Feminist Philosophy and Essentialism Conference

HUMBOLDT-UNIVERSITÄT ZU BERLIN, GERMANY INSTITUT FÜR PHILOSOPHIE SYMPOSIUM SERIES:

FEMINIST PHILOSOPHY AND… ESSENTIALISM

Dates: 19 – 20th of July 2012

Location: Senatssaal, Humboldt-Universität Main Building (Unter den Linden 6), Berlin

Description: Would you be the same individual if you were gendered differently? The workshop asks this and related questions with a special emphasis on Charlotte Witt’s recent book The Metaphysics of Gender (Oxford University Press, 2011). According to Witt, most ordinary social agents find the answer to the above question to be an obvious ‘No!’ and they have no difficulties providing an intuitive answer. By contrast, most academic feminists working on gender find the answer neither obvious nor easy. What generates such divergent views and why are ordinary agents so secure in their gender ascriptions? In her book, Witt provides an articulation of this and offers an account of gender essentialism that is based on Aristotelian unification essentialism: gender (being a woman/ man) functions to unify social individuals so that an individual – rather than an aggregate of diverse parts – exists. The workshop interrogates Witt’s view, considers alternatives to it and discusses the role of gender essentialism in feminist philosophy.

Speakers:

Dan López de Sa (Universitat de Barcelona, Spain)

Eva von Redecker (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany)

Natalie Stoljar (McGill University, Canada)

Alison Stone (Lancaster University, UK)

Charlotte Witt (University of New Hampshire, USA)

Attendance is free but places are limited. To register, please email feminismhu@gmail.com by 30th of June 2012. We hope to be able to provide travel bursaries for students/ unwaged participants. If you would like to be considered for one, or have any queries regarding the Symposium Series/ this event, please contact the organiser Mari Mikkola (mari.mikkola@hu-berlin.de). ---

Prof. Dr. Mari Mikkola Juniorprofessorin für Praktische Philosophie/ Junior Professor in Practical Philosophy Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Institut für Philosophie Under den Linden 6 D-10099 Berlin Germany Website: http://www.philosophie.hu-berlin.de/institut/lehrbereiche/politik/mikkola/mitarbeiter/mikkola_mari

Comments

[Marcus Morgan]

I will be very interested to read what comes from the con. I have a view in my free book http://home.iprimus.com.au/marcus60/1.pdf that yes, the point of separate gender is unity. I have an explanation based on biocheistry, where the purpose of X and Y chromosomal relations is to produce alternative poles of one blending continuum for the fertilized cell. From poles of male and female, we get continuity and continuation by their blending for a cell that can be then be either gender from that blended base.

The issue of what it is like to be male or female is inevitably related to that biochemical distinction, and the chemical basis for it. We would be chemically different, and, potentially, with different characteristics extending beyond copulation, to familial relations and so on (which may be the basis for cultural relations and altruism). You would be the same species with the same objective capacities (if I may say) but with a subjectivity chemically swayed in a way that might be measureable scientifically and matched with observation.