Awesome interview, and well titled: “Silencing Thought”, indeed. Many thanks.
But you all covered a lot of ground – far too much to respond to in a single comment – and some fascinating and illuminating history, both the tangible and the philosophical. I may try to address a few other salient points in the conversation, but of particular note on the philosophical score was Heather’s more or less justified “defense” of Foucault, this bit (@22:41) in particular:
HB-E: “... that the point of [Foucault’s] writing was not to deconstruct everything so that we didn't have any ground to stand on. It was to deconstruct things so that the ground that we stood on was even stronger, that we are as agents, as conscious agents, we could reflect upon ourselves.”
Can’t say that I’ve read much of him or of others in the same school, but it seems that, in particular, it is perfectly justified to argue that ALL of our definitions are “socially constructed”. Moses didn’t bring the first dictionary down from Mt. Sinai on tablets A through Z – NO definitions qualify as gospel truth, although some are very much better than others. For a case of an ostensible and erstwhile reputable biological journal which seems unclear on that concept, see my open letter to “Cell” magazine which had asked, apparently in all seriousness, “Is ‘sex’ a useful category?”:
But that brings me to a closing comment of Heather’s (@1:03:18) which seems the crux of the whole matter – one which many clearly don’t want grapple with largely because, for many people and in Heather’s words, it “leaves a bit of an abyss beneath your feet” when one questions “conventional wisdom”, such as it is:
HB-E: “So the idea that masculinity is fixed and femininity is fixed, all that's different now is that you can have a boy's body be truly female inside and vice versa, and nobody explains what being truly female or truly male is.”
As Foucault suggested, and as my “First Dictionary” analogy hopefully underlines, there ARE absolutely NO definitions for the sexes, none whatsoever for “male” and “female”, that qualify as THE “one and only true, divine, inspired, fundamental, literal, real, one-dollar-the-bottle elixir of sweet-and-bleeding Jesus Christ and none genuine without this signature”. As Philip Wylie put it in his “Generation of Vipers” – highly recommended.
But we can define those categories, and all of the other ones that Heather referred to, any way we wish. And most of the hoi polloi seem not to have progressed much beyond those touted in the Kindergarten Cop movie: boys (males) have penises, and girls (females) have vaginas. If one has the former then one is a male, and if the latter then one is female – so help me Gawd. But, rather sadly if not quite depressingly, far too many so-called biologists and philosophers – grifters and scientific or philosophical illiterates at best – are peddling definitions that are only marginally better since they’re almost totally disconnected from the reproductive abilities that are foundational to all of biology.
Moot exactly what are the principles that undergird and motivate those definitions, although they’ve been published in reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries for at least the last 50 years so one would have thought they would have become commonplace by now. For examples, see:
“Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems.”
That is it. That is ALL that “male” and “female” MEAN to biologists, at least to those worth their salt: “produces gametes”; ergo, no gametes, no sex. Q.E.D.
But, rather sadly, certainly not “commonplace” for which “biology” and many philosophers of biology probably deserve a few lumps. Although, as illustrated by Heather’s case – and by Galileo’s and Darwin’s cases and those of too many other scientists and rationalists over the millennia – disabusing the hoi polloi of their delusions or “cognitive distortions” tends to be rather “career limiting” at best. However, with a bit of judicious reading between the lines, one might see a few of those principles glimmering behind those particular definitions, the Wikipedia article on taxonomy in particular:
Wikipedia: “In biology, taxonomy (from Ancient Greek τάξις (taxis) 'arrangement', and -νομία (-nomia) 'method') is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics.”
No doubt that that “naming based on shared characteristics” is part and parcel of defining categories in general, but it is clearly stated as a foundational principle in a significant subfield of biology and, maybe arguably, all of biology. Particularly as one would be hard pressed to find a more ubiquitous, and momentous, “shared characteristic” than “produces large or produces small gametes”. As evolutionary biologist, and transwoman, Joan Roughgarden put it in her Evolution’s Rainbow:
JR: “To a biologist, ‘male’ means making small gametes, and ‘female’ means making large gametes. Period! By definition, the smaller of the two gametes is called a sperm, and the larger an egg. Beyond gamete size, biologists don’t recognize any other universal difference between male and female.”
