Pamela Sue Anderson

In this contribution to Text Matters, I would like to introduce gender into my feminist response to Paul Ricoeur’s hermeneutic phenomenology of the capable subject. The aim is to make, phenomenologically speaking, “visible” the gendering of this subject in a hermeneutic problematic: that of a subject’s loss of confidence in her own ability to understand herself. Ricoeurian hermeneutics enables us to elucidate the generally hidden dimensions in a phenomenology of lost self-confidence; Ricoeur describes capability as “originally given” to each lived body; but then, something has happened, gone wrong or been concealed in one’s loss of confidence. Ricoeur himself does not ask how the gender or sex of one’s own body affects this loss. So I draw on contemporary feminist debates about the phenomenology of the body, as well as Julia Kristeva’s hermeneutics of the Antigone figure, in order to demonstrate how women might reconfigure the epistemic limits of human capability, revealing themselves as “a horizon” of the political order, for better or worse.

In this paper I explore a “variation” on the “theme” of intuition in the evolution of modern metaphysics. My aim is not to criticize A. W. Moore’s account of intuition as one of two ways by which Bergson makes sense of things (the other way is analysis). Instead I will suggest the significance in extending Bergson’s metaphysics to mystical life as “the ‘very life of things’ into which intuition installs itself.” When the metaphysical drama, in The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics, reaches chapter 16, “Bergson: Metaphysics as Pure Creativity,” Moore expresses astonishment that Bergson could have thought philosophers have ever agreed on aligning “analysis” in science with the impossibility of non-perspectival sense-making and “intuition” in metaphysics with the possibility of absolute (non-perspectival) knowledge. Using a method of intuition, not of analysis, as non-perspectival sense-making is the opposite of what Moore himself finds in other philosophical contributions to modern metaphysics as “a most general attempt to make sense of things.” He takes an influential example: Bernard Williams associates analysis, not intuition, with the possibility of non-perspectival sense-making and absolute knowledge. My response defends Bergsonian intuition in giving it a positive—and, why not, non-perspectival?—role in metaphysics as mystical; that is, as unique and inexpressible life. Moore describes intuition in Bergson as both the faculty and the method for the evolution of new concepts and new ways of making sense of things. I will stress that Bergsonian intuition is “an effort to place oneself into a movement, such as that of philosophy itself,” expressing “what is ‘living in philosophers’ rather than what is ‘fixed and dead in theses.’ ” This mystical life pushes out the limits set up by Kant for metaphysics (and science) by allowing intuition (with analysis) to reach for absolute, non-perspectival knowledge.

The present special issue of Sophia on ‘feminist philosophy of religion’ is dedicated to Gillian O. Howie who died in 2013. This essay is a short obituary touching on Howie’s philosophical and personal legacy. The intention is to give a brief overview of Howie as a courageous woman with boundless intellectual curiosity and passionate commitments to feminist activities; these include writing and living her philosophical vision for creating a just society with collective political action. Howie inspired both women and men in philosophy—especially, but not only, feminist philosophers of religion—with her work on the critical role of sexual difference in life today

This article defends the place of “standpoint” in a realist epistemology. The conception and role of standpoint are proposed to be receptive to the shifting perspectives of actual knowers. A standpoint is distinguished from a spontaneous perspective or mere outlook. In this realist epistemology standpoint will have something to do with background beliefs. but rather than a starting point, it is an achievement gained as a result of a struggle for less biased knowledge. Epistemologists currently employ various conceptions of standpoint. However. the present concern is with a conception that functions to expose the framing influence of the social and material variables constituting complex power relations. Oppression and domination are not as easily elucidated as background beliefs. Confronting the truth of racism, for example. involves not only empirical justification and hermeneutical dialogue but recognition of standpoint in a reflexive and transformative interplay of perspectives.

I begin with the assumption that a philosophically significant tension exists today in feminist philosophy of religion between those subjects who seek to become divine and those who seek their identity in mutual recognition. My critical engagement with the ambiguous assertions of Luce Irigaray seeks to demonstrate, one the one hand, that a woman needs to recognize her own identity but, on the other hand, that each subject whether male or female must struggle in relation to the other in order to maintain realism about life and death. No one can avoid the recognition that we are each given life but each of us also dies. In addition, I raise a more general, philosophical problem for analytic philosophers who attempt to read Continental philosophy of religion: how should philosophers interpret deliberately ambiguous assertions? For example, what does Irigaray mean in asserting. 'Divinity is what we need to become free, autonomous, sovereign'? To find an answer, I turn to the distinctively French readings of the Hegelian struggle for recognition which have preoccupied Continental philosophers especially since the first half of the last century. I explore the struggle for mutual recognition between womrn and men who must face the reality of life and death in order to avoid the projection of their fear of mortality onto the other sex. This includes a critical look at Irigaray's account of subjectivity and divinity. I turn to the French philosopher Michèle Le Doeuff in order to shift the focus from divinity to intersubjectivity. I conclude that taking seriously the struggle for mutual recognition between subjects forces contemporary philosophers of religion to be realist in their living and dying. With this in mind, the lesson from the Continent for philosophy of religion is that we must not stop yearning for recognition. Indeed, we must event risk our autonomy/divinity in seeking to recognize intersubjectivity.

I locate the starting point for this essay on the common ground between the traditionally conceived attribute of divine love and the moral theory known as divine command ethics. The latter assumes that something is good because God commands it; with the former, the gift of divine love requires love in return. In this light, God’s command to love is recognized as goodness itself by those ‘he’ loves. In other words, those persons loved by God are morally motivated to love. However, this theistic account of divine command theory simply assumes that love is knowable, do-able and so required. The obstacles to knowing love and loving are rarely made explicit. To tackle some of these, this essay is loosely structured around a dialogue with Kantian morality. Analysis of the gendered nature of love will take place indirectly in the course of my account of duty, pure goodness and moral motivation.

In my response-paper, I dispute the claim of Firestone and Jacobs that “Kant’s turn to transcendental analysis of the moral disposition via pure cognition is perhaps the most important new element of his philosophy of religion” (In Defense of Kant’s Religion, 233). In particular, I reject the role given—in the latter—to “pure cognition.” Instead I propose a Kantian variation on cognition which remains consistent with Kant’s moral postulate for the existence of God. I urge that we treat this postulate as regulative. So, in place of pure cognition, “belief in” God grounds our hope for perfect goodness.

Feminist philosophy of religion as a subject of study has developed in recent years because of the identification and exposure of explicit sexism in much of the traditional philosophical thinking about religion. This struggle with a discipline shaped almost exclusively by men has led feminist philosophers to redress the problematic biases of gender, race, class and sexual orientation of the subject. Anderson and Clack bring together new and key writings on the core topics and approaches to this growing field. Each essay exhibits a distinctive theoretical approach and appropriate insights from the fields of literature, theology, philosophy, gender and cultural studies. Beginning with a general introduction, part one explores important approaches to the feminist philosophy of religion, including psychoanalytic, poststructualist, postmetaphysical, and epistemological frameworks. In part two the authors survey significant topics including questions of divinity, embodiment, autonomy and spirituality, and religious practice. Supported by explanatory prefaces and an extensive bibliography which is organized thematically, Feminist Philosophy of Religion is an important resource for this new area of study.