From: rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney)
Subject: Re: Plato's Views on Women
Followup-To: sci.philosophy.meta, talk.philosophy.misc
Keywords: politics, women, feminism
Organization: Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA 90041 USA.
Date: Tue, 17 Nov 1992 03:39:24 GMT

In article <BxsIx0.6oo@quake.sylmar.ca.us> brian@quake.sylmar.ca.us (Brian K. Yoder) writes:
>In article <1992Nov11.010102.14565@cheshire.oxy.edu> rooney@cheshire.oxy.edu (Michael Sean Rooney) writes:
>>In article <BxIKsp.Gt3@unx.sas.com> sasghm@theseus.unx.sas.com (Gary Merrill) writes:
>
>>>As another teaser, have you ever wondered why the "feminist philosophers"
>>>all seem to have a certain political perspective -- as though this
>>>somehow is a part of the essential nature of feminism or feminist
>>>philosophy?  If you want to get a job as a "feminist philosopher" you
>>>not only have to teach "feminist issues", but you have to teach them
>>>in a certain *way*, from a certain point of view.  Any feminist
>>>philosophers out there who are Ayn Rand followers?  Any feminist
>>>philosophers who would, under any objective criterion, be considered
>>>"right" of center rather than "left"?
>
>>	Two comments.
>
>>	Gary, you're really only highlighting your willingness
>>to argue issues you have little substantive knowledge of here.  The
>>political differences between, say, Irigaray, Okin, Fraser, and Daly
>>(to take four prominent feminist philosophers of diverse schools)
>>are probably much wider than those separating, e.g., Rorty and
>>Putnam.  
>
>So what IS the common denominator between the various feminist philosophers?
>On what gounds can they be put into the same category?
>

	Well, broadly speaking, feminist philosophers give explicit
and central roles to issues relating to gender and thought.  That's
very general, but it's a definition which encompasses the four feminist
philosophers I mentioned above.  Plato and many other "canonical"
philosophers treat issues of gender explicitly, but rarely take it
as central to (for example) their metaphysical or ethico-political
programmes, whereas Irigaray, et alia obviously do.

>Regarding Rorty and Putnam, there are a hundred kinds of insanity and only
>one kind of sanity.
>

	Eh?  You're being uncommonly elliptical here; although
I have a sneaking suspicion that you're on the verge of vouching
for the alleged philosophical sanity of Len Peikoff and assorted
objectivist zanies.

>>That feminism seeks some connections between thought and practice
>>is no vice.
>
>The objection here is that if feminism claims to be in some sense derived 
>from something feminine, then why is it that feminist philosophy only
>deals with leftist ideas?  It seems that feminist philosophy is a subspecies
>of "leftist philosophy".  In that sense, the political spokesmen for the
>feminists can hardly claim to be speaking on behalf of all women.  At best,
>only leftist women, and not necessarily even that.
>

	Again, the nebulous straw entity of "feminism" rears its
vaguely menacing visage.  "Feminism" does not necessarily claim to
be derived from femininity.  *Some* difference feminists make this
claim, but at any rate, a philosophical position need not be universally
representative of those it makes its claims about.  E.g., Hegel 
makes a variety of claims about the entirety of human history.  Are
his claims somehow illegitimate as he can hardly claim to be speaking
on behalf of all humanity?  

	"Leftist philosophy"?  What the devil is that?  Can you
possibly be less specific?  If you are, as I suspect, using the
"L-word" in its standard libertarian paranoiac sense as any political
scheme daring to restrict the hallowed property rights of individuals,
then it would seem that most of philosophy "is a subspecies of 
'leftist philosophy'."  If by "leftism" you mean some Marxian 
derivation, then your assertion is simply false.  Feminism is far
more liberal in the classical sense than it is Marxian.

>>[1] Not to give Ludwig too much credit: these ideas are inherited
>>from his hidden inspiration, Schopenhauer.
>
>Yet another reason to despise him. ;-)
>

	While Wittgenstein's ethico-political apathy is in my
view a very indicative weakness of his position, I hardly think 
it sufficient cause for despising him, either personally or
philosophically.

Cordially,

Michael S. Rooney

"Finally -- one can say this with certainty -- distrust of all government,
 insight into the uselessness and destructiveness of all these short-winded
 struggles will impel men to a quite novel resolve: the resolve to do away
 with the concept of the state, to the abolition of the distinction 
 between private and public.  Private companies will step by step absorb
 the business of the state: even the most resistant remainder of what
 was formerly the work of government (for example its activities designed
 to protect the private person from the private person) will in the long
 run be taken care of by private contractors.  Disregard for and the
 decline and _death of the state_, the liberation of the private person
 (I take care not to say: of the individual), is the consequence of the
 democratic conception of the state..."  (1878)
Xref: sparky sci.philosophy.tech:4103 sci.lang:8030 sci.cognitive:630