•  134
    In this debate-format book, four philosophers--Joshua Glasgow, Sally Haslanger, Chike Jeffers, and Quayshawn Spencer--articulate contrasting views on race. Each author presents a distinct viewpoint on what race is, and then replies to the others, offering theories that are clear and accessible to undergraduates, lay readers, and non-specialists, as well as other philosophers of race.
  •  7
    Rethinking Ideology (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. forthcoming.
  •  161
    Analyzing Ideology (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2023.
  •  93
    Practice Theory as a Tool for Critical Social Theory
    Analyse & Kritik 45 (1): 157-176. 2023.
    What is the best method for undertaking critical social theory, and what are its ontological and normative commitments? Andreas Reckwitz has developed compelling answers to these questions drawing on practice theory. As a practice theorist myself, I am very sympathetic to his approach. This paper sketches a social theory that extends the reach of practice theory to include non-human animals and allows us to discriminate between importantly different kinds of social formations. In doing so, I arg…Read more
  •  3141
    Theorists analyzing the concepts of race and gender disagree over whether the terms refer to natural kinds, social kinds, or nothing at all. The question arises: what do we mean by the terms? It is usually assumed that ordinary intuitions of native speakers are definitive. However, I argue that contemporary semantic externalism can usefully combine with insights from Foucauldian genealogy to challenge mainstream methods of analysis and lend credibility to social constructionist projects.
  •  192
    The paper indicates how social kinds may be internally and objectively unified in a way continuous with physical kinds. It argues that the practice of theorizing is continuous with other practices to the extent that theorists, like anyone engaged in a practice, needs to make choices that are responsive to purposes (and corresponding values) guiding the practice. The paper discusses Epstein's theory of anchoring, and argues for a theory of scaffolding social kinds.
  • What is a Social Practice?
    In Anthony O'Hear (ed.), Metaphysics, Cambridge University Press. 2018.
  •  141
    Ideology in practice: what does ideology do?
    Marquette University Press. 2021.
    This paper offers an account of ideology in terms of social meanings. Such meanings - constituting a cultural technē - are public, conflicting, and fragmented; yet because they guide our practices, they frame our agency and identities. A cultural technē is ideological when it perpetuates unjust subordination; ideology critique offers liberating alternatives.
  •  24
    Failures of Methodological Individualism: The Materiality of Social Systems
    Journal of Social Philosophy 53 (4): 512-534. 2020.
    Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.
  •  26
    Methods of Social Critique
    In Anne Siegetsleitner, Andreas Oberprantacher, Marie-Luisa Frick & Ulrich Metschl (eds.), Crisis and Critique: Philosophical Analysis and Current Events: Proceedings of the 42nd International Wittgenstein Symposium, De Gruyter. pp. 139-156. 2021.
  •  187
    The terms ‘structural injustice’ and ‘systemic injustice’ are commonly used, but their meanings are elusive. In this paper, I sketch an ontology of social systems that embeds accounts of social structures, relations, and practices. On this view, structures may be intrinsically problematic, or they may be problematic only insofar as they interact with other structures in the system to produce injustice. Because social practices that constitute structures set the backdrop for agency and identity, …Read more
  •  36
    Failures of Methodological Individualism: The Materiality of Social Systems
    Journal of Social Philosophy 53 (4): 512-534. 2020.
    Journal of Social Philosophy, EarlyView.
  •  102
    Reproducing Social Hierarchy
    Philosophy of Education 77 (2): 185-222. 2021.
  •  47
    If You Are Committed to Justice, Why Aren't You an Activist? Comments on Allen Buchanan
    Journal of Applied Philosophy 38 (5): 747-752. 2021.
    ABSTRACT In response to Buchanan's argument that ideologies function as doxastic immune systems, I invite him to expand on three issues. (1) What does it mean to have a perfect grasp of the principles of justice, and why should we think that someone with such a grasp should be in a position (even if unable) to act justly? (2) What is required to be fully epistemically responsible when in the grip of an ideology? (3) Might we learn more from contemporary Critical Theory about the workings of ‘dox…Read more
  •  77
    Autonomy, Identity, and Social Justice. Appiah’s The Lies that Bind. A Review
    Philosophy and Public Issues - Filosofia E Questioni Pubbliche. forthcoming.
