Table Of Content02-061 Front 8/23/02 8:20 AM Page i
Representing Reason
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02-061 Front 8/23/02 8:20 AM Page iii
Representing Reason
Feminist Theory and Formal Logic
Edited by
Rachel Joffe Falmagne
and Marjorie Hass
rowman & littlefield publishers, inc.
Lanham • Boulder • New York • Oxford
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ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD PUBLISHERS, INC.
Published in the United States of America
by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
A Member of the Rowman & Littlefield Publishing Group
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Copyright © 2002 by Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Information Available
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Representing reason : feminist theory and formal logic / edited by Rachel Joffe Falmagne
and Marjorie Hass.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-8476-9668-5 (alk. paper)—ISBN 0-8476-9669-3 (pbk. : alk.
paper)
1. Logic. 2. Feminist theory. I. Falmagne, Rachel Joffe. II. Hass,
Marjorie, 1965–
BC57 .R47 2002
160' .82—dc21
2002006968
Printed in the United States of America
∞™
The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of
American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for
Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.
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(cid:2)
Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction Representing Reason: Feminist Theory and
Formal Logic 1
Marjorie Hass and Rachel Joffe Falmagne
Part 1 Logic and The Structure of Thought
Chapter 1 The Politics of Reason: Toward a Feminist Logic 11
Val Plumwood
Chapter 2 Feminism and the Logic of Alterity 45
Val Plumwood
Chapter 3 Fluid Thinking: Irigaray’s Critique of Formal Logic 71
Marjorie Hass
Chapter 4 “Power in the Service of Love”: John Dewey’sLogic
and the Dream of a Common Language 89
Carroll Guen Hart
Chapter 5 Words of Power and the Logic of Sense 117
Dorothea E. Olkowski
Part 2 Logic and Empirical Knowledge
Chapter 6 On Mapping a Transdisciplinary Approach
to Reasoning 133
Rachel Joffe Falmagne and Marie-Geneviève Iselin
v
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vi (cid:2) Contents
Chapter 7 Logic from a Quinean Perspective:
An Empirical Enterprise 169
Lynn Hankinson Nelson and Jack Nelson
Chapter 8 Saying What It Is: Predicate Logic and
Natural Kinds 191
Andrea Nye
Chapter 9 “What Do Girls Know Anyway?”: Rationality,
Gender, and Social Control 209
Pam Oliver
Index 233
About the Contributors 241
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Acknowledgments
Many people helped to make this book possible. The editors would particu-
larly like to thank Linda Nicholson and Sandra Harding for their enthusi-
astic encouragement and Jeff Della Rovere for his editorial assistance. Mar-
jorie Hass appreciates the dialogues she has established with Lawrence Hass,
Tim McCarthy, and Sally Tramel and thanks them for their ongoing intel-
lectual and emotional encouragement. She also thanks Susan Seip for her
many contributions to the production of the manuscript. Rachel wishes to
thank the Five College Women’s Studies Research Center for providing a
stimulating interdisciplinary feminist context during the early years of this
project, as well as Ann Ferguson, Kristin Waters, Linda Dusman, and Diane
Bell for broad-ranging discussions across disciplines over the years and for
their support of this work. Rachel also thanks the graduate participants in
the informal feminist discussion group at Clark for their intellectually and
personally valuable contributions to her thinking, in particular Emily
Abbey, Christina Hatgis, Marie-Geneviève Iselin, Saeromi Kim, and Abi-
gail Mansfield. Finally, we would like to thank our editors at Rowman and
Littlefield: Maureen MacGrogan, who initially enthusiastically accepted the
book; Eve DeVaro, who saw it through to the end; and Erin McKindley, who
supervised the publishing process. A summer research grant from Muhlen-
berg College made it possible for Marjorie Hass to write her contribution to
this volume. Rachel Joffe Falmagne’s contribution and editorial work was
supported by a three-year grant from the Spencer Foundation.
vii
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viii (cid:2) Acknowledgments
We acknowledge with thanks permission to reprint the following material:
“The Politics of Reason: Towards a Feminist Logic” by Val Plumwood.
Reprinted with permission of the publisher from Australasian Journal of
Philosophy71, no. 4 (1993): 436–462.
“‘Power in the Service of Love’: John Dewey’s Logic and the Dream of a
Common Language” by Carroll Guen Hart. Reprinted with permission
of the author and the publisher from Hypatia 8, no. 2 (Spring 1993):
190–214.
“Logic from a Quinean Perspective: An Empirical Enterprise” by Lynn
Hankinson Nelson and Jack Nelson. Reprinted with permission of the
author and publisher from On Quine (Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth,
2000).
“‘What Do Girls Know Anyway?’ Rationality, Gender, and Social Con-
trol” by Pam Oliver. Reprinted with permission of the publisher from
Feminism and Psychology1, no. 3 (1991): 339–360.
02-061 Intro 8/23/02 8:21 AM Page 1
I N T R O D U C T I O N
(cid:2)
Representing Reason:
Feminist Theory and Formal Logic
MARJORIE HASS AND RACHEL JOFFE FALMAGNE
This volume brings together recent essays addressing feminist issues in formal
logic and logical issues in feminist theory. As the first volume with this spe-
cific focus, it places itself in a contested terrain. Among logicians, the
thought that feminism might have something of value to say about formal
logic is usually treated with skepticism if not dismissal. The convergence of
feminism and logic may also be met with skepticism among some feminists
who perceive the projects of feminism to be aimed at more pressing political
concerns than the problematics of abstract theory.
It is our hope that this collection will dissipate those preconceptions. The
chapters to follow reveal that many core concepts at issue in recent feminist
theorizing and in philosophical logic overlap. The thematic center of the
volume is the relationship between our informal assumptions about concepts
such as difference, identity, and generality and our efforts to produce precise,
formal representations of these concepts. It is here that feminist theory and
philosophical logic engage most fruitfully.
Feminist theory has long argued that the exclusion of women from philo-
sophical work was more than simply a matter of unfair treatment. When fem-
inist activism made it possible for women to be “added” into theory, the full
impact of their prior exclusion was finally revealed. This exclusion, in terms
of the exclusion of both women thinkers from the academy and women’s
lives from philosophical consideration, was persuasively shown to undermine
the presumed neutrality of many of philosophy’s most cherished assumptions
in areas ranging from political theory to ethics.
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