This book is an introduction to metaphysics. It presupposes no previous acquaintance with
philosophy, and addresses the following questions: What is metaphysics? Is there a plurality …

Gender classifications often are controversial. These controversies typically focus on
whether gender classifications align with facts about gender kind membership: Could …

Feminist metaphysics is guided by the insight that gender is socially constructed, yet the
metaphysics behind social construction remains obscure. Barnes and Mikkola charge that …

Metaphysics is the study of the basic structure of reality, of what there is and what it is like. It
considers, for example, concepts such as identity, causation, substance, and kind, that seem …

Social problems such as racism, sexism, and inequality are often cited as structural rather
than individual in nature. What does it mean to invoke a social structural explanation, and …

In this project I am concerned with the extent to which conceptual engineering happens in
domains outside of philosophy, and if so, what that might look like. Specifically, I'll argue that …

Explanation comes in many forms. Scientific explanations typically concern the natural
world, and typically proceed by citing causes of natural phenomena or subsuming them …

According to Sider, a question is metaphysically substantive just in case it has a single most
natural answer. Recently, Barnes and Mikkola have argued that, given this notion of …

The goal of this paper is to make headway on a metaphysics of social construction. In recent
work (forthcoming), I've argued that social construction should be understood in terms of …

There is a widespread sentiment that social objects such as nation-states, borders, and
pieces of money are just figments of our collective imagination and not really 'out there'in the …