    Download.
  •  69
    Agency within Structures and Warranted Resistance: Response to Commentators
    Tandf: Australasian Philosophical Review 3 (1): 109-121. 2019.
    Volume 3, Issue 1, March 2019, Page 109-121.
  •  150
    Cognition as a Social Skill
    Tandf: Australasian Philosophical Review 3 (1): 5-25. 2019.
    Much contemporary social epistemology takes as its starting point individuals with sophisticated propositional attitudes and considers (i) how those individuals depend on each other to gain (or lose) knowledge through testimony, disagreement, and the like and (ii) if, in addition to individual knowers, it is possible for groups to have knowledge. In this paper I argue that social epistemology should be more attentive to the construction of knowers through social and cultural practices: soci…Read more
  •  140
    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 r…Read more
  • Sich der Realität widersetzen. Kristina Lepold im Gespräch mit Sally Haslanger (review)
    with Kristina Lepold
    WestEnd. Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 12 159-170. 2015.
  •  391
    What is a Social Practice?
    Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82 231-247. 2018.
    This paper provides an account of social practices that reveals how they are constitutive of social agency, enable coordination around things of value, and are a site for social intervention. The social world, on this account, does not begin when psychologically sophisticated individuals interact to share knowledge or make plans. Instead, culture shapes agents to interpret and respond both to each other and the physical world around us. Practices shape us as we shape them. This provides resource…Read more
  •  354
    I—Culture and Critique
    Aristotelian Society Supplementary Volume 91 (1): 149-173. 2017.
    How do we achieve social justice? How do we change society for the better? Some would argue that we must do it by changing the laws or state institutions. Others that we must do it by changing individual attitudes. I argue that although both of these factors are important and relevant, we must also change culture. What does this mean? Culture, I argue, is a set of social meanings that shapes and filters how we think and act. Problematic networks of social meanings constitute an ideology. Entrenc…Read more
  •  34
    Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays (edited book)
    Cornell University Press. 2005.
    Introduction : kith, kin, and family / Sally Haslanger and Charlotte Witt Adoption and its progeny : rethinking family law, gender, and sexual difference / Drucilla Cornell Open adoption is not for everyone / Anita L. Allen Methods of adoption : eliminating genetic privilege / Jacqueline Stevens Several steps behind : gay and lesbian adoption / Sarah Tobias A child of one’s own : property, progeny, and adoption / Janet Farrell Smith Family resemblances : adoption, personal identity, and genetic …Read more
  •  119
    Theorizing feminisms: a reader (edited book)
    Oxford University Press. 2006.
    "What is sexist oppression?" "What should be done about it?" Organized around these questions, Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader provides an overview of theoretical feminist writing about the quest for gender justice. Incorporating both classic and cutting-edge material, the reader takes into account the full diversity of women, highlighting the effects of race, ethnicity, nationality, class, sexuality, and religion on women's experience. Theorizing Feminisms is organized into four sections and inc…Read more
  •  2967
    It is always awkward when someone asks me informally what I’m working on and I answer that I’m trying to figure out what gender is. For outside a rather narrow segment of the academic world, the term ‘gender’ has come to function as the polite way to talk about the sexes. And one thing people feel pretty confident about is their knowledge of the difference between males and females. Males are those human beings with a range of familiar primary and secondary sex characteristics, most important be…Read more
  •  103
    Defining Knowledge
    The Proceedings of the Twentieth World Congress of Philosophy 8 41-55. 2000.
    With some notable exceptions, feminist epistemologists have not focused (like many contemporary analytic epistemologists) on the the semantics of claims to know: What are the truth conditions of claims of the form S knows that p? My goal in this paper is to suggest a way of approaching the task of specifying the truth conditions for knowledge while (hopefully) making clear how a broad range of feminist work that is often deemed irrelevant to the philosophical inquiry into knowledge is, in fact, …Read more