Rationality and Feminist Philosophy argues that the Enlightenment conception of rationality that feminists are fond of attacking is no longer a live concept. Deborah K. Heikes shows how contemporary theories of rationality are consonant with many feminist concerns and proposes that feminists need a substantive theory of rationality, which she argues should be a virtue theory of rationality.
Within both feminist and non-feminist philosophical circles, our understanding of rationality depends upon the concept's history. Heikes traces the development of theories of rationality...
Rationality and Feminist Philosophy argues that the Enlightenment conception of rationality that feminists are fond of attacking is no longe...
During the Enlightenment, rationality becomes not a property belonging to all humans but something that one must achieve. This transformation has the effect of excluding non-whites and non-males from the domain of reason. Heikes seeks to uncover the source of this exclusion, which she argues stems from the threat of subjectivism inherent in modern thinking. As an alternative, she considers post-Cartesian reactions of modern representationalism as well as ancient Greek understandings of mind as simply one part of a functionally diverse soul. In the end, she maintains that treating rationality...
During the Enlightenment, rationality becomes not a property belonging to all humans but something that one must achieve. This transformation has the ...
