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The Metaphysics of Sex and Gender : Human Embodiment, Multiplicity, and Contingency The Metaphysics of Sex and Gender : Human Embodiment, Multiplicity, and Contingency Author: Lauren Elizabeth Weis Persistent link: http://hdl.handle.net/2345/1361 This work is posted on eScholarship@BC, Boston College University Libraries. Boston College Electronic Thesis or Dissertation, 2008 Copyright is held by the author, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. Boston College The Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Department of Philosophy THE METAPHYSICS OF SEX AND GENDER: HUMAN EMBODIMENT, MULTIPLICITY, AND CONTINGENCY a dissertation by LAUREN ELIZABETH WEIS Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy December 2008 © copyright by LAUREN ELIZABETH WEIS 2008 Abstract The Metaphysics of Sex and Gender: Human Embodiment, Multiplicity, and Contingency Lauren Elizabeth Weis Advisor: Prof. Patrick H. Byrne This dissertation assesses the relevance and significance of Lonergan’s work to feminist philosophy.1 In particular, this work examines the debate between several contemporary feminist philosophers regarding the question of the relation between sex and gender, as well as their critiques of the Western metaphysical tradition. Ultimately, the trajectory of the work argues that Lonergan’s philosophy, in particular his re- envisioning of the meaning of what it is to do metaphysics, provides a unique and compelling response to the critiques made by feminist philosophers, despite the appearance of overt sexism in his writing. In fact, Lonergan’s approach clarifies the relevance of metaphysical thinking to feminist philosophical analysis. The first chapter examines likely feminist criticisms of Lonergan’s philosophy, as well as points of commonality, particularly between Lonergan’s cognitional theory and various feminist epistemologies. In particular, this chapter undertakes an analysis of Lonergan’s notion of “the pure desire to know” which he claims is a primordial, normative human response to our experience of the universe of being. Chapter Two focuses on the feminist debate regarding the “sex/gender” distinction. This chapter examines the analyses of sex and gender by four prominent 1 Demonstrated by the contributors of essays to the volume on Lonergan and Feminism, including Cynthia Crysdale, Paulette Kidder, Michael Vertin, Elizabeth A. Morelli, and many others. feminist philosophers, Luce Irigaray, Elizabeth Grosz, Moira Gatens, and Judith Butler, and their critiques of the Western metaphysical tradition. Chapter Three explicates Lonergan’s cognitional theory, as well as his analysis of four patterns of experience – the biological, aesthetic, intellectual and dramatic. In addition, the notion of “neural demands” developed by Lonergan is discussed, as well as the connection between “neural demand functions” and patterns of experience. Chapter Four is dedicated to an exploration of the complexity of Lonergan’s approach to metaphysics. The chapter begins with Lonergan’s notion of being, and moves on to explore his notions of finality, emergent probability and objectivity. I turn next to a discussion of Lonergan’s revision of the traditional metaphysical vocabulary of potency, form, and act. This is followed by an examination of Lonergan’s understanding of the relationship between metaphysics and development, as well as dialectic. Chapter Five elaborates a dialectical exchange between Lonergan’s philosophy and the philosophy of Irigaray, Grosz, Butler, and Gatens. In addition, this chapter articulates Lonergan’s notion of anti-essentialism, and argues that his unmistakably clear rejection of essentialism supports the repudiation of the idea that human natures are fixed and determined by biological sex. In addition, Chapter Five explores the metaphysical and ethical significance of classical and statistical law, as well as the relationship between metaphysics and ethics as it pertains to feminist philosophy. Table of Contents Acknowledgements i Introduction 1 Chapter One Feminism, Epistemology, and Pure Question: Examining Lonergan’s Pure Desire to Know 9 Chapter Two Sex, Gender, and Metaphysics: Feminist Theorists Debate the Sex/Gender Distinction 35 Chapter Three Lonergan and the Patterns of Human Living 75 Chapter Four Metaphysics as Emergence: Lonergan’s Account of Dynamic Metaphysics 104 Chapter Five Dynamic Metaphysics and Feminist Critique: An Exercise in Dialectic 149 Conclusion 190 Selected Bibliography Books Related to Lonergan’s Thought 195 Books Related to Feminist Thought 196 Other Works Consulted 198 Book Chapters and Journal Articles 198 Encyclopedia Articles and Newspaper Reports 201 i Acknowledgements I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude and appreciation to a number of people who helped this work