Philosophy Without Women The Birth of Sexism in Western Thought

by Songe-Møller, Vigdis

• ISBN13: 9780826458490
• ISBN10: 0826458491
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-12-20
• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic

Summary

For most of its history, western philosophy has regarded woman as an imperfect version of man. Like so many aspects of western culture, this tradition builds on foundations laid in ancient Greece. Yet the first philosophers of antiquity were hardly agreed on first principles. Songe-Moller shows how the Greeks made intellectual choices that would prove fateful for half of humankind.

Table of Contents

Translator's Note	ix
Preface	xi
Introduction	xiii
PART I Sexuality in Myths and Early Philosophy	1	(76)
The Greek Dream of a Womanless World	3	(18)
A myth of Athenian origins: man as the source of the child	4	(2)
Asymmetrical sexes: man as citizen, woman as secual being	6	(2)
The Pandora myth: woman as death-bringer	8	(2)
Plato and sexuality: the One as male principle, the Other as female	10	(2)
An inversion: woman as One, man as Other	12	(9)
Thought and Sexuality: A Troubled Relationship An analysis of Hesiod and Parmenides	21	(28)
Introduction	21	(2)
What is the origin of all things? Hesiod replies	23	(10)
Parmenides' poem: thought instead of sexuality	33	(16)
The prologue: the young man's journey to the goddess	33	(5)
Being and thinking: a mutually dependent relationship	38	(2)
Being: securely held in unyielding bonds. Mythology and logic in Parmenides' peom	40	(3)
Being: life without decay and death	43	(2)
Parmenidean Being: ceaselessly virile activity?	45	(4)
The Logic of Exclusion and the Free Men's Democracy An analysis of the notions of equality and balance in Anaximander and Parmenides	49	(28)
Introduction	49	(3)
The democratic polis: circularity and balance	52	(6)
Cosmology: from the hierarchical world-view of mythology to Anaximander's model of cosmic stability	58	(7)
Parmenides: theorist of the polis?	65	(12)
The sphere of Being as metaphor for the democratic city state. The unity, equality and self-identity of Being	67	(2)
The self-sufficicy of Being and the impossibility of reproduction	69	(1)
Being and polis: the active exclusion of the unequal	70	(2)
The opinions of mortals: an alternative ideal of equality	72	(5)
PART II Plato, Love and Sexual Difference	77	(78)
Tragic Conflict or Platonic Harmony? Two views of gender in antiquity	79	(10)
Tragic ambivalence	80	(4)
Platonic concorde	84	(5)
Sexuality and Philosophy in Plato's Symposium	89	(24)
Abolishing the female, or, the absence of sexual difference in Plato's philosophy	89	(5)
Philosophy as masculine birth: an analysis of the Symposium	94	(19)
The prologue (172a-180b): rhetorical presentation of the dialogue's theme	94	(3)
Pausanias' speech in praise of the heavenly, pederastic Eros (180c-185c)	97	(4)
Aristophanes' speech (189c-193d): on the origins of erotic desire	101	(3)
Socrates'/ Diotima's speech (199c-212c): philosophy as masculine reproduction	104	(9)
Virginity and Masculine Reproduction: Plato in a Woman's Looking-Glass Irigaray's reading of the cave myth	113	(16)
Plato's philosophy: portal to our mimetic culture	113	(3)
Plato's cave myth: a sketh	116	(3)
Plato's text mirrored by Irigary: a game of inversions, distortions and mystifications	119	(3)
The uterus seen through a distorting and inverting masculine mirror: a cave of death	122	(2)
Virginity as a model for ideal reproduction	124	(3)
From the prison of illusions to the prison of truth	127	(2)
From Pederasty to Philosophy On Foucault's view of sexuality in antiquity	129	(26)
The Greeks' sexual-moral problem: how to stylize one's life?	131	(2)
A masculine, virile morality: to be master of oneself and others	133	(3)
The Greek for sexuality: aphrodisia	136	(3)
The principal themes of Foucault's analysis of secuality: Dietetics, Economics, Erotics and True Love	139	(14)
Dietetics	139	(2)
Economics	141	(3)
Erotics	144	(5)
True love	149	(4)
The reception of Foucault's and Irigaray's Platonic studies: the history of woman's exclusion in repeat?	153	(2)
Notes	155	(14)
Bibliography	169	(6)
Index	175