Sally Haslanger (; born 1955) is an American

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and the Ford Professor of

Philosophy Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

in the Department of Linguistics and Philosophy at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of moder ...

. Haslanger earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy from the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

in 1985. She has taught at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private university, private Ivy League research university in Princeton, New Jersey, United States. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth, New Jersey, Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the List of Colonial ...

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

and University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Haslanger is particularly famous for her work on

social Social organisms, including human(s), live collectively in interacting populations. This interaction is considered social whether they are aware of it or not, and whether the exchange is voluntary or not. Etymology The word "social" derives fro ...

and

political theory Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and legitimacy of political institutions, such as states. This field investigates different forms of government, ranging from d ...

feminism Feminism is a range of socio-political movements and ideology, ideologies that aim to define and establish the political, economic, personal, and social gender equality, equality of the sexes. Feminism holds the position that modern soci ...

, and philosophy of gender and race.

Biography

Prof. Haslanger graduated from

Reed College Reed College is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Portland, Oregon, United States. Founded in 1908, Reed is a residential college with a campus in the Eastmoreland, Portland, Oregon, E ...

in 1977 with a BA in philosophy, and earned her Ph.D. in Philosophy in 1985 from the

. Haslanger was selected as the 2011 Carus Lecturer by the

American Philosophical Association The American Philosophical Association (APA) is the main professional organization for philosophers in the United States. Founded in 1900, its mission is to promote the exchange of ideas among philosophers, to encourage creative and scholarl ...

. The Society for Women in Philosophy named her a 2010 Distinguished Woman Philosopher, citing her as one of the "best analytic feminists" in the United States. Haslanger was the president of the Eastern Division of the

and was elected to the

American Academy of Arts & Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (The Academy) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, and other F ...

in 2015. In 2018, she was awarded a

Guggenheim Fellowship Guggenheim Fellowships are Grant (money), grants that have been awarded annually since by the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, endowed by the late Simon Guggenheim, Simon and Olga Hirsh Guggenheim. These awards are bestowed upon indiv ...

. She co-edits the online publication ''Symposia on Gender, Race and Philosophy''. She held the 2015 Spinoza Chair of Philosophy at the

University of Amsterdam The University of Amsterdam (abbreviated as UvA, ) is a public university, public research university located in Amsterdam, Netherlands. Established in 1632 by municipal authorities, it is the fourth-oldest academic institution in the Netherlan ...

. In 2023, Sally Haslanger gave the Walter Benjamin lectures hosted by the

Humboldt University The Humboldt University of Berlin (, abbreviated HU Berlin) is a public university, public research university in the central borough of Mitte in Berlin, Germany. The university was established by Frederick William III of Prussia, Frederick W ...

in Berlin. She is married to fellow MIT philosopher

Stephen Yablo Stephen Yablo (; born 1957) is a Canadian-born American philosopher. He is the Emeritus David W. Skinner Professor of Philosophy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and taught previously at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He ...

Philosophical work

Haslanger has published in

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

, feminist metaphysics,

epistemology Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowle ...

feminist theory Feminist theory is the extension of feminism into theoretical, fictional, or Philosophy, philosophical discourse. It aims to understand the nature of gender inequality. It examines women's and men's Gender role, social roles, experiences, intere ...

ancient philosophy This page lists some links to ancient philosophy, namely philosophical thought extending as far as early post-classical history (). Overview Genuine philosophical thought, depending upon original individual insights, arose in many cultures ro ...

, and social and

political philosophy Political philosophy studies the theoretical and conceptual foundations of politics. It examines the nature, scope, and Political legitimacy, legitimacy of political institutions, such as State (polity), states. This field investigates different ...

. She writes that much of her work has focused on persistence through change; objectivity and objectification; and Catharine MacKinnon's theory of

gender Gender is the range of social, psychological, cultural, and behavioral aspects of being a man (or boy), woman (or girl), or third gender. Although gender often corresponds to sex, a transgender person may identify with a gender other tha ...

. She has done work on the social construction of categories often considered to be natural kinds, particularly race and gender. A collection of her major papers on these topics appeared as ''Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique'' (Oxford University Press, 2012) which won the Joseph B. Gittler Award of the

in 2014. This prize is given for an outstanding scholarly contribution in the field of the philosophy of one or more of the social sciences.

Definition of gender

One of Haslanger's most influential notions is her analytic definition of 'woman'. Her definition is as follows:

S is a woman iff_df S is systematically subordinated along some dimension (economic, political, legal, social, etc.), and S is "marked" as a target for this treatment by observed or imagined bodily features presumed to be evidence of a female’s biological role in reproduction.

Criticisms have been made on the marginalization of trans women within the definition (Katharine Jenkins), and the possibility of the Queen of The United Kingdom not being considered a 'woman' by the definition ().

Published works

* ''Theorizing Feminisms: A Reader'' (co-edited with Elizabeth Hackett), Oxford University Press, 2005. * ''Adoption Matters: Philosophical and Feminist Essays'' (co-edited with Charlotte Witt), Cornell University Press, 2005. * ''Persistence: Contemporary Readings'' (co-edited with Roxanne Marie Kurtz), MIT Press, 2006. * ''Resisting Reality: Social Construction and Social Critique'', Oxford University Press, 2012. * ''Critical Theory and Practice'', Koninklijke Van Gorcum, 2017.

References

External links

* *
Academia.edu profile
*
An in-depth autobiographical interview with Sally Haslanger
{{DEFAULTSORT:Haslanger, Sally 20th-century American philosophers 21st-century American philosophers American feminists American political philosophers Analytic philosophers American epistemologists Scholars of feminist philosophy Feminist studies scholars Living people MIT School of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences faculty American metaphysicians American philosophers of language Reed College alumni Social constructionism American social philosophers University of California, Berkeley alumni American women philosophers Presidents of the American Philosophical Association University of Michigan faculty 1955 births 20th-century American women 21st-century American women