Penultimate versions of my published work can be found below. Please cite the published versions. Feel free to contact me for drafts of works in progress at kcritchie@gmail.com.
Publications
Ritchie, K. (2021). Essentializing Inferences. Mind & Language.
Ritchie, K. (2021). Essentializing Language and the Prospects for Ameliorative Projects. Ethics.
Ritchie, K. (2021). Does Identity Politics Reinforce Oppression? Philosophers' Imprint.
Ritchie, K. (2020). What We Can Do. Philosophical Studies
Ritchie, K. (2019). Should We Use Racial and Gender Generics? Thought.
Ritchie, K. (2016). Can Semantics Guide Ontology? Australasian Journal of Philosophy.
Ritchie, K. (2015). The Metaphysics of Social Groups. Philosophy Compass.
Ritchie, K. (2013). What Are Groups? Philosophical Studies.
Book Reviews
Review of Ron Mallon’s The Construction of Human Kinds (2017, Ethics)
Review of Deborah Tollefsen’s Groups as Agents (2016, Journal of Social Ontology)
Writing for a General Audience
Neither Fate Nor Fiction: Finding Social Groups in Networks of Relations (2019, The Philosopher)
Works in Progress
Labeling Unlabeled Identities
No "Easy" Answers to Ontological Category Questions (with Vera Flocke)
Social Structures in Context (with Jessica Keiser)
Same people, different group: Social structures are a central component of group concepts (with Alexander Noyes, Yarrow Dunham, and Frank Keil)
One Recipe for Two Flavors of Generics: How Contextual Restrictions and Stability give Rise to Essentialist and Structural Generics (with Ny Vasil)
Two Ways Not to Refer to a Kind
Social Groups (commissioned for the Oxford Handbook of Social Ontology (Eds. S. Collins, B. Epstein, S. Haslanger, and H. B. Schmid))
Language of Essence (commissioned for the Routledge Handbook of Essence (Eds. K. Koslicki and M. Raven))
Dissertation
Groups––A Semantic and Metaphysical Examination
(Supervisors: Josh Dever and Mark Sainsbury)
Short Dissertation Abstract: This manuscript is focused on the extent to which semantics can guide metaphysics. I argue that, at best, semantics can serve as a partial guide to metaphysics. Sometimes there will be indeterminate answers to questions of the form 'Does theory T carry a commitment to Fs?' Further, semantics will never answer questions regarding the nature of Fs.In it I apply this methodology to plurals (e.g., 'the girls,' 'Tom, Luke and George') and collective nouns (e.g., 'the team,' 'a committee'). I argue that plurals are indeterminately committed to sums (or other singular entities) while collective nouns are determinately committed to groups. The semantics of collective nouns delivers the minimal verdict that groups exist, but says nothing about their nature. I also undertake an examination of the metaphysics of groups which goes beyond semantics to offer a substantive view of the metaphysics of groups.