Gender: Language and Metaphysics (GLAM)

• Applicant: Dr. Viktoria Knoll
• Subject Area: Theoretical Philosophy
• Term: since 2026
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 558952889

The topic of gender is widely discussed. From the perspective of theoretical philosophy, however, much remains unclear about what it means to be, for example, a woman, a man, agender, or bigender. Moreover, the question of how we should analyse our language and discourse about gender remains open. On the one hand, this is surprising. There is a clear and growing public and academic interest in the subject, and theoretical philosophy, with its rich tradition in metaphysics and philosophy of language, is well equipped to address these issues. On the other hand, analytic philosophers have only recently begun to explore feminist issues in theoretical philosophy, and the topic of gender presents its own fascinating metaphysical and linguistic challenges. For example, women come from different economic, social, and cultural backgrounds, are of different races, and have different physical abilities. It seems unclear whether metaphysicians can identify a commonality among all women. Recent internalist accounts suggest that the answer may lie in an inner orientation to the world – a gender identity; variantists about gender terms suggest that the term “woman” is semantically ambiguous or context-sensitive. The project ‘Gender: Language and Metaphysics’ (GLAM) seeks to develop an integrated, metaphysically sound, and analytically precise theory of gender with a strong focus on the normative dimensions of the phenomenon. As the title suggests, GLAM explores issues in philosophy of language and metaphysics. A working hypothesis is that expectations play a crucial but underexplored role in understanding gender, both at the level of metaphysics and language (e.g., within an expressivist semantic framework). One of GLAM’s goals, therefore, is to provide a detailed analysis of the nature and rationality of expectations. Specifically, the project will explore the hypothesis that a person is a woman (in at least one important sense of the term “woman”) if she normatively expects to be treated according to what she considers to be the relevant social norms for women.

• DFG Programme: Emmy Noether Independent Junior Research Groups