Gender Symbolism in Logic

Andrea Nye developed a thorough rejection of logic in her book *Words of Power*. I take the book to be a form of “intellectual impression,” in which Nye articulates an interpretation of logic based on her lived experience as an outsider of the field, not part of the “gentlemen’s club,” and told about a way to access universal knowledge with maximal abstraction. Instead of presenting her perspective by way of arguments, her book is a response. I’ve been writing about this, and it’s a challenging text to write about, especially because it isn’t written to provide articulated reasons. But I fully respect the approach because I don’t think that logic is necessary or even sufficient for effective (read convincing) communication. Rhetoric has many tricks up its sleeve, and articulated reasons aren’t always the ones to favour.

While Nye may not present arguments in the traditional sense, she writes in coherent ways, which according to "Logic in the Wild," is all you need for logical reasoning to be established. What she’s not submitting to is the practice of seeking coherence with the strict logical standards of Twentieth-century logicians, those to whom the critique is ultimately directed. What’s her response? That logic is a male-fabricated tool that has liberated men in the public and academic spheres, eventually elevating them to the level of God and universal knowledge via abstraction, while keeping women away from it, back in their households, with their private knowledges.

One thing I find particularly difficult to write about is achieving fairness towards Nye’s belief about the difference in knowledges between the sexes. There’s a difference between saying that logic is masculine and passion (or emotion?) is feminine and saying that there are different ways of accessing knowledge—via logic or via passion—and that the former is traditionally ascribed to men, the latter to women. To say that logic is masculine is to commit the fallacy of gender symbolism, i.e., to ascribe gender to inanimate things. Gillian Russell’s reply to Nye isn’t to deny the impression she articulated but to rectify the slippery gender symbolism in the articulation.

References:

Nye, Andrea. Words of Power: A Feminist Reading of the History of Logic. 1st ed. Routledge, 2019. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780367854447

Russell, Gillian. “Logic: A Feminist Approach.” In Philosophy for Girls, by Gillian Russell, 79–98. Oxford University Press, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190072919.003.0007

What does feminism have to do with logic?

There’s no logical difference between men and women regarding their logical abilities or faculties. Do I really need to say that? Today? European men have created a space of enquiry where only men were allowed. Logic and reason, said the ancient Greeks, were for men. For women? Emotions and passion. Emotions and passion had to be tamed by logic and reason. Logic vs. reason; a very old saga. But that was entirely fabricated by men, starting with Aristotle in logic, and propagated over the ages.

With the Enlightenment and the Cartesian abstracted ego, man elevated himself to the equal of God, becoming the source of truth, and leaving women below. Man became the equal of God while women were kept slaves to their passions. Eventually, with the formalisation of logic, even Man got abstracted away, for what? For Mathematics? For Truth? Once women managed to leave their homes and regain access to society, there was nothing left but pure logic, man’s best friends, the totally abstracted and neutral ways of universal thinking. How dare she ask about her embodied self and situated knowledge? How dare she question the origins of the pure laws of thought? How dare she doubt the glorious male ego?

What does feminism have to do with logic? Precisely that! To reveal a history of self-gratification and abstraction. To reveal the unequal distribution of epistemic power and shared epistemic tools. To reveal how the fabric of society inherited a fabricated structure of reasoning, a combative and competitive quest for truth, the imposition of masculine coherence in every enquiry.

Logical Injustice: A New Dimension of Wronging Reasoners

Epistemic injustice is to wrong someone in their capacity as a knower; hermeneutical injustice is to wrong them as an understander. What I propose is that logical injustice is to wrong them in their capacity as a reasoner. To wrong someone as a reasoner is to fail to appreciate the coherence in their thoughts. I want to discuss whether logical injustice is subject to the same problem as epistemic and hermeneutical injustice, namely that the injustice is neither genuinely epistemic nor hermeneutical, but rather reducible to prejudices and social injustice.

Kristie Dotson, for instance, distinguishes three levels of epistemic injustice, only one of which is genuinely epistemic; the other two are not because the reparation doesn’t require a change in the shared epistemic tools. It’s only when an injustice is propagated by the inertia of the dominant epistemic systems that resist change or accommodation that the injustice is genuinely epistemic. If the injustice is the historical exclusion of women from philosophy, the injustice is reducible to patriarchal injustice, not something specifically epistemological. Some women were given enough space to contribute to the growth of philosophical knowledge, and they could contribute without having to change or add to the dominant epistemological tools. Maybe a case like that is Émilie du Châtelet, who found a way to contribute to philosophy, not by changing how it’s done, but by breaking through the ranks. I’m simplifying here.

