Irigaray, Luce, Carlston, Erin G.. The Language of Man
1989, Cultural Critique, 13: 191-202
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Added by: Franci Mangraviti and Viviane FairbankAbstract:
This paper enumerates Irigaray's main arguments and thoughts regarding the gendered nature of language and "the logos".Comment: available in this Blueprint
Ivanova, Milena. Pierre Duhem’s Good Sense as a Guide to Theory Choice
2010, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science part A 41(1): 58-64.
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Added by: Laura Jimenez, Contributed by: Ivanova, MilenaAbstract: This paper examines Duhem's concept of good sense as an attempt to support a non rule-governed account of rationality in theory choice. Faced with the underdetermination of theory by evidence thesis and the continuity thesis, Duhem tried to account for the ability of scientists to choose theories that continuously grow to a natural classification. The author examines the concept of good sense and the problems that stem from it. The paper presents a recent attempt by David Stump to link good sense to virtue epistemology. It is argued that even though this approach can be useful for the better comprehension of the concept of good sense, there are some substantial differences between virtue epistemologists and Duhem. The athor proposes a possible way to interpret the concept of good sense, which overcomes the noted problems and fits better with Duhem's views on scientific method and motivation in developing the concept of good sense.Comment: Interesting article that could serve as further reading in both epistemology courses and philosophy of science classes. Really good as an in-depth study of Duhem's views on scientific method. Recommendable for postgraduates or senior undergraduates.
Ivanova, Milena. Conventionalism, structuralism and neo-Kantianism in Poincare’s philosophy of science
2015, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part B: Studies in History and Philosophy of Modern Physics 52 (Part B):114-122.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Milena IvanovaAbstract: Poincare is well known for his conventionalism and structuralism. However, the relationship between these two theses and their place in Poincare's epistemology of science remain puzzling. In this paper I show the scope of Poincare's conventionalism and its position in Poincare's hierarchical approach to scientific theories. I argue that for Poincare scientific knowledge is relational and made possible by synthetic a priori, empirical and conventional elements, which, however, are not chosen arbitrarily. By examining his geometric conventionalism, his hierarchical account of science and defence of continuity in theory change, I argue that Poincare defends a complex structuralist position based on synthetic a priori and conventional elements, the mind-dependence of which precludes epistemic access to mind-independent structures.
Ivanova, Milena. Did Perrin’s Experiments Convert Poincare to Scientific Realism?
2013, Hopos: The Journal of the International Society for the History of Philosophy of Science 3 (1):1-19.
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Added by: Chris Blake-Turner, Contributed by: Milena IvanovaAbstract: In this paper I argue that Poincare's acceptance of the atom does not indicate a shift from instrumentalism to scientific realism. I examine the implications of Poincare's acceptance of the existence of the atom for our current understanding of his philosophy of science. Specifically, how can we understand Poincare's acceptance of the atom in structural realist terms? I examine his 1912 paper carefully and suggest that it does not entail scientific realism in the sense of acceptance of the fundamental existence of atoms but rather, argues against fundamental entities. I argue that Poincare's paper motivates a non-fundamentalist view about the world, and that this is compatible with his structuralism.
Mernissi, Fatima. The Muslim Concept of Active Female Sexuality
2011, in Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Muslim Society. London: Saqi Books
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Added by: Björn Freter & Marc GwodogAbstract:
From the writing of her first book, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society in 1975, Mernissi has sought to reclaim the ideological discourse on women and sexuality from the stranglehold of patriarchy. She critically examines the classical corpus of religious-juristic texts, including the Hadith, and reinterprets them from a feminist perspective. In her view, the Muslim ideal of the silent, passive, obedient woman has nothing to do with the authentic message of Islam. Rather, it is a construction of the 'ulama', the male jurists-theologians who manipulated and distorted the religious texts in order to preserve the patriarchal system. Mernissi's work explores the relationship between sexual ideology, gender identity, sociopolitical organization, and the status of women in Islam; her special focus, however, is Moroccan society and culture. As a feminist, her work represents an attempt to undermine the ideological and political systems that silence and oppress Muslim women.Comment (from this Blueprint): Fatima Mernissi’s works provide an insight into the debate on the place of women in Muslim societies. This book is interesting in that it shows how the male-female dynamic was built on a particular interpretation of the Qur'an and how this ideology organized and regulated social roles according to gender. It also provides an understanding of how male-female interactions are affected by the processes of modernization in Muslim societies.
Mernissi, Fatima. Women’s Liberation in Muslim Countries
2011, in Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Muslim Society. London: Saqi Books
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Added by: Björn Freter & Marc GwodogAbstract:
From the writing of her first book, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society in 1975, Mernissi has sought to reclaim the ideological discourse on women and sexuality from the stranglehold of patriarchy. She critically examines the classical corpus of religious-juristic texts, including the Hadith, and reinterprets them from a feminist perspective. In her view, the Muslim ideal of the silent, passive, obedient woman has nothing to do with the authentic message of Islam. Rather, it is a construction of the 'ulama', the male jurists-theologians who manipulated and distorted the religious texts in order to preserve the patriarchal system. Mernissi's work explores the relationship between sexual ideology, gender identity, sociopolitical organization, and the status of women in Islam; her special focus, however, is Moroccan society and culture. As a feminist, her work represents an attempt to undermine the ideological and political systems that silence and oppress Muslim women.Comment (from this Blueprint): Fatima Mernissi’s works provide an insight into the debate on the place of women in Muslim societies. This book is interesting in that it shows how the male-female dynamic was built on a particular interpretation of the Qur'an and how this ideology organized and regulated social roles according to gender. It also provides an understanding of how male-female interactions are affected by the processes of modernization in Muslim societies.
