Women and ReasonElizabeth D. Harvey, Kathleen Okruhlik University of Michigan Press, 1992 - 294 pages The idea of reason and its place in Western thought has long been a central topic for philosophers, histories, and cultural theorists. Some have claimed that since rationality is a male principle, the emphasis placed upon it has relegated women to secondary positions throughout the history of Western civilization. Women and Reason provides a revisionary assessment of the idea of reason and its relationship to femininity. The editors of this interdisciplinary collection have gathered essays that examine the concept of reason from a variety of perspectives and across a number of historical periods. Philosophers, philosophers of science, historians, literary critics, art historians, and theorists of culture address the idea of reason and how it has affected our notion of the feminine from the seventeenth century, the period many have seen as giving birth to our modern idea of rationality, to the present. Topics addressed include the place of women in seventeenth-century English culture, the relationship between women and religion in the writings of Francis Bacon and John Calvin, women and prophecy, and the relationship between gender and the origins of science. Examinations of nineteenth- and twentieth-century art and literature focus on the gendered linkage between madness and creativity and on abstract art's exclusion of the feminine. Other essays treat issues in feminist methodology such as whether reason and emotion are mutually exclusive, the role of experience in the construction of knowledge, and the place of language and consensus in the shaping of society. The result is a volume with far-reaching implications for the understanding of our cultural inheritance and for future feminist practice and theory. It will be of interest to scholars and students of philosophy, history, literary studies, art history, and the history and philosophy of science. |
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Page 125
... observation . Observation is not simply a passive process of absorbing impressions or recording stimuli ; instead , it is an activity of selection and interpre- tation . What is selected and how it is interpreted are influenced by ...
... observation . Observation is not simply a passive process of absorbing impressions or recording stimuli ; instead , it is an activity of selection and interpre- tation . What is selected and how it is interpreted are influenced by ...
Page 276
... observation . They are particularly odd by the standards of the empiricist theory of knowledge taken for granted in medical science . Empiricists , avowedly , put great store in first - person perceptual and observational reports ...
... observation . They are particularly odd by the standards of the empiricist theory of knowledge taken for granted in medical science . Empiricists , avowedly , put great store in first - person perceptual and observational reports ...
Page 280
... observation that " knowledge about women has always been masculine property " begins to read like an observation that belongs in the past tense . 46 When it makes sense to be confident that it no longer holds , it will perhaps be ...
... observation that " knowledge about women has always been masculine property " begins to read like an observation that belongs in the past tense . 46 When it makes sense to be confident that it no longer holds , it will perhaps be ...
Contents
Contents | 1 |
Feminist Methodology in the Social | 15 |
Smith | 19 |
Copyright | |
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abstract acceptance according activity Adam Adam's appears argues argument authority Bacon become body called Calvin claims communicative conception concerns constructed context continues creativity critical culture defined describes desire difference discourse discussion distinction dominant effect Eliot emotions English epistemology essay example exclusion experience fact feel female feminine feminist gender George human ideas important individual intellectual interests John knowing knowledge learning less lives London madness male masculine means method mind Mondrian naming nature notes notion objectivity observation oracles painting particular period perspective philosophy physical political position possible practice present Press problems question rational reading reality reason reference relation relationship requires responses scientific seen sense seventeenth century sexual situation social society subjects suggests theory things thought tradition understanding University University Press values Western woman women writing York