PHI 8710-002: Analytic Social Ontology

Fall 2018
CRN: 23925

Time: R 2:30 – 5:00 pm

Location: White Hall 115

Instructor: Georg Theiner

Email: [email protected]
Phone: (610) 519-3286
Office Hours: T 9:30 – 11:00 in SAC 172
(or by appointment)

COURSE DESCRIPTION
In this course, we survey recent work in social metaphysics within the analytic tradition, with
the goal of gaining deeper insight into the ontology of the social world – conceived broadly to
include facts about social objects (United Nations, #MeToo Movement), kinds and properties
(mayor, unemployed), events and processes (Olympic Games, Brexit), states and relations
(groupthink, oppression), institutions (family, prison), practices (helicopter parenting,
potlucks), actions and attitudes (class-action lawsuits, collective intentionality), and artifacts
(money, peer-to-peer networks). The metaphysical investigation of these facts is unified by a
common theme: how exactly are individual people related to the social world? In what sense
do they depend on one another, and the material and symbolic environments which they
inhabit? In recent years, philosophers in the analytic tradition have developed a variety of
frameworks and tools for thinking about these questions. In the first half of the course, we
sneak up on our theme by considering two widely held “standard” views about social ontology:
a) the view that social entities are “made up” of interacting people, in possibly emergent ways,
much like traffic being made up of cars; and b) the view that social entities are rooted in
“collective projections” of our attitudes onto the non-social world, such as certain pieces of
paper being treated as dollar bills. After raising a host of problems for these views, we then
work through an alternative “non-anthropocentric” view of social ontology as proposed by
Brian Epstein and others.

In the second half of the course, we turn our attention to the ontology of social construction.
Over the past few decades, the list of things that have been said to be “socially constructed”
has expanded tremendously. Although these claims are made in different contexts, and
different disciplines, a central thrust of social-constructionist explanations is to call into
question the presumption that “the way things are” – e.g., concerning gender, race, disability –
is fixed by the natural world, including human nature. By revealing how certain seemingly
“natural” categories and distinctions are in fact produced by unacknowledged parts of the social
world, social constructionists aim to show that they are not exempted from critique, and
identify levers for ameliorative social change. Despite yielding important insights, the sheer

1
diversity in how the term “social construction” is used, and what it is taken to imply, has
produced much confusion and heated debates over the import and scope of social-
constructionist claims (cf. the “science wars”). In our course, we strive to disentangle some of
these conceptual knots, first by considering the vexed history of the term, and by distinguishing
types and grades of social construction. We then examine the thesis – defended by Sally
Haslanger, Ron Mallon, and others – that important varieties of social constructionism, without
losing their critical edge, are compatible with significant forms of realism, objectivism about
social kinds, and philosophical naturalism. In doing so, we also draw on extant work in
psychology, cognitive science, and the philosophy of language to shed light on the plurality of
mechanisms by which socially constructed kinds are produced and sustained. This will prompt
a general reflection on the relationship between (what one might call) explanation-driven and
justice-driven social metaphysics.

READINGS
• Epstein, Brian (2015). The Ant Trap. Rebuilding the Foundations of the Social
Sciences. Oxford University Press [AT]
• Hacking, Ian (1999). The Social Construction of What? Harvard University Press
[SCW]
• Haslanger, Sally (2012). Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique.
Oxford University Press [RR]
• Mallon, Ron (2016). The Construction of Human Kinds. Oxford University Press
[CHK]
• Searle, John (2010). Making the Social World. Oxford University Press [MSW]
• Tollefsen, Deborah (2015). Groups as Agents. Polity Press [GA]
• Wilson, Robert (ms.), Relative Beings. [RB]

Additional readings will be made available through Zotero (http://www.zotero.org/). Zotero

is a free, easy-to-use, and open-source reference management software to collect, organize,
cite, and share bibliographic resources. One of Zotero’s most notable features is that it
automatically detects content in your web browser, allowing you to add items to your
personal library with a single click. Imagine that – no more typing to get all that content into
your bibliographies! So please, go ahead and install Zotero now before you read any further.
Further below, I will say more about how we are going to use Zotero in this course.

COURSE SCHEDULE

Introduction: Analytic Social Ontology – How did we get here?

