Emilie Pagano

Although the properties of being social and of being socially constructed are indispensable to our understanding of social reality, social metaphysicians are unclear about how they’re related. In this paper, I argue that whereas everything that’s socially constructed is also social, not everything that’s social is also socially constructed. In particular, I argue that something is what I call “fundamental relative to social reality,” something that’s social but not also socially constructed. I sketch an account of fundamentality relative to social reality, and argue that it both clarifies how the properties of being social and of being socially constructed are related, and captures their significance for our understanding of social reality per se.

It’s widely accepted that pluralism about groups—the view that groups are pluralities—is incompatible with the following: one group can have different individuals as members at both different times and in different worlds (Difference), and more than one group can have the same individuals as members at both the same times and in the same worlds (Sameness). As a result, it’s widely accepted that pluralism is false. In this paper, I argue that these “arguments from Difference and Sameness” are unsound. First, I articulate a functionalist account of what it is to be a group that’s neutral with respect to pluralism and its primary opponent, monism. According to the version of functionalist pluralism I propose, groups are pluralities of functional roles. Second, I argue that because different individuals can play a role at both different times and in different worlds, and because the same individuals can play different roles at both the same times and in the same worlds, functionalist pluralism is invulnerable to the arguments from Difference and Sameness. Lastly, I raise a challenge for functionalist monism: whereas functionalism seems to favor “external” individuation conditions, monism seems to favor “internal” individuation conditions, and it’s up to the functionalist monist to square them. In the process, I hope to have shown that functionalism—whether pluralistic or monistic—is worthy of our attention.

Just as contemporary metaphysics, in general, is marked by an interest in ground, contemporary social metaphysics, in particular, is marked by an interest in social construction. It’s no surprise, then, that some contemporary metaphysicians have come to understand social construction in terms of ground. In this paper, I argue that this is a mistake. In particular, I argue that any otherwise plausible account of construction as ground is objectionably revisionary. First, I discuss an argument for the view that construction is ground that is endorsed by its proponents, and identify its weaknesses. I then consider, and dispense with, different versions of the view that construction is ground, and argue that these either overgeneralize, undergeneralize, or both. After responding to the objection that my arguments presuppose monism with respect to construction, I conclude that though ground is relevant to construction, extant ground-theoretic accounts of its relevance fail to capture it.

Social metaphysicians agree that to be socially constructed is in some sense to depend on social goings-on. It's now common to claim that the relevant kind of dependence is grounding such that to be socially constructed is in some sense to be grounded in social goings-on. Nonetheless, grounding accounts of social construction are at risk of overgeneralizing, and, so, its's unclear what work grounding can and/or should do in accounting for it. In this paper, I argue that the simplest tweak to grounding accounts of social construction is also the best: we should insist that all socially constructed facts are social facts.

Brian Epstein has argued (in The Ant Trap and ‘Anchoring versus grounding’) that social kinds ‘export’ across worlds. Although the conditions for war criminality are not ‘fixed’ in the Empire, for instance, Darth Vader is a war criminal there. And, according to Epstein, an account of social construction should imply that he is. Ultimately, he argues that ‘grounding-only’ accounts of social construction – like those proposed by Jonathan Schaffer and Aaron Griffith – imply that social kinds do not export across worlds. As a result, he argues that we need more than grounding; in particular, we need both grounding and what he calls ‘anchoring’ to account for it. In this paper, I argue that, once we draw a distinction between what I call ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ social kinds, Epstein’s argument is either invalid or irrelevant.