is also relevant in considering metaphysical and meta-metaphysical is- sues about realism with respect to gender and race. I aim to demon- strate that tools we develop in the context of critical social theory can change the questions we ask, what forms of explanation are called for, and how we do philosophy.