• Epstein, AT, “Introduction”
08/30 • Epstein, AT, Chapter 1: “Individualism: A Recipe for Warding Off ‘Spirits’”
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 2: “Getting to the Consensus View”
• Schmitt (2003), “Socializing Metaphysics: An Introduction”
Getting to the Consensus View I: Individualism vs. Collectivism
09/06
• Watkins (1957), “Historical Explanations in the Social Sciences”

2
 • Miller (1978), “Methodological Individualism and Social Explanation”
• Pettit (1993), The Common Mind, Part II, Preview and Chapter 3, “For
Individualism and Against Collectivism”
Getting to the Consensus View II: Sawyer’s NRI
• Sawyer (2002, 2003), “Non-Reductive Individualism”, Parts I-II
09/13
• Sawyer (2005), Social Emergence, Chapter 10: “The Emergence Paradigm”
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 3: “Seeds of Doubt”
Getting to the Consensus View III: Searle’s Constructionism
• Searle, MSW, Chapter 1: “The Purpose of This Book”
• Searle, MSW, Chapter 5: “The General Theory of Institutions and
09/20
Institutional Facts: Language and Social Reality”
• Searle, MSW, Chapter 7: “Power: Deontic, Background, Political, and Other”
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 4: “Another Puzzle: A Competing Consensus”
Foundations I – Epstein
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 5: “Tools and Terminology”
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 6: “Grounding and Anchoring”
• *Epstein, AT, Chapter 7: “Case Study: Laws as Frame Principles”
09/27
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 8: “Two Kinds of Individualism”
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 9: “Against Conjunctivism”
• *Epstein (2014), “How Many Kinds of Glue Hold the Social World
Together?”
Foundations II – Epstein
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 10: “Groups and Constitution”
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 11: “Simple Facts About Groups”
10/04 • Epstein, AT, Chapter 12: “The Identity of Groups”
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 13: “Kinds of Groups”
• Epstein, AT, Chapter 14: “Group Attitudes: Patterns of Grounding”
• Bourdieu, “The Family Spirit” (Appendix to Practical Reason)
Getting to the Consensus View IV: Group Agency
• *Tollefsen, GA, Chapter 1: Group Belief
• *Tollefsen, GA, Chapter 2: Group Intention
10/11
• *Tollefsen, GA, Chapter 3: Group Agency
• *Tollefsen, GA, Chapter 4: Group Cognition
• *Tollefsen, GA, Chapter 5: Interpreting Groups
10/18 No class (Fall recess)
Foundations III – Group Agency and Responsibility
• Schneewind (1984), “The Divine Corporation and the History of Ethics”
10/25
• *Shapiro (2012), “Massively Shared Agency”
• *Tollefsen, GA, Chapter 6: The Moral Responsibility of Groups

3
 • Epstein, AT: Remainder (selections)
Social Construction I – Hacking
• Hacking, SCW, Preface
• Hacking, SCW, Chapter 1: “Why Ask What?”
• Hacking, SCW, Chapter 2: “Too Many Metaphors”
11/01 • Hacking, SCW, Chapter 3: “What about the Natural Sciences?”
• Hacking, SCW, Chapter 4: “Madness: Biological or Constructed?”
• NY Times Article: “Bruno Latour, the Post-Truth Philosopher, Mounts a
Defense of Science” (https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/25/magazine/bruno-
latour-post-truth-philosopher-science.html)
Social Construction II – Fuller (Special Guest: Steve Fuller)
• Fuller, “Science and Technology Studies and the Philosophy of Social
Sciences”
• Remedios & Dusek, Knowing Humanity in the Social World: The Path of
11/08
Steve Fuller’s Social Epistemology [selections]
• Chapter 2, “Fuller on Science and Technology Studies”
• Chapter 3, “Fuller’s Social Epistemology and Epistemic Agency”
• Chapter 4, “The University and Interdisciplinarity”
Social Construction III – Haslanger A
• Haslanger, RR, Introduction
11/15 • Haslanger, RR, Chapter 2: “Ontology and Social Construction”
• Haslanger, RR, Chapter 6: “Social Construction: Myth and Reality”
• *Khalidi (2013), “Three Kinds of Social Kinds”
11/22 No class (Thanksgiving)
Social Construction III – Haslanger B
• Haslanger, RR, Chapter 7: “Gender and Race: (What) Are They? (What) Do
We Want Them to Be?”
11/29 • *Sveinsdóttir (2011), “The Metaphysics of Sex and Gender”
• *Haslanger, RR, Chapter 9: “You Mixed? Racial Identity without Racial
Biology”
• *Haslanger, RR, Chapter 11: “Oppressions: Racial and Other”
Social Construction IV – Mallon
• Mallon, CHK, Introduction
• Mallon, CHK, Chapter 1: “Constructing and Constraining Representations:
Was Race Thinking Invented in the Modern West?”
12/06 • Mallon, CHK, Chapter 3: “Social Roles that Matter” (selections)
• *Mallon, CHK, Chapter 4: “Representation and Moral Hazard”
• *Mallon, CHK, Chapter 5: “Performance, Self-Explanation, and Agency”
• *Chwe (2001/2013), Rational Ritual: Culture, Coordination, and Common
Knowledge (Introduction, Appendix)

