Showing papers in "Hypatia: A Journal of Feminist Philosophy in 1988"
Journal Article•
TL;DR: In this article, an unprecedented dialogue between Foucault and the fertile ground of contemporary feminism and explores the many ways these disparate approaches to cultural analysis converge and interact, and the implications of his ideas on sexuality, ideology, and power for feminists continue to be the subject of heated debate.
Abstract: Although Michel Foucault's ideas on sexuality, ideology, and power have established him as one of this century's most influential thinkers, the implications of his work for feminists continue to be the subject of heated debate. This book fosters an unprecedented dialogue between Foucault and the fertile ground of contemporary feminism and explores the many ways these disparate approaches to cultural analysis converge and interact.
364 citations
TL;DR: Narayan as discussed by the authors argues that the fact that oppressed individuals have epistemic privilege regarding their oppression creates problems in dialogue with and coalitionary politics involving "outsiders" who do not share the oppression.
Abstract: Uma Narayan attempts to clarify what the feminist notion of the ‘epistemic privilege of the oppressed’ does and does not imply. She argues that the fact that oppressed ‘insiders’ have epistemic privilege regarding their oppression creates problems in dialogue with and coalitionary politics involving ‘outsiders’ who do not share the oppression, since the latter fail to come to terms with the epistemic privilege of the insiders. She concretely analyzes different ways in which the emotions of insiders can be inadvertantly hurt by outsiders and suggests ways in which such problems can be minimized.
217 citations
TL;DR: The seed-and-soil analogy from cosmological myths through Aristotle into the biology of the 1700s has been traced by Tuana as discussed by the authors to demonstrate what has happened when this control has not been utilized.
Abstract: Biology is seen not merely as a privileged oppressor of women but as a co-victim of masculinist social assumptions. We see feminist critique as one of the normative controls that any scientist must perform whenever analyzing data, and we seek to demonstrate what has happened when this control has not been utilized. Narratives of fertilization and sex determination traditionally have been modeled on the cultural patterns of male/female interaction, leading to gender associations being placed on cells and their components. We also find that when gender biases are controlled, new perceptions of these intracellular and extracellular relationships emerge. Nancy Tuana (this volume) has traced the seed-and-soil analogy from cosmological myths through Aristotle into the biology of the 1700s. Modeling his embryology after his social ideal, Aristotle promulgated the notions of male activity versus female passivity, the female as incomplete male, and the male as the real parent of the offspring. The female merely provided passive matter to be molded by the male sperm. While there were competing views of embryology during Aristotle's time, Aristotle's principles got the support of St. Thomas and were given the sanction of both religion and scientific philosophy (Horowitz 1976, 183). In this essay, we will attempt to show that this myth is still found in the core of modern biology and that various "revisionist" theories have been proposed within the past five years to offset this myth.
90 citations
TL;DR: In the course of arguing that the semiotic contests the universality of the symbolic, Kristeva makes several theoretical moves which end up consolidating the power of the Symbolic and paternal authority generally as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Julia Kristeva attempts to expose the limits of Lacan's theory of language by revealing the semiotic dimension of language that it excludes. She argues that the semiotic potential of language is subversive, and describes the semiotic as a poetic-maternal linguistic practice that disrupts the symbolic, understood as culturally intelligible rule-governed speech. In the course of arguing that the semiotic contests the universality of the Symbolic, Kristeva makes several theoretical moves which end up consolidating the power of the Symbolic and paternal authority generally. She defends a maternal instinct as a pre-discursive biological necessity, thereby naturalizing a specific cultural configuration of maternity. In her use of psychoanalytic theory, she ends up claiming the cultural unintelligibility of lesbianism. Her distinction between the semiotic and the Symbolic operates to foreclose a cultural investigation into the genesis of precisely those feminine principles for which she claims a pre-discursive, naturalistic ontology. Although she claims that the maternal aspects of language are repressed in Symbolic speech and provide a critical possibility of displacing the hegemony of the paternal/symbolic, her very descriptions of the maternal appear to accept rather than contest the inevitable hegemony of the Symbolic. In conclusion, this essay offers a genealogical critique of the maternal discourse in Kristeva and suggests that recourse to the maternal does not constitute a subversive strategy as Kristeva appears to assume.