A universal – and defining – difference. And one that extends across literally millions of anisogamous species, and for the last billion years or so.
Unfortunately, far too many so-called biologists and philosophers rather dogmatically insist – trying to tell their grandmothers how to suck eggs – that “ ‘Making’ does not mean currently producing [yes, it does], but (something like) has the function to make …” I expect that, in response to Roughgarden’s assertion, something in the way of an “abyss” opened up under the feet of those making that rather bogus and quite unscientific claim.
But the thing there, the crux of the matter is that what is absolutely common across all those millions of species, and for the last billion years or so, has been the presence of two very different MECHANISMS for producing two fundamentally, morphologically, and functionally different types of gametes. Millions of different variations in all those millions of species – hormones, chromosomes – or their absence, genitalia, etc., etc. – but still two common, "shared", elements across all those species: two different mechanisms, two very different reproductive cycles. Which, many quite reasonably argue, are the proximate causes, directly or indirectly, for every last bit of sexual dimorphism on the planet.
But it is the presence of those mechanisms, at least in mainstream biology, that constitutes the “necessary and sufficient conditions” for any organism – of any of those millions of species, including the human one – to qualify as male or female. For some further justifications on making those mechanisms into the “essential” and defining properties, see my “Rerum cognoscere causas”:
No doubt one can come up with other definitions for the sexes. But then one has to contend with challenges from even less scientific quarters.
Kind think those biological definitions have to qualify as trump. Regardless of any “collateral damage”, or the distress that some might feel about that “abyss beneath their feet”.
Fabulous and important interview and discussion, thank you! I will share the link 👍❤️
Awesome interview, and well titled: “Silencing Thought”, indeed. Many thanks.
But you all covered a lot of ground – far too much to respond to in a single comment – and some fascinating and illuminating history, both the tangible and the philosophical. I may try to address a few other salient points in the conversation, but of particular note on the philosophical score was Heather’s more or less justified “defense” of Foucault, this bit (@22:41) in particular:
HB-E: “... that the point of [Foucault’s] writing was not to deconstruct everything so that we didn't have any ground to stand on. It was to deconstruct things so that the ground that we stood on was even stronger, that we are as agents, as conscious agents, we could reflect upon ourselves.”
Can’t say that I’ve read much of him or of others in the same school, but it seems that, in particular, it is perfectly justified to argue that ALL of our definitions are “socially constructed”. Moses didn’t bring the first dictionary down from Mt. Sinai on tablets A through Z – NO definitions qualify as gospel truth, although some are very much better than others. For a case of an ostensible and erstwhile reputable biological journal which seems unclear on that concept, see my open letter to “Cell” magazine which had asked, apparently in all seriousness, “Is ‘sex’ a useful category?”:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/is-sex-a-useful-category
But that brings me to a closing comment of Heather’s (@1:03:18) which seems the crux of the whole matter – one which many clearly don’t want grapple with largely because, for many people and in Heather’s words, it “leaves a bit of an abyss beneath your feet” when one questions “conventional wisdom”, such as it is:
HB-E: “So the idea that masculinity is fixed and femininity is fixed, all that's different now is that you can have a boy's body be truly female inside and vice versa, and nobody explains what being truly female or truly male is.”
As Foucault suggested, and as my “First Dictionary” analogy hopefully underlines, there ARE absolutely NO definitions for the sexes, none whatsoever for “male” and “female”, that qualify as THE “one and only true, divine, inspired, fundamental, literal, real, one-dollar-the-bottle elixir of sweet-and-bleeding Jesus Christ and none genuine without this signature”. As Philip Wylie put it in his “Generation of Vipers” – highly recommended.
But we can define those categories, and all of the other ones that Heather referred to, any way we wish. And most of the hoi polloi seem not to have progressed much beyond those touted in the Kindergarten Cop movie: boys (males) have penises, and girls (females) have vaginas. If one has the former then one is a male, and if the latter then one is female – so help me Gawd. But, rather sadly if not quite depressingly, far too many so-called biologists and philosophers – grifters and scientific or philosophical illiterates at best – are peddling definitions that are only marginally better since they’re almost totally disconnected from the reproductive abilities that are foundational to all of biology.