4
 Social Construction V – Wilson
• Wilson, RB, Part 1: Relations (background reading)
• Wilson, RB, Part 2: Kinship
• Wilson, RB, Chapter 5: “Kinship Past, Kinship Present, and Schneider’s
12/13
Critique”
• Wilson, RB, Chapter 6: “Reconsidering Bio-Essentialism”
• Wilson, RB, Chapter 7: “Problems for Performativism”
• Wilson, RB, Chapter 8: “Kinship, Sociality, and Normativity”

This course schedule is tentative; deviations may be necessary. I will use email for course
announcements, so please check your inbox on a regular basis.

CONDUCT OF THE COURSE

I plan to run the course in the manner of a typical graduate seminar, with a modicum of
lecture, interspersed student presentations, and heavy doses of discussion. I propose that we
split the 2.5 hours of our seminar into two parts, with a break of ~15 minutes after about 1
hour and 15 minutes.

ZOTERO
I have created a seminar library (“SEM Analytic Social Ontology”) in our Villanova group on
Zotero. For now, the status of the group is set as private, which means that the group pages
can only be seen and modified by invited group members. If you are not a member yet, please
let me know, and I will send you an invitation. The seminar library contains the following
collections:
• Handouts: This folder contains all handouts that I prepare for this class, as well as
handouts from student presentations.
• Readings: This folder contains all assigned readings in addition to our book list. I will
probably add a few more required or recommended readings as we go along.
• Resources: This folder links to a variety of useful resources related to the topic of
collective intentionality. I am counting on you to build this folder into a more
comprehensive reference point, by adding further items of interest.
• Student Projects: This is the place where you will develop a bibliography for your
final paper project (see below). To create your own folder, named after you, click on
“Student Projects,” then right-click and choose “New Subcollection…”
• Syllabus

COURSE REQUIREMENTS
Seminar participants are expected to 1) actively participate in class meetings, 2) submit
weekly commentaries on the assigned readings, 3) present course material and lead our class
discussion on two occasions, 4) compile a Zotero bibliography of ~20 items on a thematic
that foreshadows the topic of your term paper project, 5) hand in a 1-2 page outline of your
term paper, and 6) write a final research paper.

5
1) Class engagement
Philosophy invites people to engage in dialogue, so you are strongly encouraged to speak up
in our meetings. All seminar participants are expected to keep up with the assigned readings,
and come to class fully prepared. If there is a foreseeable reason you will miss class, please
notify me well ahead of our meeting.

Special knowledge. Among us will be people who are very knowledgeable about other
traditions, fields, areas, discourses, and philosophers that have made great contributions to
our understanding of social ontology, but which we (at least, I) won’t be able to cover in this
seminar. (“From Hobbes to Hume, Comte to Mill, Herder to Durkheim, and Marx to von
Mises, theories of the social world abound,” as Epstein (p.8) reminds us.) I strongly
encourage everyone to contribute their special knowledge where it is applicable. The great
diversity of expertise which we collectively bring to the table is potentially the greatest asset
in this seminar. If you do bring up more specialized points, please try to explain them, as
much as this is possible, in a manner that is accessible to all of us. Do not assume that I or
any other participant is as knowledgeable as you are in your particular areas of expertise.

