عنوان

An Aristotelian feminism

9783319298474

An Aristotelian feminism

Sarah Borden Sharkey

Switzerland

Springer International Publishing

2016

1 online resource

This book articulates the theoretical outlines of a feminism developed from Aristotle???s metaphysics, making a new contribution to feminist theory. Readers will discover why Aristotle was not a feminist and how he might have become one, through an investigation of Aristotle and Aristotelian tradition. The author shows how Aristotle???s metaphysics can be used to articulate a particularly subtle and theoretically powerful understanding of gender that may offer a highly useful tool for distinctively feminist arguments.This work builds on Martha Nussbaum???s ???capabilities approach??? in a more explicitly and thoroughly hylomorphist way. The author shows how Aristotle???s hylomorphic model, developed to run between the extremes of Platonic dualism and Democritean atomism, can similarly be used today to articulate a view of gender that takes bodily differences seriously without reducing gender to biological determinations. Although written for theorists, this scholarly yet accessible book can be used to address more practical issues and the final chapter explores women in universities as one example. This book will appeal to both feminists with limited familiarity with Aristotle???s philosophy, and scholars of Aristotle with limited familiarity with feminism Introduction; Summary of Chapters; What Is Meant by 'Aristotelian Feminism'; Acknowledgements; Chapter 1: Nussbaum, Capabilities, and Biology; Nussbaum's 'Aristotelian Feminism'; A Summary of Her 'Capabilities Approach'; The Capabilities Approach as Aristotelian; The Capabilities Approach as Feminist; The Role of Biology in an Aristotelian Feminism; Reasons for Downplaying Biological Differences; Reasons Not to Downplay Biological Differences or Uncritically Embrace Constructivism; Qualifying Note; Firestone's Radical Feminism; Conclusion Chapter 2: An Aristotelian Account of Sex and Gender General Aristotelian Picture of Human Beings; Matter; Form; An Aristotelian Account of Women and Men; On the Terms Sex and Gender; Application to the Question of Sex; Application to the Question of Gender; Conclusion; Chapter 3: Possibilities Beyond the Bare-Bones; Summary of Position; One: General Scientific, Metaphysical, and Methodological Questions; What of Our Biological Matter Is Sexually Differentiated?; What Type of Hylomorphism Should Be Accepted?; Two: The Nature of Influence Is Biological Matter a Motive, Incentive, or Condition of Development? Aristotelian Causality, Re-Stating the Previous Question in More Aristotelian Language; Three: How Might Biological Matter Influence?; Does Biological Matter Influence the Pattern of How a Particular Faculty Is Developed?; Does Biological Matter Influence the Order in Which Our Faculties Are Developed?; Does Biological Matter Influence the Subjects Toward Which Our Faculties Are Turned?; Does Biological Matter Influence the Combination of Faculties Employed When Turning to a Common Subject?; A Spectrum of Positions Four: Questions About the Human Capacities? What Are Our Capacities?; How Are Our Capacities Related?; A Note on Aristotle's and Nussbaum's Aristotelian Ideals; Conclusion; Chapter 4: Why Aristotle Was Not a Feminist; The Female in Human Generation, and Subsequent Tendencies in Females; Generation; A Qualification )"As It Were" Deformities(; The Female's Role in the Sex of the Offspring; Women's Natural Qualities; Women's Inferiority in Rationality; Women's Inferiority in Virtue; Digressions on 'Natural Slaves' and Impressive Women; The Challenges of Hylomorphism Generation as a Substantial Change Differing Physical Expressions of a Common Form; Epistemology and Examples; Ancient Women's Lives: Athens Versus Sparta; Conclusion; Chapter 5: How Aristotle Might Have Become a Feminist; A Tension in Aristotle's Account; Problems with Aristotle's Account of Generation; On Male and Female as Opposites; A Range of Appropriate Expressions; The Role of Social Conditions; Other Modifications; Development of Interpersonal Abilities; Virtues of 'Acknowledged Dependence' and Receptivity; Conclusion; Chapter 6: Women and the Universities

Includes bibliographical references and index

Aristotle

Aristotle., Metaphysics

Feminist theory

Electronic books

Borden, Sarah R.

Title

Ohio Library and Information Network

English Book