For most of its history, western philosophy has regarded woman as an imperfect version of man. Like so many aspects of western culture, this tradition builds on foundations laid in ancient Greece. Yet the first philosophers of antiquity were hardly agreed on first principles. Songe-M°ller shows how the Greeks made intellectual choices that would prove fateful for half of humankind.
Despite its place in the humanities, the career prospects and numbers of women in philosophy much more closely resemble those found in the sciences and engineering. This book collects a series of critical essays by female philosophers pursuing the question of why philosophy continues to be inhospitable to women and what can be done to change it. By examining the social and institutional conditions of contemporary academic philosophy in the Anglophone world as well as its methods, culture, and characteristic commitments, the volume provides a case study in interpretation of one academic discipline in which women's progress seems to have stalled since initial gains made in the 1980s. Some contributors make use of concepts developed in other contexts to explain women's under-representation, including the effects of unconscious biases, stereotype threat, and micro-inequities. Other chapters draw on the resources of feminist philosophy to challenge everyday understandings of time, communication, authority and merit, as these shape effective but often unrecognized forms of discrimination and exclusion. Often it is assumed that women need to change to fit existing institutions. This book instead offers concrete reflections on the way in which philosophy needs to change, in order to accommodate and benefit from the important contribution women's full participation makes to the discipline.
The historical exclusion of women's voices has diminished academic disciplines, including philosophy. In this groundbreaking new account of Western philosophy throughout the past 2,600 years, Karen J. Warren has paired sixteen women philosophers along-side their historical male contemporaries in conversations on philosophy. An overview essay, together with chapter introductions, primary readings, and expert commentaries, offer a rich description and evaluation of each philosopher's vital contributions to Western philosophy. Book jacket.
Why are some claims seen or heard as political claims, while others are not? Why are some people not seen or heard as political agents? And how does their political unintelligibility shape political bodies, and the terms of political agency, from which they are excluded? In this groundbreaking book, Sina Kramer uses the framework of constitutive exclusion to describe the phenomenon of internal exclusion -- exclusions that occur within a political body. More specifically, constitutive exclusions occur when a system of thought or a political body defines itself by excluding some difference (based on gender, race, class, sexuality, etc.) that is considered intolerable to the boundaries that comprise the body or system's political worth. This exclusion is not absolute, but preserves the very difference it seeks to repress in order to define itself against what it is not. Yet, as Kramer argues, if those who are excluded contest their repression, their political claims are deemed threatening and criminal. But can we ever be without constitutive exclusions? And can we avoid reinscribing them through critique? Kramer ultimately argues that to do justice to the excluded, to render those claims intelligible as political claims, instead requires the reconstitution of the political body on new terms. Importantly, this book offers both a diagnosis and a critique of the concept of constitutive exclusion, articulating what counts as a political action and who counts as a political agent. Kramer takes up a range of cases -- including those of Antigone, Claudette Colvin and Rosa Parks, the 1992 Los Angeles riots, and the Black Lives Matter movement -- to better understand who counts as a political actor, and how we understand political belonging and the contestation of exclusion. Excluded Within articulates who we are by virtue of who we exclude, and what claims we cannot see, hear, or understand.
For most of its history, western philosophy has regarded woman as an imperfect version of man. Like so many aspects of western culture, this tradition builds on foundations laid in ancient Greece. Yet the first philosophers of antiquity were hardly agreed on first principles. Songe-M°ller shows how the Greeks made intellectual choices that would prove fateful for half of humankind.
Iris Murdoch was one of the best-known philosophers and novelists of the post-war period. In this book, Sabina Lovibond explores the tangled issue of Murdoch's stance towards gender and feminism, drawing upon the evidence of her fiction, philosophy, and other public statements. As well as analysing Murdoch's own attitudes, Iris Murdoch, Gender and Philosophy is also a critical enquiry into the way we picture intellectual, and especially philosophical, activity. Appealing to the idea of a 'social imaginary' within which Murdoch's work is located, Lovibond examines the sense of incongruity or dissonance that may still affect our image of a woman philosopher, even where egalitarian views officially hold sway. The first thorough exploration of Murdoch and gender, Iris Murdoch, Gender and Philosophy is a fresh contribution to debates in feminist philosophy and gender studies, and essential reading for anyone interested in Murdoch's literary and philosophical writing.
Cover -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Note on Abbreviations -- Chronology -- Introduction -- 1 Who Were the Pythagorean Women? -- 2 Wives, Mothers, Sisters, Daughters -- 3 Who Were the Neopythagorean Women Authors? -- 4 Introduction to the Prose Writings of Neopythagorean Women -- 5 The Letters and Treatises of Neopythagorean Women in the East -- 6 The Letters and Treatises of Neopythagorean Women in the West -- 7 The Neopythagorean Women as Philosophers -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- F -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- R -- S -- T -- V -- W -- X -- Z.
Philosophy is in its fourth millennium but this collection is the first of its kind. Twelve contemporary women of color who are American academic philosophers consider the methods and subjects of the discipline from perspectives partly informed by their experiences as African American, Asian American, Latina, Mixed Race and Native American.
The book offers a feminist examination of contemporary social injustices. It argues for a paradigm-shift away from feminist philosophy organized around the gender concept woman, and towards humanist feminism. The book further develops a notion of dehumanization that explicates social injustices, elucidates humanist feminism, and improves non-feminist analyses of injustice.
