The Declaration of Interdependence! Feminism, Grounding and Enactivism

Human Studies 45 (1):43-62 (2021)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

This paper explores the issue whether feminism needs a metaphysical grounding, and if so, what form that might take to effectively take account of and support the socio-political demands of feminism; addressing these demands I further propose will also contribute to the resolution of other social concerns. Social constructionism is regularly invoked by feminists and other political activists who argue that social injustices are justified and sustained through hidden structures which oppress some while privileging others. Some feminists (Haslanger and Sveinsdóttir, Feminist metaphysics. In E. N. Zalta (Ed.), Stanford encyclopedia of philosophy. Stanford: Stanford University, 2011) argue that the constructs appealed to in social constructivism are real but not metaphysically fundamental because they are contingent. And this is exactly the crux of the problem—is it possible to sustain an engaged feminist socio-political critique for which contingency is central (i.e., that things could be otherwise) and at the same time retain some kind of metaphysical grounding. Without metaphysical grounding it has been argued, the feminist project may be rendered nonsubstantive (Sider, Substantivity in feminist metaphysics. Philosophical Studies, 174(2017), 2467–2478, 2017). There has been much debate around this issue and Sider (as an exemplar of the points under contention) nuances the claims expressed in his earlier writings (Sider, Writing the book of the world. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2011) and later presents a more qualified account (Sider, Substantivity in feminist metaphysics. Philosophical Studies, 174(2017), 2467–2478, 2017). Nonetheless, I propose the critiques and defences offered by the various parties continue to depend on certain erroneous assumptions and frameworks that are challengeable. I argue that fundamentality as presented in many of these current accounts, which are underpinned by the explicit or implicit ontologies of monism and dualism and argued for in purely rationalist terms which conceive of subjects as primarily reason-responding agents, reveal basic irresolvable problems. I propose that addressing these concerns will be possible through an enactivist account which, following phenomenology, advances an ontology of interdependence and reconceives the subject as first and foremost an organism immersed in a meaningful world as opposed to a primarily reason-responding agent. Enactivism is thus, I will argue, able to legitimize feminist socio-political critiques by offering a non-reductive grounding in which not only are contingency and fundamentality reconciled, but in which fundamentality is in fact defined by radical contingency. My paper proceeds in dialogue with feminists generally addressing this ‘metaphysical turn’ in feminism and specifically with Sally Haslanger and Mari Mikkola.

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,593

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

Metaphysical Interdependence.Naomi Thompson - 2016 - In Mark Jago (ed.), Reality Making. Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. 38-56.
Feminism and ecology: Making connections.Karen J. Warren - 1987 - Environmental Ethics 9 (1):3-20.
Feminism and Ecology: Making Connections.Karen J. Warren - 1987 - Environmental Ethics 9 (1):3-20.
Declaration of Interdependence.[author unknown] - 1960 - Business and Society 1 (1):3-4.
A Declaration of Interdependence.H. Overstreet - 1938 - Philosophical Review 47:452.
The Grounding of Modern Feminism.Laurie Shrage - 1987 - New Haven: Yale University Press.
Toward a Declaration of Interdependence for 1976.Robert Reiss - 1972 - Journal of Aesthetic Education 6 (3):109.
Truth‐Grounding and Transitivity.Tuomas E. Tahko - 2013 - Thought: A Journal of Philosophy 2 (4):332-340.
Structuring reality.Naomi Margaret Claire Thompson - 2014 - Dissertation, University of Birmingham
Irrealism about Grounding.Naomi Thompson - 2018 - Royal Institute of Philosophy Supplement 82:23-44.
Hurley's Transcendental Enactivism.Dave Ward - 2016 - Journal of Consciousness Studies 23 (5-6):12-38.
Grounding is necessary and contingent.Kevin Richardson - 2021 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 64 (4):453-480.

Analytics

Added to PP
2021-01-14

Downloads
13 (#886,512)

6 months
3 (#445,838)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?