By A fallacious, or arbitrary starting point is weak, as it can be objected to and then the whole argument falls apart. But consider that that is exactly what will be provided in any case of trying to define philosophy – philosophy itself is notoriously difficult to define, and few agree on exactly what it is. In fact, after talking with many students and faculty that I know, it is clear that there is no consensus in the field as to what philosophy is.[1] Leo Strauss famously characterized it as the quest of knowledge of the whole, but many others disagree with him, claiming perhaps that philosophy is an aid to the natural sciences, or that it is not distinct from theology and just is the quest for knowledge of God, or even that it is a method by which political and social power is unmasked. Feminist philosophy, being a subset of philosophy, then is also just as difficult to define, if not more so, since it depends on a definition of philosophy.[2]
The best that can be done seems then to look at how the terms are used, and perhaps make some assumptions about what philosophy is. But this multiplies the problems. Even if it is agreed upon that philosophy is defined as X, one must then offer a definition of feminism, which is also problematic to define! As Susan James states,
“Feminism is grounded on the belief that women are oppressed or disadvantaged by comparison with men, and that their oppression is in some way illegitimate or unjustified. Under the umbrella of this general characterization there are, however, many interpretations of women and their oppression, so that it is a mistake to think of feminism as a single philosophical doctrine, or as implying an agreed political program.”[3]
As James clearly points out, even if it is accepted that feminism is based on some notion of oppression, many interpretations of ‘oppression’ and ‘woman’[4] can be levied, which then leads to various ideas of what feminism means in terms of philosophical commitments, or political action. Take some concrete examples: bell hooks, claims that feminism is a liberation struggle that is part of the larger movement to end domination.[5] In saying this, however, hooks assumes that there is some feature[6] about feminism that can allow it to be distinguished from other liberation movements such as anti-racism. But others may respond by arguing that feminism can’t really be distinguished from anti-racism, post-colonialism, and so forth. And others still may argue that feminism isn’t meant to be a liberation struggle within a broader context, but something radically different from the aims of post-colonialism, or something that aims at a partnership model of women and men.
Even the SEP points out the serious difficulties with trying to define what feminism is.[7] So, it seems clear that within feminism, there is a lack of consensus on a definition. Consider now the following argument:
1). If X is a subset of Y, and Y is problematic, then whatever problems that Y has, X also has.
2). Philosophy has the problem of being exceedingly difficult to define.
3). Feminist philosophy is a subset of philosophy.
C: Feminist philosophy also has the problem of being exceedingly difficult to define.[8]
This is the formalized version of what I have discussed, and I take it to work. If so, then the term ‘feminist philosophy,’ then, seems to have slipped utterly out of reach.[9]
Stipulative Definitions
I think that due to the seemingly insurmountable problem faced, the most reasonable thing is to provide a stipulative definition of the term ‘feminist philosophy.’ To clarify, a stipulative definition is a definition declared for some sort of use, for example like the definition of the word ‘valid’ within a logic class. Stipulative definitions cannot be true or false, but they can be disputed.[10] The obvious next question is, how is a stipulative definition justified? Coincidentally, I think we can look to the feminist literature for a potential answer to this question.
Judith Butler,[11], Sally Haslanger, and others all provide stipulative definitions for the word ‘woman.’ Take, for instance Haslanger’s account on which she claims that one is a woman iff she is (1) subordinated and (2) done so because of the perception of her bodily features.[12] Within the confines of her article, it seems, upon my reading, Haslanger is arguing that this definition is to be accepted on the grounds that it lines up to common usage of the term woman and provides some sort of utility. In other words, her definition captures what many people take to be a ‘woman,’ and it allows her to include trans folk, and others into her theory. This seems also to be what Butler and others like Bettcher are doing with their stipulative definitions.
So, it seems that according to Haslanger and others, stipulative definitions are justified by their (1) ability to capture the meaning of terms and (2) their ability to provide some utility. As I stated though, they can be disputed, so it shouldn’t surprise us that Butler and Haslanger offer up different definitions for what they take to be the proper usage of the term ‘woman.’[13] With that in mind, a solid defense of my definition would rest on demonstrating that it meets both criteria.
My Definition
The stipulative definition I then propose is that feminist philosophy is “a subset of philosophy that is committed to engaging the status quo in an attempt to uncover fundamental biases against women and give voice to women philosophers who have been overlooked.” As pointed out above, this must be justified by its ability to capture the common use of the term ‘feminist philosophy,’ and the utility it provides.