Radzins, Inese. Simone Weil on Labor and Spirit
2017, Journal of Religious Ethics 45 (2):291-308
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
This essay argues that Simone Weil appropriates Marx's notion of labor as life activity in order to reposition work as the site of spirituality. Rather than locating spirituality in a religious tradition, doctrine, profession of faith, or in personal piety, Weil places it in the capacity to work. Spirit arises in the activity of living, and more specifically in laboring—in one's engagement with materiality. Utilizing Marx's distinction between living and dead labor, I show how Weil develops a critique of capital as a “force” that disrupts the individual's relation to her own work by reducing it to the mere activity of calculable “production.” Capital reduces labor to an abstraction and thereby uproots human subjectivity, on a systemic scale, from its connection to living praxis, or what Weil calls spirituality. Life itself is exchanged for a simulacrum of life. In positioning living labor as spiritual, Weil's work offers a corrective to these deadening practices.
Comment: This text provides an in-depth analysis of Simone Weil's account of and philosophy on work and labor, through the theological lens of spirituality. It therefore offers a unique take on Weil's attempt to situate work and labor as activities of central import in human life. The text might be an interesting supplement to any upper-level undergraduate or graduate level courses explore the concept and value of work, or the historical treatment of the concept in western philosophy. It would also be useful as a companion or supplemental text in courses focused on exploring Simone Weil's philosophy and thought.
Shapiro, Lisa. Descartes’s Ethics
2008, In Janet Broughton & John Carriero (eds.), A companion to Descartes. Oxford: Blackwell. pp. 445-463.
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Added by: Clotilde Torregrossa, Contributed by: Alberto VanzoAbstract: I begin my discussion by considering how to relate Descartes's more general concern with the conduct of life to the metaphysics and epistemology in the foreground of his philosophical project. I then turn to the texts in which Descartes offers his developed ethical thought and present the case for Descartes as a virtue ethicist. My argument emerges from seeing that Descartes's conception of virtue and the good owes much to Stoic ethics, a school of thought which saw a significant revival in the seventeenth century. It does, however, deviate from classical Stoicism in critical ways. Towards the end of my discussion, I return to the question of the relation between Descartes's ethics and his metaphysics and epistemology, and I suggest that the Discourse on the Method for Rightly Conducting Reason and the Meditations on First Philosophy are invested with the virtue ethical considerations of moral education and the regulation of the passions, respectively.
Veltman, Andrea. Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt on Labor
2010, Hypatia 25 (1):55 - 78
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
Comparing the typologies of human activities developed by Beauvoir and Arendt, I argue that these philosophers share the same concept of labor as well as a similar insight that labor cannot provide a justification or evaluative measure for human life. But Beauvoir and Arendt think differently about work (as contrasted with labor), and Arendt alone illuminates the inability of constructive work to provide non-utilitarian value for human existence. Beauvoir, on the other hand, exceeds Arendt in examining the ethical implications of our existential need for a plurality of free peers in a public realm.
Comment: This essay presents a side-by side analysis of both de Beauvoir's and Arendt's philosophical accounts of labour and work. It also touches on some of the ethical implications of those accounts, and their meaning for a philosphical understanding of the concepts of work and labor as they relate to human life. The author highlights a previously unnoticed similarity between how both thinkers approaches the concept of labor, as the category of human activity relegated to the inherently ephemeral: 'labor itself produces no great works or deed worthy of remembrance, nor does it directly contribute to constructing the artifice of the human world that distinguishes human existence from unchanging animal life.' She also discusses the author approaches as they relate to their major predecessor on the topic: Marx. As such, the essay may be used in a variety of intermediate undergraduate as well as master's level courses covering work and labor, feminist perspectives on work and labor, the philosophy of Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt, respectively, or even philosophical critiques of Marx. The text, while offering a close textual read of both others, also has value for it's broader take on the concepts of work and labor - concepts which have not been readily discussed in contemporary analytic philosophy outside of the Marxist literature.
Veltman, Andrea. The Sisyphean Torture of Housework: Simone de Beauvoir and Inequitable Divisions of Domestic Work in Marriage
2004, Hypatia 19 (3):121-143
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Added by: Deryn Mair ThomasAbstract:
This paper examines Simone de Beauvoir's account of marriage in The Second Sex and argues that Beauvoir's dichotomy between transcendence and immanence can provide an illuminating critique of continuing gender inequities in marriage and divisions of domestic work. Beauvoir's existentialist ethics not only establishes a moral wrong in marriages in which wives perform the second shift of household labor but also supports the need to transform existing normative expectations surrounding wives and domestic work.
Comment: This paper revisits the contemporary literature on the gendered divisions of household labour and argues for a new ethical framework based on Simone de Beauvoir's analysis of marriage in terms of transcendence and immanence. According to Beauvoir, 'marriage is oppressive and involves a moral wrong when it facilitates the transcendence of one spouse by relegating the other to the round of relatively uncreative chores needed to maintain life in the home.' Veltman also argues that, contrary to a common reading of de Beauvoir's account, de Beauvoir does not reject marriage per se, but in fact leaves open the opportunity for reform, such that a marriage 'has the potential to support equitable unions between free beings.' For this reason, the paper may be useful as specialised or further reading for courses interested in contemporary feminist critiques, the work of Simone de Beauvoir, or more broadly, 20th Century feminism. In addition, it also offers an interesting discussion of housework and domestic labor which may prove useful in the context of courses examining work and gendered divisions of labour. It would also be well paired with the work of Hannah Arendy, and another of Veltman's essays, "Simone de Beauvoir and Hannah Arendt on Labor."
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