Ethics and embodiment : an examination of 'the feminine' and the body in recent French philosophy
Recent French feminist thinkers have begun to expand upon a feminist perspective in philosophy which attempts to negotiate on the one hand, the implicit valuing of autonomy, universality and abstraction when these are coded as masculine, and yet on the other hand, can resist the dissemination of meaning into the free play of circuits of desire or signification. In the context of ethics, this perspective constitutes a challenge to more traditional ethical conceptions of the agent, of ethical action, and to the very parameters of the philosophical enterprise itself. It is such a perspective which forms the starting point of this study. This study begins by articulating the paradoxes of a feminist perspective in philosophy, in the context of the work of Simone de Beauvoir, paradoxes which entail a re-examination of the parameters of philosophy as a discipline. The codification of Woman as Other simultaneously positions women as a necessary complement in dualistic divisions but also as a symbolic âothernessâ. The ambiguity of such codifications may be taken up strategically for its critical and developmental potentials in relation to philosophy. In the following chapters, the development of sexual identity
Ainley, Alison Claire
B Philosophy (General) ; HQ The family. Marriage. Woman
Ethics and embodiment : an examination of 'the feminine' and the body in recent French philosophy. Recent French feminist thinkers have begun to expand upon a feminist perspective in philosophy which attempts to negotiate on the one hand, the implicit valuing of autonomy, universality and abstraction when these are coded as masculine, and yet on the other hand, can resist the dissemination of meaning into the free play of circuits of desire or signification. In the context of ethics, this perspective constitutes a challenge to more traditional ethical conceptions of the agent, of ethical action, and to the very parameters of the philosophical enterprise itself. It is such a perspective which forms the starting point of this study. This study begins by articulating the paradoxes of a feminist perspective in philosophy, in the context of the work of Simone de Beauvoir, paradoxes which entail a re-examination of the parameters of philosophy as a discipline. The codification of Woman as Other simultaneously positions women as a necessary complement in dualistic divisions but also as a symbolic âothernessâ. The ambiguity of such codifications may be taken up strategically for its critical and developmental potentials in relation to philosophy. In the following chapters, the development of sexual identity
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