In contrast, I think a modern example of a proper epistemological injustice, one that is due to the inertia of the dominant theories, is the exclusion of trans people from contributing to knowledge. If I understand Dotson correctly, the exclusion is due to the resistance of established knowledge systems to change the conceptual space of sex and gender to appreciate the expression of alternative identities. Established epistemological tools can at best accommodate a trans person as being “both a man and a woman” or “neither a man nor a woman.” However, this is far removed from the knowledge, understanding, and reasoning that trans people have and can contribute, but aren’t allowed to because it doesn’t fit within the established epistemology. I believe this is what Dotson means by irreducible epistemic injustice due to the inertia of dominant epistemology.

Now that we can appreciate what irreducible injustice means, we can ask how epistemic, hermeneutical, and, what I wish to contribute, logical injustice, differ.

Reference: Dotson, Kristie. “Conceptualizing Epistemic Oppression.” Social Epistemology 28, no. 2 (April 3, 2014): 115–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/02691728.2013.782585.

Reason as a Social Construct

Yesterday, while reading Genevieve Lloyd's "The Man of Reason," a realization dawned on me: reason is a social construct. This insight reshaped my understanding, highlighting how the conception of reason is steered by those wielding greater societal power: men. Similar to other constructs, like gender, the notion of reason aligns with a historical trajectory in Europe that predominantly celebrated male freedom—manifested through political engagement, academic presence, and leadership roles—while relegating women to domestic spheres, thus perpetuating their subordination.

Engaging more deeply with critical theory, across the domains of feminism, queer theory, and post-colonial studies, I've noticed a pervasive pattern: our societal structure is steeped in systematic dualisms, a concept I've borrowed from Plumwood. These dualisms serve to both reinforce and normalize the oppression of marginalized groups. Despite this broader exploration, today, I'm particularly drawn to the concept of reason. When I first encountered Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" as a teenager, and upon revisiting it in subsequent years, it didn't strike me that his critique extends beyond assessing how people employ reason or defend their understanding of it. Rather, Kant was engaged in redefining and adapting reason to align with the Enlightenment's values. This necessitated a departure from the confines of ancient Greek philosophies and medieval Christian dogma, making room for the burgeoning field of science. And the concept of reason had to be reconstructed accordingly.

The discourse on reason doesn't align with a clearly defined concept that has been progressively refined, unlike our growing understanding of fields such as optics or astronomy. Traditionally, the concept of reason has positioned men at a societal advantage, conferring upon them a privileged status. This advantage is intricately linked with the evolution of democracy, drawing a contrast with the stereotypically "passionate" nature attributed to women. Despite ongoing critiques from feminist and other critical perspectives, this bias doesn't merely persist—it remains pervasive in society. Women are often depicted as overly emotional or dramatic in leadership positions, while men are still viewed as the rightful exemplars of reason.

But what exactly is reason? It does not directly correspond to neural processes, as some philosophers might suggest, but rather seeks to define patterns of reasoning, decision-making, and truth-seeking. What is it about? I am not advocating for the elimination of the concept from discourse; rather, I had not previously considered the potential to question its very foundations. Now, equipped with these questions, I recognize how constructions of reason contribute to sustaining an unjust distribution of power within society.

The exploration of reason as a socially constructed concept, influenced by historical power imbalances, invites us to reconsider its application and significance. By understanding its roots and questioning its current role, we can begin to challenge the structures that perpetuate inequality, opening the door to a more inclusive and equitable philosophical discourse on reason.

Reference: Lloyd, Genevieve. The Man of Reason : “Male” and “Female” in Western Philosophy. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1993.

Bridging Feminism, Ecology, and Logic: The Eco-Feminist Perspective

What does feminism have to do with ecology? This intersection is known as eco-feminism. But then, what role does logic play in this discourse? Ecology, as defined in my dictionary, is "the branch of biology that deals with the relations of organisms to one another and to their physical surroundings." At a glance, one might see how a feminist lens could be applied to such relations, given that feminism critically examines the dynamics between men and women. However, if we were to limit the connection to this parallel alone, the link between feminism and ecology might seem tenuous. Eco-feminism, therefore, is not merely about drawing superficial parallels but about applying and, in some cases, generalizing the critical insights of feminism regarding the relationships between men and women to those between humans and the non-human world.

Eco-feminism, in essence, extends the feminist critique of the relationship between men and women to include our interactions with non-human animals and nature. While it's clear that animals and nature do not engage in societal functions as humans do—they don't marry or form political parties—the focus of eco-feminism is on identifying connections rather than dwelling on these differences.

