Thinking with Women Philosophers: Critical Essays in Practical Contemporary Philosophy (Logic, Argumentation & Reasoning, 30)

This book focuses on some English-speaking women philosophers who have been major actors since the 20 th century in the field of practical philosophy, namely political and social philosophy, feminist approaches to philosophy, moral psychology, the theory of action and ethics. The book explores topics linked to the main aspects of the thought of those philosophers, i.e. Elizabeth Anscombe, Judith Butler, Philippa Foot, Nancy Fraser, Carol Gilligan and Martha Nussbaum. Six women French commentators have written a chapter on each of those women anglo-american philosophers, creating a dialogue as they think with them , elaborating their own positions in their respective fields. Introduction Contents Contributors Chapter 1: Carol Gilligan: What Gender Does to Moral Philosophy 1.1 Introduction 1.2 Amy’s Ethics 1.3 Moral Perception 1.4 The Paradigm of Attention 1.5 The Ethical Is Political 1.6 Patriarchy and Resistance References Chapter 2: Elizabeth Anscombe on Action Individuation (Or Why We Do Not Need a Theory of Action Individuation) 2.1 The Plurality of Descriptions of Action 2.2 The Problem(s) of Action Individuation 2.2.1 The Description’s Incapacity to Individuate the Action 2.2.2 The Need for a Theory of Action-Identity 2.3 Davidson on the Logical Form of Action Sentences: Action Individuation in the Broad Sense 2.4 The Imbrication of Action Descriptions: The Accordion Effect or Action Individuation in the Narrow Sense 2.4.1 The Order of Descriptions and the Unity of Action 2.4.2 The Accordion Effect 2.4.3 The Natural Causality of the Action 2.5 A False Problem (Back to Description) 2.6 Concluding Remarks on the Role of Intentions References Chapter 3: The Social Materiality of Sex: For and Beyond Judith Butler 3.1 Introduction 3.2 The Social Materiality of Sex According to Judith Butler 3.3 Back from Judith Butler to Louis Althusser: The Material Power of Ideology 3.4 Conceptualizing Performativity with Butler, Beyond Austin and Bourdieu 3.5 The Material Power of Words, Between Ideology and Performativity 3.6 Thinking with (and Beyond) Judith Butler: Concluding Remarks on the Discursive Materiality of Social Life References Chapter 4: From a Theory of Justice to a Critique of Capitalism: How Nancy Fraser Revitalizes Social Theory 4.1 Introduction 4.2 Part One: A Critical Theory of Recognition? 4.3 Part One Continued: Parity of Participation and a Multidimensional Approach to Justice 4.4 Part Two: Theory of Justice and/or Theory of Power 4.5 Part Two Continued: Misframing and Meta-politics 4.6 Part Three: Marx and Polanyi, or, the Critique of Capitalism References Books Articles Chapter 5: Philippa Foot’s Quest for Nature in Moral Philosophy 5.1 Introduction 5.2 A Life of Philosophy 5.3 How Can a Philosopher Defend Morality? 5.4 Moral Beliefs and the Hypothetical Imperative 5.5 A Philosopher and the Tram That Became a Trolley 5.6 The Mistake of Moral Subjectivism 5.7 “A Painfully Slow Journey” – Philippa Foot on Her Own Intellectual Evolution 5.8 The Primacy of Goodness 5.9 The Nature of “Natural Goodness” 5.10 Conclusion References Chapter 6: Martha Nussbaum and the Moral Relevance of Literature 6.1 Introduction: The Systematicity of Martha Nussbaum’s Philosophical Contributions 6.2 The Evaluative Commitments of Literary Works and Their Link to the Question “How Should One Live?” 6.3 The Ethical Descriptive Instruction of Dickens’s Great Expectations 6.4 Moral Psychology in Great Expectations 6.5 Pip’s Moral Progress References