FAH/DPHIL Lecture Series – “More and happier women. On the political significance of Wittgenstein and hinge epistemology” by Prof. Annalisa Coliva, University of California, Irvine, U.S.A.
2022-10-26 @ 12:00 pm ~ 1:30 pm
Zoom: https://umac.zoom.us/j/98417058644
Abstract
In this paper, we consider ameliorative projects, with special emphasis on their bearing onto the concept WOMAN. We start by looking at Haslanger’s proposal. By tracing it to its Carnapian origins, we criticize it for its top-down approach to the issue and for its shortcomings in explaining the possibility of conceptual continuity through change. We then lay out the details of a Wittgenstein-inspired, bottom-up alternative. Key to this approach is to think of WOMAN as family-resemblance concept. It is argued that this approach is better suited than its Carnapian counterpart to account for conceptual continuity through change, and for its ability to include transwomen within that category. It is claimed that the proposed account of conceptual continuity through change depends on changes actual practices and is thus both descriptively more adequate and politically preferable to a top-down approach. We then consider the externalist credentials of this approach, as well as its bearing onto the proper understanding of the interplay between concepts and stereotypes. By drawing on a reconfiguration of the concept of HERMENEUTICAL INJUSTICE, a case is then made in favor of the proposed account of WOMAN, based on its being less susceptible of giving rise to forms of hermeneutical injustice against transwomen. Moreover, drawing on the role of hinges as norms of evidential significance and, in some cases, as meaning-constitutive norms, the proposed account of WOMAN is analyzed as a case of hinge change. The chapter closes with a section on the relationship between Wittgenstein’s philosophical quietism, activism and role of imagination in philosophy and politics. Please let me know if there is anything else you need from me at this point.
Bio
Professor Annalisa Coliva is Inclusive Excellence Professor, in the Department of Philosophy at the University of California, Irvine. She is the author of Moore and Wittgenstein. Skepticism, Certainty and Common Sense (2010), Extended Rationality. A Hinge Epistemology (2015), Wittgenstein Rehinged (2022), Relativism (with M. Baghramian, 2020), Skepticism (with D. Pritchard, 2022).