Social Ontology

Social ontology is the philosophical study of the nature and properties of the social world. Language plays a seemingly key role in explicating how social kinds come into being and are set up. Nonetheless, surprisingly little has been written about the precise role of language in social ontology and how we should understand the constructive force of language. The chapter addresses this issue. More specifically, the chapter considers two more detailed questions: (1) How is it that language figures in explicating the existence of social entities? (2) How is it that language shapes the nature of social entities? Here I offer some tentative answers to these questions, hence providing a clarification of the connection between language and sociality. The discussion largely focuses on feminist discussions in social ontology that deal with gender terms and kinds by way of illustration.