Emmy Noether Programme: Philosopher to fundamentally examine the concept of gender

Porträtfoto — © Thorsten Mohr/UdSDie Philosophin Viktoria Knoll von der Universität des Saarlandes leitet eine Emmy-Noether-Gruppe zum Genderbegriff.

Woman, man, non-binary? The social construct of gender determines many aspects of our lives: from the name we receive at birth and the clothes we wear to the education we receive. Gender is deeply personal and at the same time politically controversial. It therefore may come as a surprise that analytic philosophy has paid little attention to the concept of gender. Viktoria Knoll, a researcher at Saarland University, is fundamentally examining gender with around one million euros funding.

Funding comes from the DFG's Emmy Noether Programme.

The following text has been machine translated from the German with no human editing.

'Gender determines our society, our economy, the way we live together. Individuals can suffer harm if they are discriminated against or disadvantaged because of their gender,' says Viktoria Knoll, who has a doctoral degree in philosophy and is an academic research associate at the Institute of Philosophy at Saarland University. It is therefore not surprising that debates about gender are among the most controversial and politically explosive debates today. 'In Philosophy, this political dimension of gender debates has certainly been recognized in recent decades. The social and moral aspects of the gender issue have also been discussed,' emphasizes Viktoria Knoll.

However, what has been largely missing so far is a fundamental, theoretical examination of the concept of gender in Philosophy. 'What exactly does it mean to be male, female or non-binary? How does our talk about gender work? How do we identify ourselves with our gender? And how can our discourses on this be analyzed?' the philosopher cites as examples of research questions that remain unanswered.

With the Emmy Noether Group now approved, she can fill two doctoral positions to tackle metaphysical, linguistic-philosophical and methodological topics as a team, which should help with the fundamental analysis of gender. 'For example, we will examine which normative considerations play a role in answering these questions. In addition, we want to develop a metaphysically grounded and analytically precise theory of gender based on the rich resources and history of metaphysics and philosophy of language,' explains Viktoria Knoll.

With the Emmy Noether Programme, the German Research Foundation (DFG) supports outstandingly qualified scientists in the early stages of their careers who completed their doctorates no more than four years ago, have international experience and have completed a postdoctoral phase. Saarbrücken philosopher Viktoria Knoll is now receiving around one million euros to establish an Emmy Noether Group. Of the 26 Emmy Noether grants in Philosophy, only six have gone to women so far – one more reason for Viktoria Knoll to advance this topic of feminist philosophy.

Further information:

Emmy Noether Programme of the German Research Foundation: https://www.dfg.de/de/foerderung/foerdermoeglichkeiten/programme/einzelfoerderung/emmy-noether

Viktoria Knoll's website: https://www.uni-saarland.de/department/philosophy/professuren/dr-viktoria-knoll.html

Questions answered by:

Dr Viktoria Knoll
Academic research associate
Department of Philosophy, Saarland University
Email: viktoria.knoll(at)uni-saarland.de

Emmy Noether Programme: Philosopher to fundamentally examine the concept of gender

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