Val Plumwood, a philosopher and logician, performed a conceptual analysis of the power dynamics between men and women in terms of "dualism", offering a systematic framework for understanding not only the relationship between man and women, but other relationships such as that between humans and animals or nature. A dualism “results from a denied dependency on a subordinated other. Denied dependency determines a logical structure of domination/subordinatio that shapes the identity of both the relata.”(Plumwood, p.41).

Dualism encompasses various binaries, such as master/slave, reason/passion, men/women, and extending to human/animals and human/nature. Plumwood, applying her analytical logician skills, delineates necessary and sufficient conditions for a dualism, including "backgrounding," "hyperseparation," "relational definition," "instrumentalism," and "stereotyping." These conditions collectively push the subordinated side into the background, completely separating and negating it, using it for the dominant side's ends, and generalizing it into a uniform class that is silenced and exploited.

Although I'm simplifying the concept for brevity, the aim is to illustrate how Plumwood's analysis of dualism links the dynamics between men and women to those between humans and the rest of the natural world.

Now, how does logic tie into this? Once we identify a conceptual framework like Plumwood's, we can explore the logic that maintains the coherence of these conditions. Plumwood argues that classical logic, with its rigid structures, is particularly suited to upholding the integrity of dualisms. For example, the concept of hyperseparation in dualism resonates with the logical principle of explosion, which I discuss in Logic in the Wild. This principle posits that any contradiction within a theory trivializes it, highlighting a strict intolerance for contradiction. Such intolerance is crucial for maintaining dualisms, as acknowledging overlap between the dominant and subordinated could undermine the artificial separations—such as those between master and slave, or men and women—maintained by societal constructs.

And that, according to Plumwood, is what links feminism, ecology and logic.

Reference: Plumwood, Val. Feminism and the Mastery of Nature. Opening Out. London ; Routledge, 1993.

Unraveling Feminist Logic: A Critical Lens on Power and Neutrality in Dialectical Spaces

Is there such a thing as feminist logic, and what is it? It's crucial to understand that feminist logic is not a form of reasoning exclusive to females, women, or what might be considered 'feminine' thinking. If we entertain the idea that logic is a product of evolution, it's hard to imagine how it could have developed differently for female members of our species compared to males over thousands or millions of years. Despite potential internet lore suggesting otherwise, the notion seems implausible at best.

The distinction between feminine and masculine logic, especially when considering these concepts as social constructs, falls into the trap of gender symbolism. This is the erroneous practice of assigning gendered traits to non-gendered entities, such as the Moon being feminine and the Sun masculine in French, a convention that varies across languages. Given that logic serves as the guardian of coherence, focusing on patterns of thought rather than content, as I present it in Logic in the Wild, attributing gender symbolism to it constitutes a categorical mistake.

This leads us to inquire: does feminist logic relate to the distinction between man and woman, a debate more centered on gender than sex? At this juncture, the intersection of feminism and logic becomes increasingly relevant. Research specifically targeting the question of whether women employ a distinct form of logic is sparse. Historically, the discourse has predominantly leaned towards broader intellectual disparities. A narrative deeply rooted in European history, stretching back to Ancient Greece, posits that women are predominantly influenced by emotions and passions, as opposed to reason. This perspective finds echoes in discussions concerning race, skin color, and sexual orientation, among other attributes. I’ve discussed these parallels in a previous post, highlighting how intersectional concerns render such accusations absurd.

However, conceptualizing logic as the guardian of coherence clarifies that it operates independently of gender identification. This demonstrates that the function of guarding coherence goes beyond the nuances associated with gender identity. Thus, feminist logic is not merely about identifying a distinct form of reasoning tied to females, women, or femininity. In Logic in the Wild, I discuss how logic provides a neutral space for dialectical inquiry. It is at this point that feminist critiques become particularly important and relevant. These critiques urge a critical examination of the notion of neutrality. The idea of a dialectical space, filled by agents with varying levels of power and influence, highlights that neutrality in terms of content does not inherently lead to justice or an equitable distribution of power within such spaces. This insight emphasizes the need for a nuanced understanding of logic's role in societal discourses, bringing to the fore the vital intersections where feminist concerns are paramount.

It is in this context that feminist logic offers a profound critique of the power imbalances persisting in supposedly neutral dialectical spaces of enquiry. This analysis extends beyond feminism to include insights from queer theory, post-colonial theory, and critical theory at large.

In conclusion, feminist logic represents a critical examination of the power dynamics inherent in neutral spaces of dialectical inquiry, highlighting the need for equity and justice. It challenges us to rethink our assumptions about neutrality and the distribution of power in intellectual discourse, informed by the valuable perspectives of feminism and other critical theories.