72 citations
64 citations
TL;DR: Feminists acknowledge that making science is a social process and that scientific laws and the facts of science reflect the interests of the university-educated, economically privileged, predominantly white men who have produced them as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: Feminists acknowledge that making science is a social process and that scientific laws and the “facts” of science reflect the interests of the university-educated, economically privileged, predominantly white men who have produced them. We also recognize that knowledge about nature is created by an interplay between objectivity and subjectivity, but we often do not credit sufficiently the ways women's traditional activities in home, garden, and sickroom have contributed to understanding nature.
63 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the effects of the bias of woman's inferiority on theories of human reproduction were examined, arguing that the adherence to a belief in the inferiority of the female creative principle biased scientific perception of the nature of women's role in human generation.
Abstract: This history of reproductive theories from Aristotle to the preformationists provides an excellent illustration of the ways in which the gender /science system informs the process of scientific investigation. In this essay I examine the effects of the bias of woman's inferiority upon theories of human reproduction. I argue that the adherence to a belief in the inferiority of the female creative principle biased scientific perception of the nature of woman's role in human generation.
56 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the masculinist biases affecting scientific research on the Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) and found that such bias is reinforced by the social construction of the clinical body as an object of medical interrogation.
Abstract: This paper reflects on masculinist biases affecting scientific research on the Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS). Masculinist bias is examined on the level of observation language and in the choice of explanatory frameworks. Such bias is found to be further reinforced by the social construction of “the clinical body” as an object of medical interrogation. Some of the political implications of the medicalization of women's premenstrual changes are also discussed.
41 citations
TL;DR: Irigaray's Speculum de l'autre femme and Ce Sexe qui n'en est pas un suggest that essence may not be the unitary, monolithic, in short, essentialist category that anti-essentialists so often presume it to be as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: Luce Irigaray's fearlessness towards speaking the body has earned for her work the dismissive label “essentialist.” But Irigaray's Speculum de l'autre femme and Ce Sexe qui n'en est pas un suggest that essence may not be the unitary, monolithic, in short, essentialist category that anti-essentialists so often presume it to be. Irigaray strategically deploys essentialism for at least two reasons: first, to reverse and to displace Jacques Lacan's phallomorphism; and second, to expose the contradiction at the heart of Aristotelian metaphysics which denies women access to “Essence” while at the same time positing the essence of “Woman” precisely as non-essential (as matter).
33 citations
TL;DR: This article explored five aspects of recipe creation and use, and developed an account of cooking as inquiry, by exploring five aspects in the recipe creation process and use process, and suggested that thinking about cooking can illuminate our understanding of other forms of inquiry.
Abstract: This is a paper about philosophical inquiry and cooking. In it, I suggest that thinking about cooking can illuminate our understanding of other forms of inquiry. Specifically, I think it provides us with one way to circumvent the dilemma of absolutism and relativism.The paper is divided into two sections. In the first, I sketch the background against which my project is situated. In the second, I develop an account of cooking as inquiry, by exploring five aspects of recipe creation and use.
32 citations
TL;DR: Irigaray as mentioned in this paper argued that love is a means to the end and duty of procreation, and thus is a mere means to immortality through which the lovers lose one another.
Abstract: "Sorcerer Love" is the name that Luce Irigaray gives to the demonic function of love as presented in Plato's Symposium. She argues that Socrates there attributes two incompatible positions to Diotima, who in any case is not present at the banquet. The first is that love is a mid-point or intermediary between lovers which also teaches immortality. The second is that love is a means to the end and duty of procreation, and thus is a mere means to immortality through which the lovers lose one another. Irigaray argues in favor of the first position, a conception of love as demonic intermediary. E. K.
TL;DR: In this paper, the author sketches principles that allow her to develop accounts of reality without implying that others should agree, and this epistemological setting supports differences among wimmin that are expressed in different understandings of the world; it also supports agreement.
