Empowerment and Interconnectivity: Toward a Feminist History of Utilitarian Philosophy

Conclusion and Next Steps

conclusion and next steps This work was initiated by my interest in recapturing, evaluating, and interpreting forgotten or neglected historical works of feminist philosophy. In other areas of philosophy, such as ethics or epistemology, feminist philosophers have challenged the maleness and gender biases of the Western intellectual tradition; however, there has been relatively less time spent on examining the maleness and gender bias in how the Western philosophical canon itself has been constructed. It is true, but somewhat obvious, that women and feminists have been left out of the canon because of gender bias or sexism; what is less obvious is how women and feminist philosophers have been left out of the canon (or canons) because of the traditional or mainstream philosophical methodologies themselves, which have been employed to examine historical works and construct our histories. Moreover, as I aimed to show in the previous chapter, it may be that mainstream methodologies have led to ‘‘false positives ’’ when we have tried to build our own feminist canons. I am not claiming that these mainstream methodologies cannot produce interesting readings of texts and theories for feminists, nor am I arguing that these methodologies in themselves are sexist or gender biased; indeed, they appear to be ‘‘empty’’ of value. The problem I find is that when they are used each on their own, and against a particular philosophical framework, the patrimonial model of philosophy, these mainstream methodologies are not well suited for the recovery or examination of historical works of feminist philosophy. The interpretive lens I offer instead does still contain both historical and philosophical elements, and perhaps this should not be surprising, as navigating the relationship between feminist philosophy and mainstream philosophy is tricky: too close and the feminist philosophy loses its critical edge, too far and feminist philosophy may become irrelevant or struggle to 192 empowerment and interconnectivity be accepted as philosophy. The crucial difference, however, is that my guiding interpretive question—‘‘Does it empower women?’’—is asked against a different picture of philosophy and philosophical knowledge. I hold that we should spend time considering our methodologies for the history of philosophy, and this is not simply for the sake of theoretical thoroughness . There is a sense that the history of philosophy requires a level of responsibility to historical authors to interpret their works in the best way we can. This is especially true in the case of philosophies, like historical feminist philosophy, that aimed to promote real political, social, and moral change for other humans—these philosophies were not simply an intellectual exercise, so it should not become merely an intellectual exercise on our part. This notion of responsibility need not run foul of debates about the ‘‘ownership’’ of a text. The issue is not whether the text can be open to multiple interpretations or whether there is one interpretation—the authorial interpretation— which the interpreter is responsible to uncover. Instead, this notion of responsibility is about self-reflection on our role as interpreters, an acknowledgment of the political beliefs and goals we bring to our interpretation, a recognition of the political and ethical consequences of our interpretation, and—above all in the case of historical feminist philosophers—a responsibility to give a charitable but critical analysis of their work. In sum, this notion of interpretive responsibility is not just about interpretive appropriateness; it can also bring new insights to texts and new perspectives on meta-questions about interpretation itself. Yet this emphasis on interpretive responsibility and its corollary, the political and personal connections between interpreter and text or author, is not a methodology, new or otherwise, nor am I claiming this is the case. In fact, as I have tried to make clear throughout this book, I am not offering a new methodology in any full-blown sense for feminist history of philosophy, and I have aimed to bring this out by describing what I am doing as an interpretive lens or perspective rather than an approach or methodology. This notion of lens or perspective allows me to identify characteristics or features of a feminist history of philosophy without the more problematic claim that I am offering a new methodology. Even though the interpretive lens I am proposing differs from the two mainstream methodologies in its goals and understanding of the role of the interpreter, the empowerment question still draws from or is a version of both methodologies. If we do want to offer a new methodology for feminist history of philosophy, it cannot simply be a...