ISBN : 9780198822486
Ron Mallon explores how thinking and talking about kinds of person can bring those kinds into being. He considers what normative implications this social constructionism has for our understanding of our practices of representing human kinds, like race, gender, and sexual orientation, and for our own agency.
List of Figures
Introduction
Part I. Constructing Human Kinds
1. Constructing and Constraining Representations: Was Race Thinking Invented the Modern West?
2. Constructing Categories: Concepts, Actions, and Social Roles
3. Social Roles that Matter
4. Representation and Moral Hazard
5. Performance, Self-Eplanation, and Agency
Part II. Realizing Social Construction
6. Social Construction and Reality
7. Achieving Stability
8. Achieving Reference
Part III. Conclusion
9. Alternatives and Implications
Acknowledgments
Bibliography
Index of Names
Index of Subjects