Only Natural:

Abstract

This volume brings together sixteen essays by Louise Antony that reflect her distinctive approach to issues at the intersections of feminist theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Antony proceeds from the Quinean precept that we treat knowledge as a natural phenomenon. This approach offers feminists and other progressive theorists vital tools with which to expose and dismantle ideological conceptions of knowledge, human nature, and objectivity. Naturalism’s focus on the actual (as opposed to hypothetical) circumstances under which human beings acquire knowledge illuminates and responds to feminist calls for a “situated” account of human knowledge. At the same time, Antony defends a number of views that have been the object of feminist criticism: psychological individualism, cognitive nativism, and the autonomy of semantics. These views are in no way incompatible with feminist commitments, which is good, because they enjoy broad empirical support. This volume also addresses a number of practical issues of concern to feminists: Does pornography silence women? Are we ethically entitled to moral partiality? Is legitimate authority possible? Why are there so few women in philosophy? Finally, Antony argues that genders are socially constructed and multiply realized categories that bring into concordance sets of properties that have no natural or rational connection to each other. Genders must not be identified with the categories “female” and “male,” but human sexual difference is the material, explanatory basis of gender systems: But for the existence of differences in reproductive role between females and males, gender regimes would not exist.