2) Weekly commentaries and reaction pieces

Participants are required to write either a one-page commentary on the assigned readings in
advance of our meetings, or a reaction piece of roughly the same length on a commentary
previously made (by yourself or someone else). In a given week, you only have to do one or
the other; over the course of the semester, your number of contributions in each category
should be evenly matched. Of course, you are strongly encouraged to take into consideration
and refer to each other’s postings in all of your contributions. Because we all know how
overwhelmingly busy life can get sometimes, you are exempted from submitting anything for
a few meetings of your choice. As your total, aim for 5 commentaries and 5 reaction pieces
(= 10 contributions). Please submit all your contributions using the discussion board located
on the content page of our course shell in BlackBoard, at https://elearning.villanova.edu/.
Following the discussion board should always be considered as part of the reading
assignment. Your contributions will be graded on the board, on a scale from 1-5 ():

 = Unacceptable
 = Poor
 = Mediocre
 = Good
 = Outstanding

Do not be surprised or disappointed if the most common grade you will receive is “good” – I
reserve “outstanding” for truly exceptional, noteworthy contributions. The purpose of these
short writing assignments is for seminar participants to develop their own perspectives on the
readings, and to learn how to discuss other’s views insightfully and with tact. As E. M.
Forester said, “How can I know what I think until I see what I say [write]?”

6
The assignment is purposefully open-ended. Occasionally, I may ask a particular question, or
suggest a particular topic for discussion, but for the most part, it is up to you to select a topic
that relates to the readings in interesting ways. Do not try to summarize the readings, or
simply raise a bunch of generic questions. Instead, focus on a particular claim, assumption, or
inference that bears directly on the main topic at hand. Say why you agree or disagree, and
offer specific questions, comments or criticisms. Alternatively, you may find that an article
leaves out important aspects of a topic you would like to highlight for us. Generally speaking,
I suggest that you focus on one or two specific issues that you can reasonably hope to address
within a single page, rather than ‘sound off’ about a plethora of unrelated issues. You should
post your commentaries no later than Tuesday at 12:30pm.

3) Student presentations
Every participant is required to give two presentations over the course of the semester, and
lead the ensuing discussion. In your presentation, you should briefly recapitulate the main
points of the readings for which you are responsible, and perhaps bring in outside sources that
might help to deepen our understanding of the material. You should assume that everybody
has read the material, so do not try to summarize all of it in detail. Rather, focus on a handful
of issues that are central to the overall argument, or expand on specific passages to highlight
a key point. Always bear in mind that the main purpose of these presentations is to open up
subsequent class discussion. The use of handouts, PowerPoint slides, and online resources
(e.g., websites or brief video clips) to enhance your presentation is strongly encouraged. As
part of your presentation, you should also try to voice potential objections, and consider how
one might reply to them.
Usually, a presentation will last around 10-12 minutes, so please be concise.
Afterwards, you are expected to lead the ensuing discussion which your presentation is meant
to stimulate. I will take on this role for the first few meetings and several other times during
the semester. Occasionally we may simply have a free discussion of the readings. In the
course schedule above, I have marked readings that are candidates for student presentations
with an asterisk (*). A single presentation typically covers a single article or book chapter.
Presentation topics will be assigned at the beginning of our second meeting (September 6).
All readings are available on Zotero for your perusal.

4) Compiling a Zotero bibliography

Over the course of the semester, you are asked to compile a Zotero bibliography of ~20
scholarly items on a thematic that foreshadows the topic of your term paper project. The
thematic scope of your bibliography is likely to be broader than the topic on which you are
eventually going to write, but significantly more specialized than our course topic. Besides
helping you to hone in on a topic for your term paper, any material you add will be fully
searchable and thus potentially useful for all of us. Whenever you add an item, I recommend
that you tag its content with a few standard keywords. You should compile your bibliography
directly within Zotero, but then please export the data into a Word document, and send me
the email. Your bibliography is due at the end of the week after Thanksgiving (December 3).

5) Producing an outline of your final paper

7
Your outline is due on the day of our final meeting, December 13, but preferably earlier
which will give me more time to provide you with useful feedback. The outline, which
should fit on 1-2 pages, should contain: (a) a clearly stated thesis; (b) a description of how
you are going to argue for your thesis, (c) a description of how your paper will be organized;
(d) a short annotated list of the most relevant literature you are going to use. You are
encouraged to meet with me earlier in the semester to discuss your ideas.

