There is an issue about the role of generalizations and the implications for particular stories. This issue has arisen in political contexts in several ways. One way in which it has arisen is described as a concern about "essentialism". There is a view that when we make generalizations about, for instance, women, we make assumptions about the application of the general term "women" that rules out of the realm of consideration the experience of women of less privileged groups. So, famously, the claim of some decades ago, that the problem for women is to get out of the house was offensive to many black women whose problem was that they had always had to work in other people's houses, as domestics. The worry about "essentialism" is, supposedly, that when we rely upon a category such as "women", we assume a fixed set of properties that defines all women. But of course there is no fixed set of properties possessed by all women. There will always be someone who is in fact a woman who does not possess all of the qualities. Perhaps, also, there will be someone with all the specified qualities who is not in fact a woman.

This problem of fixed sets of properties has been much discussed also as regards natural kinds - the essences of species, for instance. If we think that there is a set of properties that defines cats, we will surely find something that is a cat that does not have all the properties, or something with all the properties that is not a cat. One of the problems with natural kinds, of course, is that species evolve and their defining properties change. We might think that this means that species have no essences. Alternatively, more promisingly, we might conclude that we have been mistaken about the fixedness of essential properties. Although the literature on natural kinds has explored reconceptualization of essences, the political literature, perhaps largely because of the influence of post-modernism, has continued to conflate the implausibility of fixed, permanent essences with the undesirability of abstract, generalizing concepts. The worry, then, is that when we make generalizations about "women", we preclude the proper appreciation of women's differences. For in assuming the category "women", we presume a fixed set of properties defining all women, and such properties, as defining ones, are bound to be determined by practical and theoretical traditions expressing the arbitrary privileging of some groups of women, and the invisibility of others. The question is whether in fact essences are necessarily fixed permanent sets of characteristics, and what is implied by rejecting such a view.

Another version of the problem of generalizations has to do with theory, and the role of dominant interests and ideologies in general theories. The worry about "essentialism" as regards categories is that if we assume a general category, the role of dominant interests will lead us to pick out properties characteristic of the more privileged members of that category. Thus, "women" tends in practice to pick out white, middle -class women. Similarly, if we construct general theories about women's oppression, say, the role of dominant interests and dominant ideologies will lead us to misrepresent, diminish or make invisible the experience of Third World women. The worry is that generalizations are influenced by dominant traditions and lead us to disregard phenomena or people that are not traditionally recognized. The assumption is that general theories have an absolute quality to them and reliance upon generalizations "dictates" interpretations of experience in a way that works against concerns about social justice. Some feminists have referred to the commitment toward generalizing terms, claims or theories as constituting "tyrannical epistemologies" (Code). The important response to such worries is that particular, personal stories about lives and cultures provide a critical basis for dislodging assumptions directed by dominant traditions and interests.

Our observations and interpretations of our experience are rooted in practical and theoretical traditions and for this reason we do not easily see or give importance to the dimensions of social reality, locally or globally, that are the subject of concerns about social justice. It has become theoretically important to tell, hear and politically recognize personal stories told from alternative perspectives. The response to worries about the role in theorizing of dominant, distorting ideologies has been emphasis on particular experiences, including emotional experiences, through personal stories. The problem is that when we consider which personal stories are significant in criticizing "generalizing" concepts and theories, we do in fact rely upon general concepts and theories. For instance, we don't think that just any personal story is critically interesting; rather, we think that some stories are significant because such stories ought not to be excluded because they are relevant to our specific understanding. Thus, when we judge that certain stories ought not to be excluded, we assume that their exclusion is wrong for particular reasons related to specific goals for understanding. These are generalizing claims of a broad sort. The personal stories that are interesting are those that reflect difference but the differences we are interested in, in trying to understand consequences or causes of injustice, are those differences that are relevant to that concern. And in order to identify relevant differences, we do in fact make generalizing "essentialist" claims of all sorts.

Toni Morrison, for instance, has written stories from the perspective of black women in the United States. The telling of such stories has been critically important because American racism has made black women invisible. But when Toni Morrison describes how she came to begin telling her particular stories, she describes a process of acquiring awareness of the whole picture and a judgment about the general nature of the big picture of American literature. When she first read American literature she thought that the blacks just were not there in the picture. It was only when she became a writer herself and learned about how meanings are created through stories that she saw that the blacks are in fact present in the classics of American literature. They are present, but they are present in a way that suggests that they ought not to be present. For they are present without names, without physical descriptions, without voice. It was when Morrison understood that American literature as a whole was racist in this way, and judged moreover that it was wrong that American literature be so, that she began to tell stories in the way that she did.

According to Morrison, the telling of the particular stories, in the critically effective way that she tells them, is dependent upon a generalized understanding of American literature and American society. The problem here is that a mistaken understanding of the nature of general concepts and theories is confused with the idea that general concepts and theories are themselves mistaken. It is true that when we rely upon general concepts and theories, we make a mistake if we take such concepts and theories to be absolutist, that is, to be fixed and unrevisable. For then we disregard the empirical evidence before us. But general concepts and theories do not have to be absolute, unrevisable. Biologists do generally assume that species have essences. However, the properties defining a species essence are not fixed. The philosophical mistake has been to set in opposition reliance upon general concepts and theories, and the importance of particular stories, whereas in fact the importance of particular stories depends upon definite, normative judgments of a general sort. The ethical error, similar to the risk identified above, is that in assuming such an opposition, we fail to take responsibility for and to critically examine the general claims we are presupposing. We absolve ourselves of responsibility. We do make general claims relying upon abstract general concepts. We need to acknowledge that we do, take up the question of what this means and do the work of critically examining our generalized beliefs and concepts.