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

Abstract

AbstractIn 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.