Can we philosophize as a feminist, even though the history of philosophy is strongly gendered ? Yes, but that implies paying attention to all the bias that cross it and often constitute it.
Can we learn to philosophize as a feminist, and therefore, teach philosophy as a feminist ? This question, to which Vanina Mozziconacci’s work seeks to answer, could be understood as a double provocation, on the one hand because philosophy is reluctant to any pedagogy which would surround free thought in formatted teaching paths, on the other hand because feminist philosophy would simply not exist. Double contradiction in the terms or double challenge that the author confronted, involved in the first person in this questioning, thus putting in abyss or in practice the epistemology of the claimed positioning, while making the reader (or the reader) feel that it is not only annexed or subordinate questions, but that it is well, in the way of teaching and relating to students, what means to philosophize. Deepening the famous feminist slogan, reflection is based on the conviction that: “ The staff are political and the didactics are personal (P. 27). The teacher in philosophy cannot ignore that we inherit a history of institutionalized discipline and traditions which impose certain intellectual habits and create blind points of thought deserving to be questioned, but also certain relationships with knowledge and their exhibition which can exclude those to whom they address, or at least prevent them from accessing them.
For feminist philosophical didactics
Responding to the first objection according to which philosophy escapes any pedagogy, V. Mozzicconacci intends to show that it must on the contrary seize didactic questions, provided however to carefully identify the stake. The author’s approach is part of the line of critical didactics which, in reverse of a pedagogy which would be outside the fields of knowledge constituted to develop a universal method empty of content, intends to support the own resources of its discipline to aim for the development of a “ social critical conscience (P. 26, the author quotes the definition of Irene Pereira).
However, the approach is not without risk and must make its way that avoids several pitfalls. First, that of replacing intellectual criticism with emotional support. The substitution of a work of care To disciplinary education, not only dissolves the critical position that the teacher seeks to hold, but assigns the student to a frozen identity, preventing her emancipation. It is therefore in no way a question of psychologizing or therapy philosophical work, which would also lead to depoliticizing “ the staff “In” individualizing the stories of domination (P. 49). Then, the risk would be to issue doctrinal content disconnected from their reflexive and critical power, or “ techniques »Ready to employment that would destroy philosophical freedom. In this sense, the book by V. Mozziconnacci stands out from manuals of feminist pedagogy or education for gender equality. The author, however, underlines how much the refusal to think about how to teach, in the name of sanctified freedom, can be a dresser screen so as not to see the power relations that play and inform ideas and their transmission. Also think “ a philosophical didactic of philosophy », Is it thinking about philosophy itself, a reflexive movement constituting discipline (p. 68).
But what does philosophize from a feminist point of view means ? To the second objection refuting the existence of a feminist philosophy, V. Mozziconacci replied that it is not reduced or a philosophy “ non-sexist Nor to partisan indoctrination. It supposes not only an increased attention to gender injustices, irreducible to other types of injustices, which concern the history of philosophy itself, but also a way of problematizing which implies to depart from the illusion of a thought of “ zero “Or a” philosophize universal To reflect on the anchoring of his knowledge since the question of gender difference, while opening philosophy to objects hitherto considered as unworthy or concealed.
The feminist teaching of philosophy is also based on a social criticism of school excellence, talent and merit. The belief in an innate philosophical talent or a brilliant intuition explains not only the refusal of all didactic reflection, but the secular exclusion of women in the discipline: “ Didactization is a depiedestalization ; Now depiedestalization and feminization often operate a peer (P. 79).
Rethink objectivity
The question is then to know how to demystify teacher neutrality and the universality of knowledge without abandoning any pretension to objectivity, nor abuse its authority to impose a doctrine. To illustrate the Androcentrics revealed by feminist epistemologies, the work is based on the example of the social contract which turns out to be, with C. Pateman, a Sex contract (1988), and with Charles W. Mills, a Racial contract (1997). Feminist philosophy therefore implies a criticism of liberal theories of the independent individual. Even more, these critical analyzes of contractualism show that the question of gender has something analogous to the question of race, to the point of bringing the idea that philosophizing as a feminist is necessarily philosophizing intersectionally. But then is it specifically to philosophize as a feminist, or more generally of thinking in a critical way, by paying particular attention to the categories of gender, but also of race ? Or to ask the question in a more controversial way: is it because we are a woman that we learn to philosophize as a feminist, where racialized people would tackle these questions under the breed bonus, people with disabilities under that of validism etc. ?
