Psychologizing Cartesian Doubt Feminist Reading Strategies and the “Unthought” of Philosophy

The Significance of Gendered Metaphors1

“…3 One attempt to uncover hidden gender-biases has utilized a strategy of cultural psychoanalysis, see Bordo (1987). I have examined and criticized Bordo's argument in Reuter (2004), where I show that both her interpretation of Descartes's philosophy and her method of cultural psychoanalysis are flawed. I will not discuss the subject here.…”

Introduction

“…The recent focus on the role of embodiment in Descartes' philosophy has challenged this feminist interpretation and drawn attention to the beneficial consequences that Cartesian philosophy has had on early-modern as well as more recent conceptions of gender (e.g. Clarke 1999;Heinämaa 2004;Reuter 2004;Shapiro 2008b).…”

Feminist Reflections on the History of Philosophy

“…Lisa Shapiro (1997Shapiro ( , 1999aShapiro ( , 1999b, Martina Reuter (1999, 2004 and Lilli Alanen (2002Alanen ( , 2004 have argued to the contrary that Descartes' intellectual heritage contains a variety of powerful critical resources. The common notion of many feminist critics working in traditions as different as analytical philosophy, Marxism, and theoretical psychoanalysis has been that Cartesianism is merely, or mainly, a hindrance to feminist concerns.…”

“…3 See also Irigaray 1984, Heinämaa 1999 For a more detailed argument for the philosophical, phenomenological, relevance of Beauvoir's discourse, see Heinämaa 2003b. Merleau-Ponty finds support for his reading of Descartes from a number of earlier commentators, most importantly Malebranche. On this connection, see Heinämaa 2002, Toadvine 2002, Heinämaa 2003b For detailed commentaries of these passages, see Shapiro 1997, 1999b, Reuter 2000 For an insightful discussion of this argument, see, Reuter 2000Reuter , 2004 See, e.g., Irigaray's Éthique de la différence sexuelle (1984), Seyla Benhabib's Situating the Self: Gender, Community, and Postmodernism in Contemporary Ethics (1992), and Rosalyn Diprose's The Bodies of Women: Ethics, Embodiment and Sexual Difference (1994). Another influence comes from Edmund Husserl's phenomenology.…”