Contemporary Issues in Ontology and Social Ontology

Ontology is currently booming in philosophy, and social ontology is especially booming—it is one of the fastest-growing subfields in philosophy.  Moreover, it is becoming one of the most important subfields in philosophy.  Philosophers are becoming increasingly interested in real-world problems and in how their discipline is relevant to these problems.  The recent explosion of interest in social ontology is part of a movement in philosophy to come down out of the ivory tower and engage with issues that actually matter—issues concerning, e.g., race and gender and social justice.

As social ontology investigates issues related to social structure, power, oppression, identity, decoloniality, and the metaphysics of race and class, it is often emancipatory, aiming not only to describe social reality but to transform it in order to bring about greater social justice.  Social ontology, then, is obviously important for understanding historical and contemporary issues in the Global South, which has a much higher percentage of non-white, working-class, and disempowered people, relative to the Global North. 

Ontology is a very broad area of philosophy, and the sub-area of social ontology is also very broad. It encompasses many different philosophical issues and questions and problems. This course will introduce students to ontology, and in particular to social ontology, by delving deeply into numerous important issues in the field.  Specific topics covered in the course will include the following: social justice, social construction, social constructionism, groups, and social structures, ideal vs. non-ideal social ontology, social power, essentialism as it relates to social groups and genders, issues related to mental health and moral responsibility, social theories of art, rationality, mental content, and issues in meta-social-ontology.