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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Olivia Maegaard NielsenAbstract: In assessing the likely credibility of a claim or judgment, is it ever relevant to take into account the social identity of the person who has made the claim? There are strong reasons, political and otherwise, to argue against the epistemic relevance of social identity. However, there are instances where social identity might be deemed relevant, such as in determinations of criminal culpability where a relatively small amount of evidence is the only basis for the decision and where social prejudices can play a role in inductive reasoning. This paper explores these issues.Comment: This essay asks the question of whether and how the identity of a knower should be taken into account when judging their epistemic credibility. It explores different ways in which such a relationship might be understood and concludes that it is not irrational to take the identity of the knower into account. While her starting point is in the legal context of jury selection, the question applies much more broadly to (social) epistemological questions. It also shows why it is helpful to take social relations into account in epistemological inquiries. The text would therefore be suitable to read in many different contexts, but for example, in seminars on social epistemology, on identity, or on metaphilosophical questions.
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Added by: Olivia Maegaard NielsenAbstract:
As philosophers and social theorists we are authorized by virtue of our academic positions to develop theories that express and encompass the ideas, needs, and goals of others. However, we must begin to ask ourselves whether this is a legitimate authority. Is the discursive practice of speaking for others ever a valid practice, and, if so, what are the criteria for validity? In particular, is it ever valid to speak for others who are unlike me or who are less privileged than me?
Comment: This is a classic all the while being very timely and concerning a topic that will still engage today's students. The text postulates the dilemma of whether and under what conditions it is legitimate to speak for those in less privileged positions than oneself. While not providing one final answer, Alcoff delineates and evaluates different possible approaches and offers four different interrogatory practices for evaluating instances of speaking for others. She illustrates the dillemma by drawing on real life examples. This is a dillemma that concerns many people interested in philosophy and beyond and it can help students reflect on their own philosophical practice in a constructive way. The text would be suitable to read in seminars concerning social (in)justice, feminist philosophy, and social epistemology.
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Added by: Emily PaulPublisher's note: Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality.Comment: All of this book would be very useful for a feminist philosophy course, but chapter 1 in particular would be great to use for a unit on the metaphysics of gender, by considering Butler's account of gender being performative, and how this links in with the social constructivist account of gender.
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Added by: Anne-Marie McCallionPublisher’s Note:
One of the most talked-about scholarly works of the past fifty years, Judith Butler’s Gender Trouble is as celebrated as it is controversial. Arguing that traditional feminism is wrong to look to a natural, 'essential' notion of the female, or indeed of sex or gender, Butler starts by questioning the category 'woman' and continues in this vein with examinations of 'the masculine' and 'the feminine'. Best known however, but also most often misinterpreted, is Butler's concept of gender as a reiterated social performance rather than the expression of a prior reality. Thrilling and provocative, few other academic works have roused passions to the same exten
Comment: Judith Pamela Butler is an American philosopher and gender theorist whose work has influenced political philosophy, ethics, and the fields of third-wave feminist, queer, and literary theory. In 1993, Butler began teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, where they have served, beginning in 1998, as the Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program of Critical Theory. They are also the Hannah Arendt Chair at the European Graduate School. In Gender Trouble Butler argues that gender is a kind of improvised performance. The work is influential in feminism, women's studies, and lesbian and gay studies, and has also enjoyed widespread popularity outside of traditional academic circles. Butler's ideas about gender came to be seen as foundational to queer theory and the advancing of dissident sexual practices during the 1990s. In this chapter, Butler critically assesses central literatures that have sought to define and illuminate gender and sexuality; in doing so, they lay the groundwork for their subsequent critique of hegemonic depictions of gender binaries.
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Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane FairbankAbstract:
Rationality and reason are topics so fraught for feminists that any useful reflection on them requires some prior exploration of the difficulties they have caused. One of those difficulties for feminists and, I suspect, for others in the margins of modernity, is the rhetoric of reason - the ways reason is bandied about as a qualification differentially bestowed on different types of person. Rhetorically, it functions in different ways depending on whether it is being denied or affirmed. In this paper, I want to explore these rhetorics of reason as they are considered in the work of two feminist philosophers. I shall draw on their work for some suggestions about how to think about rationality, and begin to use those suggestions to develop a constructive account that withstands the rhetorical temptations.Comment: available in this Blueprint
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Added by: Zoé Grange-MarczakAbstract:
In this talk given in 1983 at the University of Illinois, Spivak (b. 1942) criticizes a Western understanding of the political subject by examining how Third World subjects are perceived within Western discourse. She studies the way Western representations prevent the subaltern woman from making her own voice heard. Her critique depends on a definition of the subaltern, the “Other,” who is paradoxically both constituted and erased by Western theories, and is neither heard nor answered, leading Spivak to question their very possibility to speak. She specifically uses the history of British colonialism's relation to the Hindu practice of sati, the ritual self-immolation of a widow on her husband’s funeral pyre, which was read by the British as barbarism and deprived of the social signification it holds. Spivak highlights the contradictions of the so-called “civilizing mission” of colonialism, showing how women’s rights have been used by colonialism against the subalterns themselves, thereby robbing them of their own voices. Drawing critically on French theory (Derrida, Althusser, Deleuze, Foucault), Marxism (Marx, Benjamin, Gramsci) and other postcolonial scholars (Said), this landmark essay mobilizes historical documentation alongside critical theory to produce a seminal work of political and social philosophy. At the same time, Spivak offers a meta-philosophical enquiry, pointing to a major bias in the very constitution and discourse of the discipline.Comment: The large amount of references, along with the elaborate critique, makes this essay rather difficult and subtle. However, in addition to its great depth and sophistication, it is historically one of the foundational essay for postcolonial theory, with which it engages critically. A starting point for debates around multiculturalism and feminism, it also is a pivotal work for Subaltern Studies, and a good way to link 20th century French and American philosophy with its non-Western comments and renewals. Suitable for advanced students or further readings for a class on postcolonialism or continental philosophy.