Toward the “overthrow of Platonism”: Processist critical social ontology and ameliorative discourse

Giladi, Paul

Abstract

In this article, I argue that, for the purpose of developing an effective critical social ontology about gender groups, it is not simply sufficient to carve gender groups at their joints: one must have in view whether the metaphysical categories we use to make sense of gender groups are prone to ideological distortion and vitiation. The norms underpinning a gender group's constitution as a type of social class and the norms involved in gender identity attributions, I propose, provide compelling reason to think critical social ontological discourse is more processist-orientated, rather than substantival-orientated. The advantages of a processist critical social ontology of gender groups are that, unlike substance-discourse, process-discourse recognizes how gender group talk and gender identity talk are often messy and therefore require a conceptual scheme that can transform vocabulary for the emancipatory purpose of ending oppression, domination, and marginalization.

Citation

Giladi, P. (2023). Toward the “overthrow of Platonism”: Processist critical social ontology and ameliorative discourse. European Journal of Philosophy, 31(3), 622-638. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12783

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 4, 2022
• Online Publication Date: Mar 23, 2022
• Publication Date: Sep 1, 2023
• Deposit Date: Sep 8, 2023
• Publicly Available Date: Sep 8, 2023
• Journal: European Journal of Philosophy
• Print ISSN: 0966-8373
• Electronic ISSN: 1468-0378
• Publisher: Wiley
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 31
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 622-638
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/ejop.12783
• Publisher URL: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/ejop.12783