Last week, while driving in Ketchum, Idaho, I was pulled over for speeding (driving 36 mph in a 25-mph zone.) The traffic stop proceeded along expected lines: the police car switched on its flashing red and blue lights as it sidled up behind me, I pulled over to the side of the road, the policemanContinue reading “Getting Pulled Over; A Teachable Moment”
Tag Archives: social construction
Neil deGrasse Tyson And The Perils Of Facile Reductionism
You know the shtick by now–or at least, twitterers and tweeters do. Every few weeks, Neil deGrasse Tyson, one of America’s most popular public ‘scientific’ intellectuals, decides that it is time to describe some social construct in scientific language to show how ‘arbitrary’ and ‘made-up’ it all is–compared to the sheer factitude, the amazing reality-groundedContinue reading “Neil deGrasse Tyson And The Perils Of Facile Reductionism”
A Persistent Difficulty In Teaching Philosophy Of Law
This semester, I’m teaching Philosophy of Law–again. My syllabus, as always, is a new one, and reflects an altered orientation and focus from those of days past. The current edition is fairly simple: it kicks off with Lon Fuller‘s ‘The Case of the Speluncean Explorers,’ excerpts from H. L. A Hart‘s The Concept of Law,Continue reading “A Persistent Difficulty In Teaching Philosophy Of Law”
Nietzsche’s Inversion Of Natural Law In The Genealogy Of Morals
The radically constructive nature of legal and economic concepts emerges quite clearly in the brilliant second essay of The Genealogy of Morals. Here, Nietzsche sets out his view of how the concept of a contract creates persons, how the ethical subject is not found but made. For Nietzsche, the law, a set of human practices,Continue reading “Nietzsche’s Inversion Of Natural Law In The Genealogy Of Morals”
Property As Legal Construct
Property appears an abstract, transcendent, metaphysical concept from afar but on closer inspection reveals itself to be legally constructed. Like ‘person,’ property obtains its philosophical traction from a legal, economic, and social imperative to distribute resources, and thus, wealth and power. As a canonical legal textbook puts it, the “property system” that results from aContinue reading “Property As Legal Construct”
Academic Arguments, Sports, and Urban Policing as ‘War’
In the introduction to The Social Construction of What? Ian Hacking writes: Labels such as ‘‘the culture wars,’’ ‘‘the science wars,’’ or ‘‘the Freud wars’’ are now widely used to refer to some of the disagreements that plague contemporary intellectual life. I will continue to employ those labels, from time to time, in this book, for my themesContinue reading “Academic Arguments, Sports, and Urban Policing as ‘War’”
Babies and Gender Construction
When I look at my daughter, my baby girl, I don’t detect her gender. I am aware of her sex, for it was announced to me, rather loudly and emphatically, by nurses and surgeons, when she was born, ‘It’s a girl!’ I am aware of her sex too, when I change her diapers. Other thanContinue reading “Babies and Gender Construction”
Samir Chopra 