Let’s look at some of the academic discourse. A glance at the SEP page shows that there are feminist approaches to philosophy of biology, science, metaphysics, ethics, epistemology, and much more. Based on a reading of the SEP entries of each of them, the commonality between all these fields seems to be the stipulative definition that I proposed. These fields are committed to a questioning of the status quo, and an uncovering of the biases that prevent women from having their voices heard. Take, for instance, Collin’s Black Feminist Thought, a key text in the feminist epistemological tradition. It seems that she is mainly engaged in a project that can be cashed out in terms of my stipulative definition. This seems evident from the clear remarks that Collins makes in chapter eleven: [14]
“Because elite White men control Western structures of knowledge validation, their interests pervade the themes, paradigms, and epistemologies of traditional scholarship. As a result, U.S. Black women’s experiences as well as those of women of African descent transnationally have been routinely distorted within or excluded from what counts as knowledge. U.S. Black feminist thought as specialized thought reflects the distinctive themes of African-American women’s experiences… But expressing these themes and paradigms has not been easy because Black women have had to struggle against White male interpretations of the world.”[15]
Examples such as this can be multiplied, drawing from the area of feminist ethics, philosophy of science and feminist philosophy of religion.[16] For instance, in the latter field, it seems that it is driven by the desire to give voice to women who have not been sufficiently represented in the discipline, and challenge the pre-existing, and mostly euro-centric male dominated conceptions that dominate the contemporary discourse.
Furthermore, take some of the common discourse that we hear often. A.C. Grayling, in his recent text The History of Philosophy, mentions Mary Wollstonecraft once, Ann Conway zero times, and gives Beauvoir only a single paragraph. It would seem that we all would agree that a critique of Grayling for this mistreatment of the history of philosophy is a legitimate mode of feminist philosophy. My definition captures that well. As for another use, take for instance a hypothetical situation: a woman economist is committed to engaging the gender-pay gap, but is constrained by neoliberal economic methods which bias her results, or make it more difficult for her to publish her research. Again, I think that we would all agree that an intellectual investigation of the biases in the methods of neoliberal economics, and the biases in the publication system would count as a legitimate mode of feminist philosophy.
My stipulative definition clearly then works well in capturing much of the common notions of what we take to be feminist philosophy, both from the academic use of the term, and the use in common parlance, thus satisfying condition one.
Moreover, my definition also provides some serious utility, as it allows us to clearly delineate feminist philosophers, both historical and contemporary, and, it gives us the grounding of a feminist philosophy methodology; in other words, the beginning of feminist philosophy just is the engagement with the status quo of philosophy, in a committed effort to uncover fundamental biases and give voice to the women philosophers who have been overlooked. Hence, it satisfies condition two.
Concluding Remarks
So, it seems that an attempt to define feminist philosophy, to schematize it, is bound to be plagued by problems. But perhaps this is not such a loss after all. I proposed a stipulative definition of the term and briefly defended it by arguing that it captures much of what we mean when we use the term ‘feminist philosophy,’ and that it provides utility for our bigger theories. In any case, it seems that because of the problems faced in defining ‘philosophy’ and ‘feminism,’ the best that can be done is to acknowledge the problem(s) with any attempt to define ‘philosophy,’ or a subset of it, and then propose such stipulative definition. We must start somewhere, and though some will question my stipulative definition, that is seemingly unavoidable.
Works Cited
Anderson, Elizabeth, “Feminist Epistemology and Philosophy of Science”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2020 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2020/entries/feminism-epistemology/>.
Beauvoir, Simone de, 1949, Le Deuxième Sexe, 2 volumes, Paris: Gallimard. Printed in English 1953 as The Second Sex by H.M. Parshley (trans. and ed.), New York: Knopf. Retranslated 2009 by Constance Borde and Sheila Malovany-Chevallier, London: Jonathan Cape.
Bettcher, Talia Mae (2013). “Trans Women and the Meaning of ‘Woman’”. In A. Soble, N. Power & R. Halwani (eds.), _Philosophy of Sex: Contemporary Readings, Sixth Edition_. Rowan & Littlefield. pp. 233-250.
Bettcher, T. M. (2017). Through the looking glass. In A. Garry, S. Khader, & A. Stone (Eds.), Routledge companion to feminist philosophy. New York: Routledge.
Bettcher, Talia Mae (2009). Trans Identities and First-Person Authority. In Laurie Shrage (ed.), _You’ve Changed: Sex Reassignment and Personal Identity_. Oxford University Press.
