New APPS

Art, Politics, Philosophy, Science. Mostly Philosophy.

recent posts

about

    Women In Philosophy And Reconceptualizing Philosophical Method

    By: Samir Chopra

    This past Monday, on 20th April, Christia Mercer, the Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University, delivered the Philosophy Department's annual Sprague and Taylor lecture at Brooklyn College. The title of her talk was 'How Women Changed The Course of Philosophy'. Here is the abstract:

    The story we tell about the development of early modern philosophy was invented by German Neo-Kantians about 150 years ago. Created to justify its proponents’ version of philosophy, it is a story that ignores the complications of seventeenth-century philosophy and its sources. In this lecture, Professor Christia Mercer uncovers the real story behind early modern rationalism and shows that many of its most original components have roots in the philosophical contributions made by women. [link added]

    At one point during the talk, in referring to the contributions made by Julian of Norwich, Professor Mercer began by saying, "Julian does not offer an argument here, but rather an analysis…". During the question and answer session, focusing on this remark, I offered some brief comments.

    There is at the heart of philosophical practice, a fairly well-established and canonical notion of philosophical method: the construction of arguments, hopefully building up to a 'system', which are to be subjected to an examination for weaknesses. The successful arguments emerge from this crucible all the better for their trials. From this conception of philosophical method we may also derive a fundamentally adversarial conception of philosophical activity–when two philosophers meet, they are engaged in a form of intellectual conflict, with each attempting shore up the defenses of their own system and expose the deficits of the other. But perhaps philosophers could do more than just offer and refute arguments. Perhaps they could offer observations and insights that make us view the world in a different light; perhaps they could show how one thing relates to another; perhaps they could analyze a situation or a state of affairs, not in the destructive, decompositional sense, but instead, by way of showing us what has to come together, and how, to make the situation 'hang together'; perhaps, as Wittgenstein is said to have done, they could 'point' and 'lay things out for us to see.'

    If understood in this way, then the business of 'bringing more women into philosophy' might not be just a matter of reaching out to women to 'pull' them in, but also of expanding our understanding of what philosophy is and how it is to be done so that its ambit will include women and the ways in which they might have been philosophers. (I could imagine, all too easily, responses along the following lines being made to some of Professor Mercer's examples of philosophical work in the period she was discussing: Why is this philosophy? The reasons for the exclusion of women from philosophy would not just be the denial of educational opportunity or participation in philosophical institutions  but also a straightforward failure to recognize their intellectual contributions as being philosophy in the first place.) Such an understanding of philosophy and its methods and practices would, of course, bring it closer to literature and poetry as well.

    Professor Mercer seemed to respond rather favorably to these remarks. I look forward to her forthcoming book on Anne Conway, in which some of the fascinating commentary she offered on reconceptualizing so-called 'early modern rationalism'–by way of showing its dependence on bodily experience and affect–will surely be recapitulated.

    Note: This post was originally published–under the same title–at samirchopra.com.

    Posted in , , , , ,

    2 responses to “Women In Philosophy And Reconceptualizing Philosophical Method”

    1. Julie Avatar
      Julie

      As a woman in philosophy, I worry about the way that many people seem to find “adversarial”, “argumentative”, and “decompositional” methodologies so at odds with something about women, and so natural to men. I have met many men in philosophy who are radically non-adversarial, constructive, and non-confrontational, and many women in philosophy who are adversarial, destructive (or decompositional), and confrontational, to a deleterious degree. But, rather than focus on the sociological question of what men and women are “really” like (which none of us are going to answer from the armchair), I think the more central issue is what philosophical practice should be like.
      To my mind, one of the central values of exposure to philosophy, whether from a single class or a lifetime of research and teaching, is in the exposure to philosophical methodology. By philosophical methodology, I think that I mean something very similar to what the author describes in the article: an interaction between two interlocutors, where at least one is presenting a thesis or a theory or a claim with which the other disagrees. This disagreement need not be genuine; it could be, literally, for the sake of argument. The interlocutors need not be in each others’ physical presence — the argument could take place through the analysis of texts many hundreds of years old. The interlocutors need not even be real; consider the Socratic dialogues, or the dialogues that can sometimes take place in one’s head as one writes a paper or considers a theory.
      The actual interlocutors themselves aren’t the crucial thing — it’s the kinds of things “they” say to one another. The really unique and valuable thing about philosophical methodology is the standard of consistency, plausibility, justifiability, rationality, explanatory power, parsimony, etc. (pick whichever collection you prefer) to which potential theories or systems are held, and the toolbox of techniques that philosophers have developed to test whether a theory or system meets these standards. It’s a wonderful thing to:
      “offer observations and insights that make us view the world in a different light; perhaps they could show how one thing relates to another; perhaps they could analyze a situation or a state of affairs, not in the destructive, decompositional sense, but instead, by way of showing us what has to come together, and how, to make the situation ‘hang together’”.
      But once all of these constructive projects are done, we have to start the important process of figuring out which of these insights we should actually believe. It’s very easy to construct a system of understanding, or generate an insight, that leaves important questions unanswered (and maybe unanswerable), or that’s internally inconsistent, or that conflicts with beliefs that we have good reasons to hold, or that makes claims that are unjustified by the available evidence, etc. To tell these kinds of claims and theories from “the good kind” (the kind that we could believe as responsible epistemic agents), you pull out the methodological toolbox and become “adversarial”, because most of the tools that philosophers have developed are ones that challenge the strength or resilience, in one metaphorical sense or another, of the theory or claim under examination. Does it entail a contradiction? Does it conflict with materialism (or dualism, or whatever your preferred cosmology is)? Does it explain the subject matter in a more parsimonious or predictive way than the competing theories?
      It seems to me that the kinds of practices that the author describes are necessary to doing philosophy (if we’re interested in discovering things about the world), but they’re not sufficient. And at least personally, one of the things I’ve learned through doing philosophy is how to have an “adversarial” conversation without having or projecting adversarial or combative or competitive emotions. Another thing I’ve learned is how to think critically in a rational way (at least ideally). It can certainly be damaging, to men and to women, to have fighting characterize your professional life, but I don’t think that that need have anything to do with philosophical methodology.

      Like

      Reply
    2. Dan Hicks Avatar
      Dan Hicks

      For some deeper discussion of these points, I recommend Janice Moulton: http://jefais.tumblr.com/post/51563778407/the-adversarial-method-wheres-moulton
      And Linda Alcoff: http://alcoff.com/2012-american-philosophical-association-presidential-address

      Like

      Reply

    Leave a reply to Dan Hicks Cancel reply