This project will provide the conceptual foundations for a longer-term and in-depth philosophical research on the nature of gender and sexual orientations. In this research, Dr Tripodi's aim is to clarify, develop and defend - from a philosophical point o f view - an
account of gender categories as "social kinds", as opposed to "natural kinds". Recently some
philosophers have become interested in the question of what it means to say that an
objectivist account of sexed identity is possible, and more import antly, what kind of evidence
can be used in order to argue that humans are differentiated sexually as women and as men.
The metaphysical question of gender is whether our gender classifications capture a natural
kind and a uniform type (a common essence w hich a group may share) or a social kind (a
unity without an underlying essence). There is genuine philosophical disagreement about this.
According to the realist, humans are differentiated sexually as the woman/man dichotomy
exists in reality. By contras t, nominalists hold that this is not the case: the world by itself
can't tell us what gender is and humans create categories of sexual preference and behaviour
just like they create many other categories. The main goal of this project is to offer a view o f
gender categories as characterized by the following two theses: (i) there is not an objective
basis for gender distinction; (ii) sexed entities are not objective types.