ABSTRACT
Classification and clinical knowledge of intellectual disability is knowledge which makes governing possible whilst at the same time naturalising intellectual disability so it is seen as existing prior to politics. Contemporary biopolitics has increasingly come to adhere to modes of government which rely on 'citizenship' and 'inclusion'. Debates on various diagnoses often seem to revolve around questions which concern whether certain diagnoses are 'real' or 'socially constructed'. This way of framing the debate severely underestimates the force of social constitution; indeed, that a diagnosis emerges from a place where biology and social forces are inseparable in no way diminishes its realness. Recognising the social constitution of kinds of people, of intellectual disability and the subject of reason, should urge people to maintain open, as far as possible, the possibility for themselves and others to come into being beyond this division.
