Representing Reason

Book excerpt: Philosophy's traditional 'man of reason'—independent, neutral, unemotional—is an illusion. That's because the 'man of reason' ignores one very important thing—the woman. As feminist philosophy grew in the 1980s and '90s, it became clear that the attributes philosophical tradition wrote off as 'womanly' are in fact part of human nature. No longer can philosophy maintain the dichotomy between the rational man and the emotional woman, but must now examine a more complex human being, able to reason and feel. Yet feminist philosophy also makes it clear that men and women theorize the world in different ways, from different perspectives. Representing Reasons: Feminist Theory and Formal Logic collects new and old essays that shed light on the underexplored intersection of logic and feminism. The papers in this collection cross over many of the traditional divides between continental and analytic philosophy, between philosophical reflection and empirical investigation, and between empirical investigations with an individual or societal grain of analysis. This is possible because Representing Reasons frames the relationship between logic and feminism in terms of issues rather than historical figures or methodologies. As such, the articles serve as a model for crossing these divides, just as they break down the traditional divide between logic and feminism.