From: brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder)
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Keywords: Plato, politics, women, feminism
Organization: Quake Public Access
Date: Sun, 8 Nov 1992 09:53:08 GMT

In article <1992Nov6.183506.7213@beaver.cs.washington.edu> pauld@cs.washington.edu (Paul Barton-Davis) writes:
>In article <Bx9JK3.35s@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov3.220658.27483@midway.uchicago.edu> koc5@midway.uchicago.edu writes:

>>>As a newcomer to women's studies and to feminist philosophy I could also use 
>>>refernces to the most important recent work.  The University of Chicago,
>>>where I attend, seems unusually benighted in its lack of a women's studies
>>>department or even a women's studies bibliographer.

>>Since you are just getting started, I would think that the first order of
>>bussiness ought to be to seriously question whether "feminist philosophy"
>>is a valid field of study.  In my view, to place sex at such a 
>>fundamental position in one's way of thinking is simply absurd.
>>If you think that feminist philosophy is a valid area of though, do 
>>you also think that there ought to be such a thing as "black philosophy",
>>"bald philosophy", "poor philosophy", "male philosophy", or "blue-eyed
>>people who live in Hollywood philosophy"?  I don't.  Certainly one can
>>use philosophy to understand issues like race, sex, baldness, economics, and
>>one's unique characteristics, but the philosophical principles are universal,
>>not particular to certain kinds of people.

>To the extent that social and cultural mores over the last few
>thousand years have established the existence of more than one gender,
>and divided them largely on the basis on biological sex, 

Perhaps you could enlighten us with a definition of "gender".  It seems to me
to be an artificial construction of some kind.

>it seems
>likely that there are philosophical viewpoints that are largely
>segregated along the same lines.

On the contrary, it seems quite unlikely.  Certain POLITICAL questions are
likely to have been segregated between the sexes (particularly in the societies
with strongly limiting social customs), but I have two objections to calling
any philosophical view "feminine" or "masculine".  First, the answers to
philosophical questions are matters of objective fact, and the answers are
neither feminine nor masculine. If you want to study the differences on average
between the answers to philoosophical questions between the sexes, that belongs
in a study of anthropology or sociology, and a rather tiny and insignificant
branch of it to boot.  Second, since philosophy is essentially an intellectual
issue, one would expect that intellectual differences (say, between the
educated and the ignorant or between various professions) would yeild much
different philosophical conclusions.  This being the case, something like
"country bumpkin philosophy" or "mentally retarded philosophy" or "businessman
philosophy" or "journalist philosophy" makes a lot more sense than "feminist 
philosophy".  

It is also quite obvious that all women don't think alike (something that
30 years ago would have perhaps made people call me a feminist).  To say
that Margaret Thatcher shares any philosophical premises with Petra Kelly is
quite a stretch, don't you think?

>That the study of these viewpoints is currently called "feminist
>philosophy" is a likely more a function of history, not biology.

Why not call it history or anthropology then?

>Note that I am an "egalitarian", not a "difference", feminist.

I'm not certain just what that means.  Actually, it seems to me that the 
important question is whether or not you are a sexist feminist or a 
non-sexist feminist.  What I mean by that is that there are some people
who consider sex to be the most important thing about them (or others),
either historically or here-and-now.  One's sex is certainly a fact with some
consequences, but I don't consider it a particularly important one.  There
are also people who consider one's race to be especially important in defining
who they are.  Those people are racists.

It seems to me that the emphasis universities place on racial studies 
departments and the various sexual studies departments, is just racism 
and sexism in the guise of academic study.  If that's what you want, why
not drop the facade and call it what it is?


--Brian
Newsgroups: soc.women