Asian and Feminist Philosophies in Dialogue: Liberating Traditions ed. by Jennifer McWeeny and Ashby Butnor (review)

In their excellent new volume, Asian and Feminist Philosophies in Dialogue: Liberating Traditions, editors Jennifer McWeeny and Ashby Butnor offer a vision for philosophy that begins with the insight that philosophy is an activity: it is something that we do rather than simply learn about. As an activity—or even, at times, a performance—philosophy both shapes and is shaped by the social world, a world of power hierarchies, economic realities, and political strategies. Conceiving of philosophy as a socially situated activity highlights its liberatory potential. The activity of philosophy can liberate or constrain; it can empower a person or diminish her. This volume seizes on this insight by employing what Butnor and McWeeny call “feminist comparative methodology,” a philosophical methodology that seeks to “envision and enact a more liberatory world” (p. 3).

The integration of comparative and feminist philosophical methodologies, both of which have liberatory aims in their own right, is one of the most exciting aspects of this volume. In their introductory chapter “Feminist Comparative Philosophy: Performing Philosophy Differently,” Butnor and McWeeny argue that this integration can support each tradition’s respective liberatory aims. The comparative approach helps expose and correct the Eurocentric (or, in some cases, Anglo-centric) orientation of much of Western feminist philosophy. Virginia Held’s dismissal of Confucian ethics as irreparably patriarchal, for example, is challenged in this volume. Feminist methodology exposes the absence of deep analyses of gender in much of comparative philosophy. Together, feminist and comparative philosophical methodologies can begin to correct each other’s blind spots. In this sense, the volume moves beyond simple critique, either Western feminist critique of non-Western philosophies, or critique of Western feminisms by non-Western philosophers. It attempts to create something new: a feminist, comparative philosophy.

As the editors confess, in the context of this volume “comparative” means “Asian and Anglo-European comparison” and as such is focused more on “East-West” than “North-South.” Among Asian philosophical traditions, it covers Buddhist and non-Buddhist Indian philosophy, Chinese and Korean Confucianism, Taoism, and Japanese Buddhism. In a refreshing departure from many East-West comparative anthologies, it is not organized by tradition but by theme, many of which, such as “Gender and Potentiality,” “Raising Consciousness,” and “Places of Knowing,” are classic feminist areas of inquiry.

Some contributions focus on feminist interpretations of key terminology in Asian philosophical traditions. Taking the patriarchal practices of the Confucian Chosŏn dynasty on the Korean peninsula as a case study, Ranjoo Seodu Herr, for example, offers an interpretation of Confucian ren that, she argues, is supportive of gender equality. Kyoo Lee in her essay probes one of the more vexing and intriguing concepts in the Daodejing: the “dark female animal.” Hsiao-Lan Hu argues for a non-deterministic interpretation of the core Buddhist concept of kamma. In her interpretation, unjust institutions, such as patriarchy, are understood as responsive to (and demanding of) change rather than the inevitable consequences of previous actions.

Other contributors focus on ways that Asian philosophical concepts, arguments, and orientations can respond to enduring conceptual problems in Western feminist philosophy. Li-Hsiang Lisa Rosenlee, for example, argues (contra Held) that Confucian ren is not only compatible with feminist care ethics but is actually better equipped to respond to the criticism that care ethics cannot accommodate issues of justice. In “What Would Zhuangzi Say to Harding?” Xinyan Jiang uses the Taoist philosopher Zhuangzi to assess standpoint theory, one of the most influential theories in feminist epistemology. Ashby Butnor draws on the thirteenth-century Zen Master Dōgen to argue that the dismantling of certain habits of the body is critical to cultivating the moral capacity of mindfulness, or proper attunement to and awareness of self and others. Erin McCarthy argues that the understanding of no-self found in the works of Japanese philosophers Watsuji Tetsurō and Yuasa Yasuo can bolster...