Bogardus, Tomas (2020). Evaluating Arguments for the Sex/Gender Distinction. _Philosophia_ 48 (3):873-892.
Bogardus, Tomas (2020). Some Internal Problems with Revisionary Gender Concepts. _Philosophia_ 48 (1):55-75.
Butler, J. (1988). Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory. _Theatre Journal_:519–531.
Collins, Patricia Hill, 1990, Black Feminist Thought, Boston, MA: Unwin Hyman.
Fehr, Carla, “Feminist Philosophy of Biology”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/feminist-philosophy-biology/>.
Frankenberry, Nancy, “Feminist Philosophy of Religion”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2018/entries/feminist-religion/>.
hooks, bell, 1981, Ain’t I A Woman: Black Women and Feminism, Boston, MA: South End Press.
hooks, bell 1989, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, Boston, MA: South End Press.
Haslanger, Sally (2000). Gender and race: (What) are they? (What) do we want them to be? _Noûs_ 34 (1):31–55.
James, Susan, 1998, “Feminism”, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 10, London: Routledge, p. 576.
McAfee, Noëlle, “Feminist Philosophy”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Fall 2018 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/fall2018/entries/feminist-philosophy/>.
Norlock, Kathryn, “Feminist Ethics”, The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), URL = <https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2019/entries/feminism-ethics/>.
[1] I grant that anecdotal evidence is not the strongest. But, the point of this claim is more so to remind the reader of their own experience struggling to define philosophy. I provide a more substantial argument with the following sentences. I also grant that there can be ‘local consensus’ as to what philosophy is defined as, say, for instance in certain schools of thought, etc, but ‘global consensus’ is simply not the case.
[2] Imagine, for example, what impact your conception of ‘philosophy’ would have on your conception of ‘feminist philosophy.’ Suppose that philosophy just is theology, or the striving for knowledge of God. Under this view, feminist philosophy would be theology from a feminist angle. But this is not that helpful, (1) because that conception of philosophy seems to be arbitrary, and (2) because feminism is still radically undefined. Now suppose that your conception of philosophy is the political or social unmasking of power. The same thing follows – that feminist philosophy is that from a feminist angle. The larger point is that it seems exceedingly difficult to capture ‘feminist philosophy,’ when ‘philosophy’ is utterly mysterious and controversial.
[3] James, Susan, 1998, “Feminism”, in Edward Craig (ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Vol. 10, London: Routledge, p. 576.
[4] Consider, for instance that definitions of ‘women’ that Judith Butler, Sally Haslanger, and Elinor Burkett provide.
[5] bell hooks, Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, pg. 22
[6] It would seem that this feature, in her case, is sexism.
[7] Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, ‘Feminist Philosophy’
[8] Dr. Cuomo graciously pointed out to me that a potential objection to this could come from someone disputing the definition of ‘define’ in this case. That is correct. So, in this argument, I use the term ‘define’ to refer to ‘a definition that the scholarly consensus takes up.’ I think that the argument works in establishing the conclusion if ‘define’ is used in that sense.
[9] The first objection that one might level would be against premise one. But, for brevity’s sake I can’t go into a lengthy defense of it, nor can I respond to other potential objections.
[10] Cf. Tomas Bogardus, ‘Evaluating Arguments for the Sex/Gender Distinction’ pg. 2
[11] Judith Butler, Performative acts and gender constitution: An essay in phenomenology and feminist theory, especially pg. 527
[12] Sally Haslanger, ‘Gender and race: (what) are they? (what) do we want them to be?’ Nous 34(1), 31–55.
[13] Interestingly, it seems to me that this sentence is more controversial than I thought. Upon further reflection, it could be argued that these stipulative definitions are not being proposed because they capture the usage of the term woman, but because they are metaphysically correct, or because they just are meant to provide some sort of utility for a broader theory. Tomas Bogardus makes this point in both of his recent papers on these definitions, but this is a huge debate, and one that I can’t touch on now. It seems to me that the more charitable reading is that people are proposing these definitions because they think that the definitions capture the term better.
[14] I make this claim based on the discussions that we had in class, and my reading of the texts. Of course, I am against schematizing any thinkers, and a full defense of my claim would be enough to write a dissertation on… Unfortunately I can’t spell it all out here, but perhaps it may be a topic for my qualifying paper though?
[15] Patricia Hill Collins, Black Feminist Thought, pg. 252
[16] I derive these claims from a reading of the SEP page ‘Feminist Philosophy of Religion,’ and the others.
The Reluctant Philosopher 