Contextualist Approaches to the Metaphysics of Gender: Timetable and Abstracts

Internationale Konferenz mit Matthew Cull (University of Sheffield), Niklas Ernst (LMU Munich), Esa Díaz-León (University of Barcelona), Annina Loets (University of Oxford), Sally Haslanger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Romy Jaster (Humboldt University) und Rory Wilson (University of Sheffield).

June 15th, 10.30 am – 11.30 am
Gender Words, Gender Concepts, Gender Kinds: What is the Object and Method of „Analysis“?
Sally Haslanger (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

When we theorize gender categories there would seem to be several related projects, each with different methods and targets. For example, here are three:
(1) What do the terms ‚man,‘ ‚woman,‘ ‚queer,‘ currently mean or what should they mean going forward?
(2) What are „our“ concepts of man, woman, queer, and should we re-engineer these concepts to improve them (and is that even possible)?
(3) What social kinds are theoretically or politically valuable in understanding how gender works in the currently dominant (or a counter-public) social domain? And what terms should we use for these kinds?
In this paper, I will discuss the relationship between these three projects and suggest that the entanglement of language and reality in the social domain means that we need to separate these questions but answer them together, using both backward-looking and a forward-looking methods.

 

June 15th, 11.45 am – 12.45 pm
Contextualist Approaches to the Metaphysics of Gender
Romy Jaster (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)

Prior to the conference, there is a seminar at Humboldt University in which advanced students have the possibility to discuss the issue discussed at the conference as well as to prepare the participation at the conference. As the instructor of the seminar, Romy Jaster presents the main findings and outcomes of these discussions.

 

June 15th, 2.45 pm – 3.45 pm
Gender in Practice, Gender in Translation: The Context of Ordinary Language(s)
Niklas Ernst (LMU München)

To acknowledge the context-sensitivity of certain gender-related terms is only part of the story about what it is that someone is doing in employing those terms, about what work is being done by them. In asking the latter questions, a thorough contextualism should leave aside the paradigm of expressions primarily referring within a truth functional-assertion, incorporating the insights that (1) ‘woman’, for instance, is used in moves to exclude, to oppress, to silence trans people’s possibility of articulating their gender, to frame who they are through language within the vocabulary and grammar of a particular linguistic community; and that (2) ‘gender’ itself does not simply designate a concept throughout different languages. In this talk, I will sketch the consequences of taking the suggestion of a ‘contextualist’ approach to the metaphysics of gender seriously by broadening the notion of ‘context’ to contain ordinary (ontologically oppressive) linguistic usage as well as the languages which form the background for speakers’ communities.

 

June 15th, 4.00 pm – 5.00 pm
Intersectionality – a contextualist approach
Annina Loets (University of Oxford)

When identities such as gender, race, or class intersect, fruitful notions of oppression, discrimination, or privilege need to be handled with care. This paper proposes a range of desiderata for an intersectional theory of oppression, and it argues that a particular contextualist approach which exploits analogies to gradable adjectives is best suited to meet these desiderata.

 

June 15th, 5.30 pm – 6.30 pm
More Genders, more Problems: Ameliorative Semantic Pluralism
Matthew Cull (University of Sheffield)

With the publication of Jennifer Saul’s 2012 article, semantic pluralism about gender terms has seen a (renewed (see Spelman 1989)) interest. Following Talia Mae Bettcher, I suggest that we ought to adopt ameliorative semantic pluralism about gender. I’ll motivate and spell out the account, showing how the problems given by Saul for semantic pluralism do not apply. However, I will then consider a more challenging response to ameliorative semantic pluralism which I will call Saul’s Revenge. Building on the work of Esa Diaz-Leon, I’ll argue that subject contextualism gets us around Saul’s Revenge. I’ll end by considering other potential challenges for ameliorative semantic pluralism, including worries about the logic of gender, solidarity, and social science.

 

June 16th, 1o.00 am – 11.00 am
An inclusive account of the meaning of ‚woman‘
Esa Díaz-León (University of Barcelona)

Contextualist theories of meaning of the term „woman“ claim that the term „woman“ changes the referent from context to context, depending on features of the context. A virtue of contextualist views is that they can accommodate the idea that different speakers or different communities can share some dimension of meaning when they use the term „woman“, even if the referent is different. In particular, they can share the character of the term, that is, a function from contexts to contents. In this talk I will examine the advantages of contextualist views over multiple-meanings views, according to which different speakers employ different meanings of „woman“ when they utter the term, and in this way they often talk past each other if they engage in conversation.

 

June 16th, 11.15 am – 12.15 pm
Sketching Norms of Non-Conformity
Rory Wilson (University of Sheffield)

Sally Haslanger’s original ameliorative account of woman and man as the oppressed class and dominating class garners criticism in the exclusion of particular women from the group of women. One such group of women is transgender women who are non-passing, or not read as female by others. Multiple approaches to Haslanger’s original proposal have sought better transgender inclusion such as Katherine Jenkins’ dual-theory ameliorative account and Elizabeth Barnes’ introduction of the classes of gender outlier and gender confounder in ‘Gender and Gendered Terms’. I suggest that both do not meet their goals of satisfying transgender inclusion. The source of this issue I identify as an inability to separate between not being a member of a gender group versus being a member of a gender group who performs their gender poorly. I offer some ways in which the two accounts can benefit from each other to reach better transgender inclusion.


June 15th – 16th
Topoi Gebäude
Hannoversche Str. 6
10115 Berlin

If you need wheelchair accessibility or/and childcare service please let us know via agfemphil@hu-berlin.de 

SATURDAY, June 15th

10.15 am – 10.30 am
Begrüßung

10.30 am – 11.30 am
Gender Words, Gender Concepts, Gender Kinds: What is the Object and Method of „Analysis“?
Sally Haslanger

11.45 am – 12.45 pm
Contextualist Approaches to the Metaphysics of Gender
Romy Jaster

12.45 pm – 2.45 pm
Mittagspause

2.45 pm – 3.45 pm
Gender in Practice, Gender in Translation: The Context of Ordinary Language(s)
Niklas Ernst

4.00 pm – 5.00 pm
Intersectionality – a contextualist approach
Annina Loets

5.00 pm – 5.30 pm
Kaffee- und Brötchenpause

5.30 pm – 6.30 pm
More Genders, more Problems: Ameliorative Semantic Pluralism
Matthew Cull

7 pm
Barabend

 

SUNDAY, June 16th

1o.00 am – 11.00 am
An inclusive account of the meaning of ‚woman‘
Esa Díaz-León

11.15 am – 12.15 pm
Sketching Norms of Non-Conformity
Rory Wilson

12.15 pm – 1.45 pm
Mittagspause

1.45 pm – 3.15 pm
Plenardiskussion

No registration needed