Thursday, August 31, 2006

Are Women Human?

One wouldn't expect to be reminded of Catharine MacKinnon whilst reading about modal metaphysics, but spot the unfortunate slip in the following passage from Sidelle's Necessity, Essence, and Individuation (p.79):
if someone says 'The president of the United States is essentially human', and does not consider the possibility of a woman president... to count against his claim, then it would seem that he was using 'The president of the United States' rigidly...
Oh dear.

2 comments:

  1. Of course, what he meant was that women are angels, in fact.

    ReplyDelete

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