Camille Braune

This book provides the first in-depth examination of philosophy and feminism in the works of Wittgenstein, exploring the diverse approaches within this emerging field The four thematic parts are accompanied by an introduction from the editors. They cover the history of ordinary language philosophy, moral and political thought, feminist epistemology and conceptual approaches to gender. Chapters are written by feminist philosophers who question the way in which ordinary language philosophy can enrich moral thought. Authoritative and comprehensive, it increases the visibility of a significant field outside of mainstream philosophy and confirms the continuing impact of Wittgenstein.

What is conceptual injustice, and how can it supplement hermeneutical injustice? By bringing feminist epistemology, in particular Miranda Fricker’s notion of hermeneutical injustice, into dialogue with conceptual ethics and conceptual engineering, this article sheds light on what conceptual injustice is and how it can supplement hermeneutical injustice. What needs to be understood is how concepts can be advantageous to some and disadvantageous to others. For this, I propose approaching language in its relationship with ethics: something I call the ethics of attention to language. By combining a Wittgenstein-Murdochian approach to concepts with the ethics of attention, I try to demonstrate how an ethics of attention to language can counter cognitive disabilities or forms of cognitive blockages constituting experiences of oppression and how it can be an antidote to conceptual injustice. I argue that this ethics of attention to language can be especially beneficial to feminism.

Simone Weil's ideas proved fundamental for Iris Murdoch, opening up a difficult path of thought for one rooted in the British philosophical tradition in the 1950s (Sim 1985, Bok 2005, Lovibond 2011a, Panizza 2022a, Mac Cumhaill and Wiseman 2022). Grasping the Weilian-inspired moral theory of attention sketched by Iris Murdoch is a prerequisite for comprehending the development of her moral ideas (Panizza 2015, Broackes 2012) and the form they may take in her literary writings (Griffin 1993, Morgan 2006). This paper argues that we can read an expression of Simone Weil in Iris Murdoch's novels which articulate her notions of grace and gravity, but also convey the Weilian insights that shape Murdoch's moral perfectionism. It investigates three of Murdoch's well-known male protagonists, i.e., Bradley Pearson, Charles Arrowby and Hilary Burde, so as to comprehend how their moral failures relate to a defective implementation of the concepts of love and attention as theorised by Simone Weil as leading to goodness. Hence, it offers a new examination of the way in which the Murdochian literary staging of inattention as a cause of moral deficiency reveals its Weilian-based ethics of attention.