6) Writing a final paper

The final course requirement is to write a research paper (~6,000 words). The deadline for
your final paper is February 1, 2019. The process of academic writing, which starts with an
outline that goes through multiple drafts before it eventually becomes a polished paper, can
be quite challenging. Philosopher Steven Mumford has developed a useful step-wise method
to facilitate this process:
https://sites.google.com/site/stephendmumford/the-mumford-method

Research Support. Nikolaus Fogle is the Philosophy Liaison Librarian at Falvey. He is

available for research consultations at any stage of your project, and can be reached at
[email protected] or (610) 519-5182.

GRADES
Your final grades will reflect the quality of your work in all six areas identified above. The
typical requirements for different grades can be broken down as follows:
• A: 10 good or outstanding commentaries and/or reaction pieces. Strong presentation
and consistently active, thoughtful class participation. Excellent bibliography and
well-structured paper outline. Strong final paper.
• B: Good commentaries in most weeks. Good presentation, and regular class
participation. Useful bibliography and coherent paper outline. Good final paper.
• C: Poor, mediocre, or no commentaries in most weeks. Occasional class participation
and lackluster presentation. Unhelpful bibliography and unclear paper outline.
Mediocre final paper.

RULES AND POLICIES

Academic Integrity. All students are expected to uphold Villanova’s Academic Integrity
Policy and Code. Any incident of academic dishonesty will typically result in an “F” for the
assignment and will be reported to the appropriate university officials. See the statement of
the full policy on the Graduate Arts and Sciences website. You can view the Academic
Integrity Policy and Code, as well as other useful information related to writing papers, at the
Academic Integrity Gateway web site: http://library.villanova.edu/Help/AcademicIntegrity

Office of Disabilities and Learning Support Services: Students with disabilities who
require academic accommodations should schedule an appointment to discuss specifics with
me. It is the policy of Villanova to make reasonable academic accommodations for qualified
individuals with disabilities. You must present verification and register with the Learning

8
Support Office by contacting 610-519-5176 or [email protected]. For
physical access or temporary disabling conditions, please contact the Office of Disability
Services at 610-519-4095 or email [email protected]. Registration is
needed in order to receive accommodations.

Use of laptops, cell phones, and other electronic devices. You are free to use your laptop to
take notes and for other classroom-related activities, but please refrain from pursuing
unrelated activities such as browsing the internet, or checking your email. All cell phones
should be turned off for the duration of the class.

Concerns about grades. When graded material is returned to you, it is your responsibility to
make sure you understand exactly why you received the grade that you were given. If you do
not understand, please make an appointment to meet with me in person so we can discuss
your concerns. Under no circumstances will your grade be lowered as a result of this process.

USEFUL RESOURCES
In our seminar folder on Zotero (“SEM Analytic Social Ontology”) you can find a collection
of online sources (“Resources”) that I will regularly update. In addition, you may also want to
consult the relevant Zotero folders from my previously taught seminars, “SEM Group
Agency” and “SEM Collective Intentionality”. Here are a few resources you may find
particularly useful.
Overviews and Enhanced Bibliography
• Epstein, Brian, “Social Ontology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018
Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL =
<https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/social-ontology/>.
o Supplement: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/social-ontology/history.html
o Linked bibliography: https://philpapers.org/sep/social-ontology/
Internet Resources
• International Social Ontology Society, organization supporting conferences and
publications in social ontology, with links to resources.
o https://isosonline.org/
• European Network for the Philosophy of the Social Sciences, sponsor of
conferences in philosophy of the social sciences, with links to events.
o http://enposs.eu/
• Philosophy of Social Science Roundtable, forum for philosophers and social
scientists working in philosophy of the social sciences, including the ontology and
epistemology of social science.
o http://www.poss-rt.net/
• Journal of Social Ontology, interdisciplinary journal dedicated to social ontology
and collective intentionality.
o https://www.degruyter.com/view/j/jso
• Philosophy of the Social Sciences, journal for research on the philosophical
foundations of the social sciences.
o http://journals.sagepub.com/home/pos

9
• Center for Social Ontology, website maintained in conjunction with the Centre for
Critical Realism
o http://socialontology.org/

10