come to fruition. To begin, I would like to acknowledge the support and resources generously provided to me by the Boston College Graduate School of Arts and Sciences and the Philosophy Department. This support made it possible for me to devote myself to graduate studies and successfully complete this dissertation. I am sincerely indebted to my dissertation director, Professor Patrick Byrne, whose extraordinary personal and philosophical generosity, as well as his kindness and patience, made it possible for this project to emerge in a coherent manner. From our very first meeting when I raised the possibility of writing on Lonergan and feminism, Professor Byrne has enthusiastically supported and helpfully guided this project. This dissertation would not have come to fruition without his attentive reading of draft after draft of each chapter with unfailing seriousness and attention. His critical and editorial suggestions have been an invaluable resource. I am also grateful to my esteemed readers, Professor Cynthia Crysdale of The University of the South and Professor Fred Lawrence of the Boston College Theology Department, both of whom have given generously of their time and scholarly expertise to make this defense possible. I would also like to express my appreciation to all of the professors in the Boston College Philosophy Department for helping to make my graduate experience here so rich and rewarding. In particular, Professor Joseph Flanagan, SJ who helped to further elucidate my understanding of Lonergan’s work, as well Professors Arthur Madigan, SJ ii and Richard Kearney, whose courses helped to shape my philosophical interests. I would especially like to thank Professor Eileen Sweeney for her friendship and generous mentorship to me through the years. My philosophical education did not begin at Boston College, and I must express my gratitude to two extraordinary teachers for their guidance and support, Professor Tony Whall, who as the director of the Honors Program at Salisbury University first pointed me in the direction of Philosophy, and Professor Jerome Miller of the Salisbury University Department of Philosophy, who not only introduced me to the thought of Lonergan and the community of Lonergan scholars, but inspired me to live a philosophical life. A philosophical life is empty without friends, and I have been fortunate to develop friendships while I was at Boston College with some extraordinary people with whom I share a passion for intellectual pursuit, as well as deep personal connection. In particular I am grateful for the love and support of Julia Legas, and Carlos Bohorquez; Serena Parekh and Alice McLaughlin; Karen Teel and Sarah Harper, and Kerry Cronin. And last, but certainly not least, I am truly grateful to my parents, John and Kathryn Weis for their lifelong support and encouragement, to my sister Jillian and the Weis, Johnson, Kelleher and Smith families for their love and encouragement. And most especially to my extraordinary husband Joe, whose unfailing love, support, patience and intellectual fortitude are always an inspiration to me. iii Introduction Why have there been no major treatises concerning feminist metaphysics? It appears that many feminist philosophers have given up on metaphysics. Have they assumed that metaphysics is a fruitless and outmoded philosophical approach to forwarding feminist aims? If so, then their conclusions would seem justified considering that the female sex has been discounted by Western metaphysics. The contributions of the relatively few women who braved the halls of philosophical discourse prior to the twentieth century remain, for the most part, extra-canonical. Why is this? Feminists have argued persuasively that the history of the subordination of the female sex, created through the enculturation of the practice of sexism and patriarchal dominance, predates the history of Western metaphysics. In The Creation of Patriarchy, historian Gerda Lerner argues that patriarchal systems emerged over the course of several millennia. Lerner claims “The period of the ‘establishment of patriarchy’ was not one ‘event’ but a process developing over a period of nearly 2500 years, from app. 3100 to 600 B.C. It occurred, even within the Ancient Near East, at a different pace and at different times in several distinct societies.”2 Significantly, the emergence of Western philosophy and metaphysics can be traced to the period from the fourth through sixth centuries B.C., at which time Lerner claims patriarchal systems had been fully established, according to Lerner. While the pre-Socratic schools such as the Ionian and Eliatic begin in the sixth century B.C., Plato 2 Lerner, Gerda. The Creation of Patriarchy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 8. 1 and Aristotle, the patriarchs of Western
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