Abstract: Alarmed by the domination inherent in the patriarchal idea of truth, the author sketches principles that allow her to develop accounts of reality—to “do theory”—without implying that others should agree. This epistemological setting supports differences among wimmin that are expressed in different understandings of the world; it also supports agreement.
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TL;DR: Men are the metaphoric vehicle for women and women's activities and relations to men as mentioned in this paper, which makes the metaphor of woman especially potent in man's conceptual economy and makes women's role as metaphor result from her otherness and her relational and mediational importance in men's lives.
Abstract: Women's activities and relations to men are persistent metaphors for man's projects. I query the prominence of these and the lack of equivalent metaphors where men are the metaphoric vehicle for women and women's activities. Women's role as metaphor results from her otherness and her relational and mediational importance in men's lives. Otherness, mediation, and relation characterize the role of metaphor in language and thought. This congruence between metaphor and women makes the metaphor of woman especially potent in man's conceptual economy.
TL;DR: This paper examined some French feminist uses of Lacanian psychoanalysis, focusing on two Lacanian influenced accounts of psychological oppression, the first by Luce Irigaray and the second by Julia Kristeva, and argued that these accounts fail to meet criteria for an adequate political psychology.
Abstract: This paper examines some French feminist uses of Lacanian psychoanalysis. I focus on two Lacanian influenced accounts of psychological oppression, the first by Luce Irigaray and the second by Julia Kristeva, and I argue that these accounts fail to meet criteria for an adequate political psychology.
TL;DR: In these interviews from 1982 and 1985, the authors ask Beauvoir about her philosophical differences with Jean-Paul Sartre on the issues of voluntarism vs social conditioning and embodiment, individualism vs reciprocity, and ontology vs ethics.
Abstract: In these interviews from 1982 and 1985, I ask Beauvoir about her philosophical differences with Jean-Paul Sartre on the issues of voluntarism vs social conditioning and embodiment, individualism vs reciprocity, and ontology vs ethics. We also discuss her influence on Sartre's work, the problems with the current English translation of The Second Sex, her analyses of motherhood and feminist concepts of woman-identity, and her own experience of sexism.
TL;DR: The authors argue that race, sex and class considerations can influence the content of scientific theories, and that the adoption of the "corpuscular philosophy" by Robert Boyle and other Puritan scientists during the English Civil War offers a good case on which to test such a model.
Abstract: Feminist science scholars need models of science that allow feminist accounts, not only of the inception and reception of scientific theories, but of their content as well. I argue that a “Network Model,” properly modified, makes clear theoretically how race, sex and class considerations can influence the content of scientific theories. The adoption of the “corpuscular philosophy” by Robert Boyle and other Puritan scientists during the English Civil War offers us a good case on which to test such a model. According to these men, the minute corpuscles constituting the physical world are dead, not alive; passive, not active. I argue that they chose the principle that matter is passive in part because its contrary, the principle that matter is alive and self-moving, had a radical social meaning and use to the women and men working for progressive change in mid-seventeenth century England.
TL;DR: Irigaray's reading of Plato's Symposium in Ethique de la difference sexuelle illustrates both the advantages and the limits of her textual practise as discussed by the authors. But both the ahistorical nature of that listening and Irigaraay's assumption of feminine marginality also make her a party to Plato's sabotage of Diotima's philosophy.
Abstract: Irigaray's reading of Plato's Symposium in Ethique de la difference sexuelle illustrates both the advantages and the limits of her textual practise. Irigaray's attentive listening to the text allows Diotima's voice to emerge from an overlay of Platonic scholarship. But both the ahistorical nature of that listening and Irigaray's assumption of feminine marginality also make her a party to Plato's sabotage of Diotima's philosophy. Understood in historical context, Diotima is not an anomaly in Platonic discourse, but the hidden host of Plato's banquet, speaking for a pre-Socratic world view against which classical Greek thought is asserted. Understood in historical context, Plato is not the authoritative founder of Western thought against whom only marginal skirmishes can be mounted, but a rebellious student who manages to transform Diotima's complex teaching on personal identity, immortality, and love into the sterile simplicities of logical form.