The challenge is then to show that all philosophical reflection must return to the place from which it thinks, without falling into a relativistic perspectivism or an essentialization of the positions. Relying in particular on the work of Sandra Harding, V. Mozziconacci defends the idea that feminist epistemology of positioning (EFP) – which is not a simple perspective but a reflexive and active reappropriation of a situation suffered – “ gives itself more the means of objectivity than traditional epistemologies “:” The recognition of the socially located character of any scientific activity is accompanied by the idea that it is a resource and not an obstacle to objectivity (P. 91, the author underlines). L’EFP must for this be distinguished from both a ethnocentrism – Being a woman is not in itself a guarantee of epistemic superiority ; there “ Homogenizing categorization of femininity “Must herself be the subject of a critical approach-and a relativism – Some positions are “ more enlightening than others to discover and analyze a reality (P. 92). Against the illusion of thoughtless scientific neutrality, theEFP Give the means of stronger objectivity which also has the purpose of a more egalitarian democratization.
V. Mozziconacci proposes to design Androcentric or racial blindness like “ framing problems “Whose awareness must make it possible to initiate a reproduction work which will allow” Reporting the racial and sexual structuring of the world (P. 95). The problematization, essential to philosophical work, must itself be examined from the social context and the interests which give it birth, so as to renew the ability to ask questions, without however minority experiences are taken for immediate truths. To illustrate the new “ didactic contract “That the author calls for her wishes, she shows that we can renew the use of a philosophy manual, by taking it not for the problematization of the course, but for a source of a problematization of her” bias ” And “ dead angles (P. 108). V. Mozziconacci gives talking examples of how the manual invisits women in “ fascinating »The gaze by certain allegorical figures (like that of Freedom guiding the people of Delacroix) without ever wondering about the use “ generic “Expression” free man », Avoids connecting various elements evoking racial domination (the scattering preventing think of it as such), or even erecting counterfeit of freedom without ever questioning them (that of the minor in Kant for example).
Transform practices without endoctrine
To escape the accusation of political indoctrination, V. Mozziconacci rejects the easy solution to transform the classroom into free discussion space: on the one hand the teaching authority is not absent, on the other hand the equivalence of all points of view and their dictable/audible character is a naive illusion. But against the Arendtian theory of a conservative education of the world, feminist education assumes to criticize it “ with a transformation horizon (P. 125).
V. Mozziconacci then offers “ some working horizons To renew the teaching of philosophy, which go through a transformation not only of the content but from the ways of transmitting them. The first horizon requires questioning the criteria that preside over the categorization of a philosophical text, their history, and the effects of exclusion that they induce ; to no longer dodge the critical analysis of sexism of canonical texts ; or even “ Detecting gender in conceptualizations that are intended to be neutral “(P. 140), of which V. Mozziconacci gives two evocative examples – Kantian respect and Sartrian bad faith. Contrary to respect for the human person, for example, Kantian respect for women is in particular a way of maintaining them in their place by the injunction to modesty.
The second horizon supposes in particular to question the effects excluding paradigms of the oratory jousting or the argumentative agôn often favored in philosophy. The critical work of feminist philosophy must itself be careful not to sink into self-destructive hypercriticism. In order not to overvalue the will to objection which erect the thought of others as an adversary, to the detriment of the work of conceptualization and problematization, new philosophical exercises must be developed by the teacher, whose book gives several examples such as rewriting, cooperative learning by “ puzzle class », Or the method of surveying (method resulting from popular education consisting in cutting a text for a collective restitution).
Ultimately, against the myth of a pure philosophical reflection because delivered from any interest or historical anchoring, V. Mozziconacci suggests “ give a (greater) place to an approach to conceptualization inspired by pragmatism in the broad sense “(P. 174) By paying attention to the practical consequences of the uses of a concept, but also to its conditions of emergence and the way in which he can be invested by heterogeneous interests. Without pretending to resolve all the difficulties, this call for a renewal of teaching practices is nourished by a more acute consciousness of the incarnation and the contextualization of knowledge, and succeeds in convincing the need and fertility for each teacher in depth reflexivity on the situation of his philosophical discourse, for each philosopher of a creative reflection on his transmission practices, and for each student of the contribution of philosophy from a feminist point of view.