What Is a Woman? | Two Philosophers Debate

Talia Mae Bettcher and Tomas Bogardus join me to debate the question, "What is a woman?". Is gender biologically grounded, socially constructed, or something else entirely? If you're looking for a cordial and substantive exchange from two thinkers who fundamentally disagree on these issues, look no further. My interview with Dr. Bettcher:    • The U.S. Is Increasingly Unsafe for Trans ...   My interview with Dr. Bogardus:    • What Is a Woman? | Tomas Bogardus   This interview is also available as a podcast: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast... Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/2UHf... Substack: https://open.substack.com/pub/mileskd... Check out my Substack where you can get a paid membership because you're awesome: https://www.mileskdonahue.substack.com/ To support the channel, do please oh please consider donating via Buy Me a Coffee: https://buymeacoffee.com/mileskdonahue. Follow me on X:   / philosophermkd   EPISODE CHAPTERS: 00:00:00 Introduction 00:01:17 Bogardus opening statement 00:02:03 Dictionaries and ordinary usage 00:03:41 The ambiguity view 00:07:09 The resistant concept of woman 00:08:12 Circularity and self-identification 00:11:23 The relevance objection to ambiguity 00:13:47 Non-human men and women 00:16:17 Bettcher opening statement 00:18:29 Woman as a philosophical question 00:19:44 Folk concepts and biological definitions 00:22:13 Folk concepts vs. theoretical concepts 00:24:45 Adult, human, and female 00:28:14 Open discussion begins 00:28:57 Bettcher on the ambiguity thesis 00:30:28 Family resemblance and trans womanhood 00:35:16 Political concepts and same-sex marriage 00:52:25 Are folk concepts biological? 00:57:47 Souls, bodies, and female identity 01:04:31 Twin Earth, Superman, and non-human men 01:13:13 Stone lions, Batman, and conceptual analysis 01:26:44 The husbandry argument 01:29:44 Sex, function, and biology 01:34:35 Why the question matters 01:39:44 Closing statements