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TL;DR: In this article, the very fact of my choosing to discuss feminist science fiction under the title of Dreaming the Future represents a move towards bringing the cultural politics of science and technology into sociology.
Abstract: This paper does three things, perhaps four, because the very fact of my choosing to discuss feminist science fiction under the title of Dreaming the Future represents a move towards bringing the cultural politics of science and technology into sociology. The paper begins by talking about my changing relationship with science fiction-how I graduated from being a compulsive consumer to being a refusenik and then the how and why of becoming interested and more in feminist science fiction. Next it surveys the mainstream tradition of science fiction writing from a feminist perspective, particularly the more overtly political projects of utopian and dystopian novels. Bogdanov's (1984) Red Star and Engineer Menni are seen as a bridge linking an earlier analysis of science to contemporary perspectives. Lastly the paper looks at influential feminist science fiction writers, from Gilman, through LeGuin and Bryant, to its final focus on Piercy, Russ and Gearhart as representing recent interventions in the cultural politics of science.
TL;DR: The authors argue that the distinction currently being drawn between verbal/spatial thinking abilities is fraught with ideological commitments that undermine the intelligibility of the distinction, and that the model of thinking as information processing which underlies all this research confuses thinking with internal processing strategies.
Abstract: Recent attempts by the neurological and psychological communities to articulate thought differences between women and men continue to mismeasure thought, especially women's thought. To challenge the claims of hemispheric specialization and lateralization studies, I argue three points: 1) given more sophisticated biological models, brain researchers cannot assume that differences, should they exist, between women and men are purely a result of innate structures; 2) the distinction currently being drawn between verbal/spatial thinking abilities is fraught with ideological commitments that undermine the intelligibility of the distinction; 3) the model of thinking as information processing which underlies all this research confuses thinking with internal processing strategies.
TL;DR: In this paper, a consensus exists that science is not value-neutral and that cultural/political concerns enter into the epistemology, methodology and conclusions of scientific theory and practice.
Abstract: In this issue of Hypatia there is a consensus that science is not value-neutral and that cultural/political concerns enter into the epistemology, methodology and conclusions of scientific theory and practice. In future dialogues the question that needs to be further addressed is the precise role political concerns should play in the formulation of a feminist theory and practice of science.
TL;DR: Kofman traces Rousseau's argument that women's role as mothers requires the subordination of women to men, and the companion argument of women's lust is a threat to the (male) social order, which also justifies the confinement of women within the home.
Abstract: Kofman traces Rousseau's argument that women's role as mothers requires the subordination of women to men, and the companion argument that women's lust is a threat to the (male) social order, which also justifies the confinement of women within the home. She then relates the claim that women so confined exert a power of their own to Rousseau's erotic obsession with dominant, but maternal, women. Thus, the “Nature” to which Rousseau appeals is seen to be both a reflection of his own specific nature and representative of all phallocratic discourse in its defense of male domination.
TL;DR: Lesbian and feminist writing makes actual-logically and materiallyworlds in which females choose freely the course of our lives as discussed by the authors, and the startling repercussions of these textual worlds take by surprise, and devastate, patriarchal institutions which would control the distribution of meaning, value, and physical goods against the self-defined interests of each woman.
Abstract: Lesbian and feminist writing makes actual-logically and materiallyworlds in which females choose freely the course of our lives. The startling repercussions of these textual worlds take by surprise, and devastate, patriarchal institutions which would control the distribution of meaning, value, and physical goods against the self-defined interests of each woman. By lesbian and feminist writing I include, as a partial list: the use of words, dialects, and manners of speaking which strike a liberating resonance among groups of women; diaries; deliberate mistakes in the addition of a bill, when women do not have enough money to purchase basic necessities; the exchange of notes to make known the depths of friendship and passion; lesbian and feminist philosophy. The random appearance of this list belies rigid separation of texts into "practical" and "theoretical" categories. Common to each instance of lesbian and feminist writing cited is a commitment to a textual action I will call: poetic politics.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors respond to Kelly Oliver's critique of my paper published earlier in this journal for at least three reasons: out of respect for the tradition of intellectual exchange to which Oliver's invitation tacitly appeals; because the issues are of quite general importance, even far beyond feminist theory; and out of fidelity to the goals of contemporary feminist theory, central to which they take to be the unravelling of classical dichotomies.
