What happens when language stops describing reality and starts creating it? In this episode of the Critical Therapy Antidote podcast, CTA Co-Directors Dr. Michael Olan and Jaco van Zyl sit down with depth psychologist and author Dr. Bret Alderman to explore the philosophical roots of modern gender theory.
Drawing from his chapter in Woke: A Critique of Social Justice Ideology (edited by Jon Mills), Alderman traces a line from Ferdinand de Saussure’s theories of language through the work of Michel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, and Judith Butler. Together, they examine how the linguistic turn transformed discussions of language, identity, truth, and gender.
Topics include: • Saussure’s structural linguistics and the linguistic turn • Foucault’s concepts of power, knowledge, and truth regimes • Derrida’s deconstruction and challenges to objective meaning • Judith Butler’s theory of gender performativity • The relationship between biological sex and gender identity • How philosophical ideas move from academia into culture and clinical practice • The implications of language-centered approaches to identity and social reality
TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – Introduction: Language, Gender, and Ideological Change 02:07 – Saussure’s Structural Linguistics and the Linguistic Turn 04:41 – How the Linguistic Turn Influenced Postmodernism and Gender Theory 08:46 – Foucault’s Epistemes, Power, and the Construction of Truth 13:01 – Derrida, Deconstruction, and the Challenge to Objective Reality 16:42 – Foucault’s The Order of Things and Truth Regimes 21:03 – Judith Butler and Gender Performativity 36:07 – Language, Meaning, and the Question of Objective Referents 46:40 – Performance, Identity, and the Construction of Self 55:17 – From Academic Theory to Lived Experience 58:37 – Language, Identity, and Biological Reality 1:02:09 – Politics, Truth, and Contemporary Gender Debates 1:07:00 – Why Clinicians and Society Should Pay Attention
RESOURCES
Woke: A Critique of Social Justice Ideology (Edited by Jon Mills) https://www.amazon.com/Woke-Critique-…
Dr. Bret Alderman’s Eternal Youth and the Myth of Deconstruction
Beyond Gender Podcast
Connect with Dr. Bret Alderman: Instagram: / aldermanlifecoaching X: https://x.com/DrBretAlderman
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