The Metaphysics of Gender is a book about gender essentialism: what it is and why it might be true.

Fricker shows that virtue epistemology provides a general epistemological idiom in which these issues can be forcefully discussed.

First published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

The purpose of this book -- Intentionality -- Collective intentionality and the assignment of function -- Language as biological and social -- The general theory of institutions and institutional facts: -- Language and social reality -- Free will, rationality, and institutional facts -- Power : deontic, background, political, and other -- Human rights -- Concluding remarks : the ontological foundations of the social sciences.