Abstract: I welcome the opportunity to respond to Kelly Oliver's critique of my paper published earlier in this journal for at least three reasons: out of respect for the tradition of intellectual exchange to which Oliver's invitation tacitly appeals; because the issues are of quite general importance, even far beyond feminist theory; and out of fidelity to the goals of contemporary feminist theory, central to which I take to be the unravelling of classical dichotomies. This commitment inspires me to protest the current tendency among some feminist critics to tacitly reinforce (often under the name of “deconstruction”) the very dichotomy between objectivism and relativism which I and others have sought to undermine. Here, as always, the tell-tale marks of such oppositional reconstructions are to be found in the collapse and obliteration of distinctions internal to the categories under questions.
TL;DR: In this article, Wolgast explains that three kinds of problems arise when rights are invoked too freely: the first problem concerns the application of rights to people, for example hospital patients or young children, who are not in a position to exercise them because they are too weak to claim their rights against those upon whom they are dependent for medical or parental care.
Abstract: On the very first page of the chapter entitled "Wrong Rights" (originally published in Hypatia, Winter 1987) in her challenging and perceptive new book, The Grammar of Justice, Elizabeth Wolgast asserts "Although it is a powerful and useful tool, still the schema of rights is sometimes unfit for the uses we make of it" (28). I heartily and completely agree. Still, one wonders just when the appeal to rights is inappropriate and why. Wolgast explains that three kinds of problems can arise when rights are invoked too freely. The first problem concerns the application of rights to people, for example hospital patients or young children, who are not in a position to exercise them because they are too weak to claim their rights against those upon whom they are dependent for medical or parental care. It is true that the importance of rights consists primarily, although not exclusively, in the freedom and control they confer on the right-holder. Therefore, they do impose an active role on their possessor and do lose much of their value when he or she is not in a position to exercise this freedom and control effectively. This is often true of patients and children for the reasons Wolgast explains so convincingly. Still, a right-holder may be only temporarily incapable of exercising his or her rights. One should remember that the defining core of any claim-right is a double-barreled claim, a claim to the performance of some correlative duty or to remedy for nonperformance of this duty. Wolgast acknowledges this, but adds that this remedy is "no remedy at all" (35). Now it is not true that an ex post facto remedy is no remedy at all. To be sure, it does not directly solve the practical problem of the maltreatment of patients by preventing it. But it does do something, often too little and too late, to repair the damage done by such maltreatment and may indirectly help in some measure to remind physicians of their responsibilities to their patients and to motivate them to provide competent treatment when it is needed.
TL;DR: The authors argue that although in "The Gender/Science System," Evelyn Fox Keller intends to formulate a middle ground position in order to open science to feminist criticisms without forcing it into relativism, she steps back into objectivism.
Abstract: I argue that although in "The Gender/Science System," Keller intends to formulate a middle ground position in order to open science to feminist criticisms without forcing it into relativism, she steps back into objectivism. While she endorses the dynamic-object model for science, she endorses the static-object model for philosophy of science. I suggest that by modeling her methodology for philosophy on her methodology for science her philosophy would better serve her feminist goals. Feminist theorists have played major roles in contemporary discourses on power and dominance. Understanding how power and dominance are constructed and eventually deconstructed, is a central concern for feminists. The notion that power has one unified source has been called into question by both feminists (eg., Hartsock, Balbus, Cixous, Spivak) and nonfeminists (eg., Foucault, Delueze). This model of power has been seen as part of a patriarchal or logocentric discourse on power. Many theorists are exploring new ways in which to conceive of power altogether. In this context of controversies, Evelyn Fox Keller has not adequately challenged traditional notions of power and dominance. Although Keller describes a new model for conceiving of power relations within scientific research, I will maintain that she adopts a traditional model of power in her philosophy of science. In Evelyn Fox Keller's recent work, she has tried to reconcile feminism and science. Her goal has been to open science to feminist charges of male bias without risking scientific knowledge altogether. In "The Gender/Science System," she gracefully walks the balance beam on the fundamental dilemma: if we open science to feminist scrutiny, which discloses biases in what we have heretofore held as scientific truth, how can we be sure that there is any truth in science? And, if there is truth in science, how can we distinguish it from bias or parochialism?'
