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 27
... effect of the progress of rea- son .... 22 The central relevance of women as nonrational and nonlearned beings is clarified further by those prominent in seventeenth - century thought who recognize areas of female importance and even ...
... effect of the progress of rea- son .... 22 The central relevance of women as nonrational and nonlearned beings is clarified further by those prominent in seventeenth - century thought who recognize areas of female importance and even ...
Page 263
... effect upon human subjects when they occupy the place of the " objects " studied . The methodology renders them as personally invisible , as faceless , and as interchangeable as the placeholders on either side of the " S knows that P ...
... effect upon human subjects when they occupy the place of the " objects " studied . The methodology renders them as personally invisible , as faceless , and as interchangeable as the placeholders on either side of the " S knows that P ...
Page 278
... effect that both women and men see cats on mats pretty much indistin- guishably in similar circumstances , it appears to be nonsensical to suggest that women's knowledge claims frequently are suppressed for want of acknowledgment . Yet ...
... effect that both women and men see cats on mats pretty much indistin- guishably in similar circumstances , it appears to be nonsensical to suggest that women's knowledge claims frequently are suppressed for want of acknowledgment . Yet ...
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Feminist Methodology in the Social | 15 |
Changing Conceptions of Authority and Reason | 39 |
Copyright | |
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Adam Adam's naming analysis animals argues argument Arnauld artist bodily body Bordo Calvin Camille Claudel Cartesian claims cognitive Commentarie communicative reason conception constructed context creativity critical critiques culture defined Descartes desire difference discourse discussion dominant English epistemic epistemology essay Evelyn Fox Keller example exclusion experience feel Female Malady feminine Feminism feminist research feminist theory Fontenelle Francis Bacon gender Genesis Genevieve Lloyd George Eliot Grimshaw Habermas Habermas's human hysteria ideological individual intellectual interests James Spedding John John Calvin knowing knowledge London madness male Malebranche marriage Mary Astell masculine metaphor mind Mondrian moral nature notion objectivity oracles outlaw emotions patriarchal patriarchy perspective physical Plato political purity question rational reality relationship role scientific sense seventeenth century sexual Showalter social society Stanley and Wise subjects Susan Bordo Suzanne Valadon Symbolist thought tradition trans understanding University Press values woman women York