Feminist philosophers
Rae Langton
8 points * 3 hours per week * Second semester * Clayton * Prerequisites: A first-year philosophy sequence or one eight-point women's studies subject
The aim of the subject is to provide an introduction to the historical development of feminist thought and to issues in contemporary feminist philosophy. It deals with philosophical problems arising from conceptions of sexual equality and difference and their implications for norms of rationality and morality, focusing particularly on the work of three feminist philosophers, Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir and Luce Irigarary. Their philosophies are discussed in the context of the intellectual currents of their times and will be used to introduce such topics as the influence of liberalism, socialism, psychoanalysis and postmodernism on feminist thought, questions relating to sexual equality and sexual difference, the public and the private, conceptual connections between reason and masculinity, and the implications of sexual difference for moral theory and epistemology.
Assessment
Two essays (2500 words each): 40% each * Examinations (1 hour): 20% * Optional replacement of one essay by a 2-hour examination: 40%
Prescribed texts
de Beauvoir S The second sex Penguin
Irigaray L Speculum of the other woman Cornell
Wollstonecraft M A vindication of the rights of woman Penguin