TL;DR: A review essay on Janice Raymond's A Passion for Friends, sympathetic to the author's inquiry into the institutional contexts of female friendship, criticizes as unnecessary its rejection of feminist separatism and of the "lesbian continuum" and formulates a possible connection of its account of sources of passionate friendship among women to the new research on women and violence as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: This review essay on Janice Raymond's A Passion for Friends, sympathetic to the author's inquiry into the institutional contexts of female friendship, criticizes as unnecessary its rejection of feminist separatism and of the “lesbian continuum” and formulates a possible connection of its account of sources of passionate friendship among women to the new research on women and violence.
TL;DR: The authors argued that recognizing equal rights for children is likely to worsen this situation, not make it better, arguing that protection of children is merely repressive control: they are infantilized by our treatment of them and neither are they being provided with an environment conducive to learning prudence or morality.
Abstract: Shulamith Firestone argues that for women to embrace equal rights without recognizing them for children is unjust. Protection of children is merely repressive control: they are infantilized by our treatment of them. I maintain that many children no longer get much protection, but neither are they being provided with an environment conducive to learning prudence or morality. Recognizing equal rights for children is likely to worsen this situation, not make it better.
TL;DR: In this article, Wellman's comments on "Wrong Rights" are those of a sophisticated rights theorist, and I find them both astute and welcome Since my paper didn't support to give a sustained and general attack on rights or expound a theory of rights (for which it is not nearly scholarly enough) and since Wellman would not defend the widest applications sometimes made of rights, it's possible for us to be in much agreement He is reassuringly in sympathy with the overall thrust of my argument, toward increased wariness with respect to the invocation of rights and shares
Abstract: Carl Wellman's comments on "Wrong Rights" are those of a sophisticated rights theorist, and I find them both astute and welcome Since my paper didn't support to give a sustained and general attack on rights or expound a theory of rights (for which it is not nearly scholarly enough) and since Wellman would not defend the widest applications sometimes made of rights, it's possible for us to be in much agreement He is reassuringly in sympathy with the overall thrust of my argument, toward increased wariness with respect to the invocation of rights, and shares my uneasiness with some of the troublesome examples that I cite On specifics, both of us support differential rights for pregnant women; neither of us wants to grant that fetuses have rights; we agree that rights are spoken of much too loosely and more care in their use is in order Our disagreements nonetheless concern important issues that need to be carried further What I argue is that certain applications of rights suggest that we need to use more common sense, and should keep one eye on their suitability to any given kind of injustice My broadest claims were that (a) we have a reflex tendency to deal with wrongs in terms of violations of rights; (b) this tendency reflects some of the assumptions of atomism; and (c) we do this partly in the belief that a reason for wrong is always needed, and a violated right appears to supply such a reason I offered a few instances where addressing a wrong by referring to a right seems to me illogical and incongruous Let me turn now to the main disagreements between Wellman and me 1) On the connection of rights with atomism, I do not say that it is one of entailment-that rights follow from the assumptions of atomism, those of the independence, autonomy, equality and competitiveness of individuals And obviously atomism doesn't follow from rights: you needn't be an atomist to hold a doctrine of rights, though without atomism the theory would be very different What I said was that "individual rights is a natural adjunct to atomism," meaning that there is a logical affinity between the language of rights and these assumptions' (1987, 28) Individual rights fits neatly with atomism's assumption of human independence and equality, and support our preference for rights that are equal Wellman shows his attachment to equal