Sunday, October 12, 2008
Analytic Form
Haslanger brought a very analytic side to this debate which I enjoyed after having a certain degree of difficulty getting a grip on Butler. Haslanger proceeded with straightforward logical arguments, that began with a setup of the question, proceeded by defining terms, brought up disputes with her point of view and provided rejoinders. Her conclusion was clearly laid out in the last few paragraphs of the paper. My question then, did this help or hinder the argument? Was she more or less persuasive then Butler because she spoke plainly and straightforwardly? Were her arguments laden with the Old mode of power because they were constructed in a manner that came to popularity under that structure? Can she hope to elliminate old categories while still using the old language that spawned those categories? In essense, which form of argument did you find more convincing, especially in dealing with the topic of gender liberation?
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2 comments:
Great questions Jesse. I too enjoyed the clarity of this article, as well as its result.
Incase anyone skipped straight to the conclusion and thinks that Haslanger's comment "Both gender and race are real, and both are social categories." (p.51) is solely targeted at the phenomenon which the concepts attempt to describe, they are not. In the starts of the article, Haslanger makes the following distinction between methods of thinking about the questions "what is gender" and "what is race"(etc.).
The Conceptual inquiry is meant to tackle the issue of what we actually mean when we use the terms race and gender. The descriptive inquiry looks at the phenomenon that those concepts attempt to explain (their extension). The final method of inquiry, that Haslanger herself uses in this article, is the analytic approach. This method looks to the utility (pragmatics) of gender and race. The whole approach is set up by the question "what is the point in having these concepts?"
I really liked these distinctions. As Haslanger points out, there is room for theoretical categories such as man, women and race (again, this is based mostly on their utility). She also writes "there are other ways to define race and gender, man or women, that are useful to answer different questions, motivated by different concerns and priorities" (p.52) so she clearly isn't supporting any absolute categories.
I hope everyone got to the part with the NY Times quote!
"When someone tries to tell me what to call myself in all its uses just because they come to some decision at a cocktail party to which I wasn't even invited, my mama raised me to tell them to kiss my black ass. In many cases, African-American just won't do." (p.47)
LOL...
also, you asked "Can she hope to elliminate old categories while still using the old language that spawned those categories?"
Haslanger quotes Appiah as saying "there is nothing in the world that can do all we ask race to do for us" So using different terms won't lead to some ultimate solution of the problems that we associate with the old terms. The best we can do is define gender and race, in each instance, for our theoretical purposes. Haslanger thinks there are rhetorical advantages to using the old terms and categories in this (her) instance. (conclusion p.51-52)
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