PHL2230

Feminist philosophers

Karen Green

8 points - 3 hours per week - Second semester - Clayton - Prerequisites: A first-year philosophy sequence or one eight-point women's studies subject

Objectives Students who successfully complete the subject will have a good grasp of the historical development of feminist thought and will understand some of the issues in contemporary feminist philosophy.

Synopsis The subject introduces philosophical problems arising from conceptions of sexual equality and difference, and discusses their implications for norms of rationality and morality. It focuses particularly on the work of pioneer feminist philosophers, Christine de Pisan, Mary Wollstonecraft and Simone de Beauvoir and on contemporary theorists such as Carol Gilligan and Luce Irigaray. 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 - One 1-hour examination: 20% - One essay may optionally be replaced by a two-hour examination.

Prescribed texts

de Beauvoir S The second sex Penguin
Green K The woman of reason Polity
Wollstonecraft M A vindication of the rights of woman Penguin
Other readings available from the department and on reserve in the Sir Louis Matheson Library

Back to the 1999 Arts Handbook