Abstract

This chapter introduces the main themes of the book and provides summaries of background ideas in feminist theory and analytic philosophy that are helpful for understanding the material that follows. Discussions cover issues concerning the sex/gender distinction, externalism in philosophy of language, the methodological aims of critical social theory, and feminist epistemology with an eye to showing how feminist theory contributes to and draws upon debates in metaphysics, epistemology, philosophy of language and related areas of analytic philosophy.