Social Metametaphysics Workshop

Event Description

The aim of this workshop is to bring together scholars to discuss the nature and methodology of social metaphysics. Interest in social metaphysics in recent decades has exploded and questions about the status and ambitions of social metaphysics are now taking centre stage. This workshop aims to consolidate this current methodological turn by hosting a two-day event where participants can discuss questions like the following. How do the traditional questions about the aims and methods of metaphysics apply to debates in social metaphysics? Are traditional distinctions between metaphysical realism, deflationism, and pragmatism useful for making sense of the status of properties, entities, or kinds that are socially constructed? How do the projects of social metaphysics relate to inquiries into the nature of social reality that have been traditionally conducted within social science and social theory (e.g. feminist theory, sociology, economics, etc.)? How should social metaphysicians understand the epistemology of social metaphysics, especially given the widespread view that ordinary thinking about the nature of social reality has been systematically distorted by ideology? What role should moral and political values play in social metaphysics? In what ways might embracing normative constraints on social metaphysical theorising impact the status or epistemology of the resulting theories?

Workshop Programme

Day 1

10.00 – 10.30 Coffee and Welcome

10.30 – 12.00 Elanor Taylor (Johns Hopkins) ‘Explanatory Metametaphysics’

12.00 – 13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 15.00 Naomi Thompson (Bristol) ‘Social Construction as Social Explanation’

15.00 – 15.30 Coffee

15.30 – 17.00 Esa Díaz-León (Barcelona) ‘Social Constructionism Revisited’

18.30 Speaker Dinner

Day 2

10.00 – 10.30 Coffee

10.30 – 12.00 Asya Passinsky (Central European University) ‘Pluralism and Amelioration’

12.00 – 13.30 Lunch

13.30 – 15.00 Matthew J. Cull (Trinity College Dublin) ‘Feminist Deflationism: Metametaphysics, Subject Matter, and Method’

15.00 – 15.30 Coffee

15.30 – 17.00 Kevin Richardson (Duke) ‘Enemies to Lovers: the Metaphysician and the Pragmatist’

 This event is affiliated with the Feminist Philosophy and Social Theory Research Group

Organiser: Jade Fletcher (jef1@st-andrews.ac.uk)