Moot exactly what are the principles that undergird and motivate those definitions, although they’ve been published in reputable biological journals, encyclopedias, and dictionaries for at least the last 50 years so one would have thought they would have become commonplace by now. For examples, see:
https://academic.oup.com/molehr/article/20/12/1161/1062990 (see the Glossary)
https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_3063-1
https://web.archive.org/web/20181020204521/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/female
https://web.archive.org/web/20190608135422/https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/male
https://twitter.com/pwkilleen/status/1039879009407037441 (Oxford Dictionary of Biology)
From the first source:
“Female: Biologically, the female sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the larger gametes in anisogamous systems.
Male: Biologically, the male sex is defined as the adult phenotype that produces the smaller gametes in anisogamous systems.”
That is it. That is ALL that “male” and “female” MEAN to biologists, at least to those worth their salt: “produces gametes”; ergo, no gametes, no sex. Q.E.D.
But, rather sadly, certainly not “commonplace” for which “biology” and many philosophers of biology probably deserve a few lumps. Although, as illustrated by Heather’s case – and by Galileo’s and Darwin’s cases and those of too many other scientists and rationalists over the millennia – disabusing the hoi polloi of their delusions or “cognitive distortions” tends to be rather “career limiting” at best. However, with a bit of judicious reading between the lines, one might see a few of those principles glimmering behind those particular definitions, the Wikipedia article on taxonomy in particular:
Wikipedia: “In biology, taxonomy (from Ancient Greek τάξις (taxis) 'arrangement', and -νομία (-nomia) 'method') is the scientific study of naming, defining (circumscribing) and classifying groups of biological organisms based on shared characteristics.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taxonomy_(biology)
No doubt that that “naming based on shared characteristics” is part and parcel of defining categories in general, but it is clearly stated as a foundational principle in a significant subfield of biology and, maybe arguably, all of biology. Particularly as one would be hard pressed to find a more ubiquitous, and momentous, “shared characteristic” than “produces large or produces small gametes”. As evolutionary biologist, and transwoman, Joan Roughgarden put it in her Evolution’s Rainbow:
JR: “To a biologist, ‘male’ means making small gametes, and ‘female’ means making large gametes. Period! By definition, the smaller of the two gametes is called a sperm, and the larger an egg. Beyond gamete size, biologists don’t recognize any other universal difference between male and female.”
A universal – and defining – difference. And one that extends across literally millions of anisogamous species, and for the last billion years or so.
Unfortunately, far too many so-called biologists and philosophers rather dogmatically insist – trying to tell their grandmothers how to suck eggs – that “ ‘Making’ does not mean currently producing [yes, it does], but (something like) has the function to make …” I expect that, in response to Roughgarden’s assertion, something in the way of an “abyss” opened up under the feet of those making that rather bogus and quite unscientific claim.
But the thing there, the crux of the matter is that what is absolutely common across all those millions of species, and for the last billion years or so, has been the presence of two very different MECHANISMS for producing two fundamentally, morphologically, and functionally different types of gametes. Millions of different variations in all those millions of species – hormones, chromosomes – or their absence, genitalia, etc., etc. – but still two common, "shared", elements across all those species: two different mechanisms, two very different reproductive cycles. Which, many quite reasonably argue, are the proximate causes, directly or indirectly, for every last bit of sexual dimorphism on the planet.
But it is the presence of those mechanisms, at least in mainstream biology, that constitutes the “necessary and sufficient conditions” for any organism – of any of those millions of species, including the human one – to qualify as male or female. For some further justifications on making those mechanisms into the “essential” and defining properties, see my “Rerum cognoscere causas”:
https://humanuseofhumanbeings.substack.com/p/rerum-cognoscere-causas
No doubt one can come up with other definitions for the sexes. But then one has to contend with challenges from even less scientific quarters.
Kind think those biological definitions have to qualify as trump. Regardless of any “collateral damage”, or the distress that some might feel about that “abyss beneath their feet”.