Metaontological discourse, inquiring into the nature, methodology, and aims of ontology, has functioned as the war ground for those skeptical of ontological projects against those who believe that ontological inquiry is substantive (i.e., meaningful, important, worth pursuing). I call the inquiry which engages in determining criteria to distinguish substantive from nonsubstantive inquiry/discourse: “the metaphysics of discourse”. In this project, I identify three frameworks in the metaphysics of discourse: Easy Ontology, The “Merely Verbal” Framework, and Metaphysical Structuralism. My primary concern is to show that these discourse frameworks or dismissive strategies all fail to provide sufficient criteria to properly delineate substantive from non-substantive inquiry. My approach is to accept a dismissive strategy, apply it to disputes in the metaphysics of race and gender, and run through its consequences. Each framework, when applied to disputes in the metaphysics of race and gender, incorrectly renders the disputes non-substantive. These implications are unacceptable, because the disputes in metaphysics of race and gender are prima facie substantive disputes. We find that each application of a dismissive strategy provides us the basis for developing a web of problematic assumptions running throughout the metaphysics of discourse. Namely: 1) that the metaphysics of discourse itself can be robustly normatively neutral, 2) that discovering linguistic defects in an inquiry (often about “the meaning” or “the right meaning” of terms) is sufficient to conclude that an inquiry is non-substantive and that 3) we determine a better candidate for theory choice in substantive inquiry by determining which candidate is more objectively accurate (in a vague sense). I will conclude that these assumptions lead to an oppressive metaphysics of discourse, then I briefly suggest a feminist, pragmatist, and democratic-objective basis for a new one.

There is a tendency in education theory to place the focus on the consequences of racial hegemony (racism, Eurocentric education, low performance by racial minorities) and ignore that race is antecedent to these consequences. This dissertation explores the treatment of race within critical theory in education. I conduct a metaphysical analysis to examine the race concept as it emerges from the works of various critical theorists in education. This examination shows how some scholars affirm the scientifically discredited race concept by offering racial essentialist approaches for emancipatory education. I argue that one of consequences of these approaches is the further tightening of racial constraints on the student’s personal autonomy. This mandates that critical theorists gain a deeper understanding of race as a problem, conceptually, epistemically, ideologically, and existentially. I argue that critical theorists of education draw from work conducted in the philosophy of race by theorists such as K. Anthony Appiah, Jorge Gracia, Charles Mills, and Naomi Zack to gain insights on the metaphysics of race to better inform theory and praxis. I further recommend the creation of a critical philosophy of race in education to address and combat race as a problem and its consequences. I contend that the groundwork for philosophy of race in education must entail strategies that encourage and assist theorists and teachers to move toward the elimination of the race in society, while utilizing race only as heuristic tool to address its consequences. Additionally, I argue that a philosophy of race in education must advocate for an education for autonomy as a means to racial liberation for students.