Erkek Akıl

We continue to track the “specter of rationalism.” Male Mind is a book that makes a vital contribution to the effort to criticize and transform the dominant Mind paradigm, which we started by publishing books such as Farewell to Mind, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Critique of Economic Reason, History and Spirit. A work of incomparable importance, which became one of the classics of feminist thought shortly after its publication... This time, the focus is on the longing for the given Reason, which lies in the foundations of the West's philosophical heritage, moral and political ideals. Here is Lloyd, from Plato to Descartes; Taking a range of thinkers from Kant and Hegel to Sartre, she argues that these ideals of Reason have historically excluded femininity, and that femininity itself has been constituted through such a process of exclusion. According to her, rational knowledge is always a kind of transcendence, transformation or control of the forces of nature associated with women; Femininity was understood as the thing that he subordinated and dominated. The distinction between men and women has served as a criterion of value in the philosophical tradition. In this tradition, masculinity is associated with clear and precise forms of thought, and femininity is associated with vague and uncertain forms of thought; Against the man, who represents the active, determined and regular "form", the woman represents the passive, undetermined and disordered "matter". The masculinity of this tradition's conceptions of reason cannot be eliminated by dismissing them as unfortunate metaphors. These metaphors constitute forms of reasoning. Lloyd emphasizes that the solution to this is not to develop a feminine alternative to the mind or to feminize the mind. She argues that the warmth of emotions against the cold and abstract character of the mind, and the attentiveness that women show to the personal and particular against the claims of universality, will, far from being of any use, actually reinforce an important component of this oppressive tradition. According to him, these criticisms directed at Reason are in continuity with a very old vein in the Western philosophical tradition, and the main concern of this vein is to bring the deep structures of inherited Reason ideals to the level of reflective consciousness. For those who wonder how it is possible to criticize philosophy while remaining within philosophy and who want to fight sexism that has penetrated their way of thinking without making it easy...



Number of Pages: 158

Year of Printing: 2015


Language: Turkish
Publisher: Details Publications

First Print Year: 1999

Number of Pages: 158

Language Turkish