This book is a collection of essays concerning the contribution of feminist thinking to "all of the core subject areas commonly taught in anglophone undergraduate philosophy courses" (5). Essays range from feminism in ancient philosophy, to feminism in philosophy of mind, metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, philosophy of science, and political philosophy. Interestingly, separating essays according to narrowly defined topics is a clearly male approach to knowledge, but the author of each essay makes an attempt to fit the specialized information of her chapter into the broader context of feminist debate.

Mental health practitioners and mental health ‘consumers’ who read the reviews on this web site may wonder what relevance there is in a book on feminism in philosophy. Why would such a book be reviewed here? The fact is that feminism has quite a bit to say both directly and indirectly about the conception of so-called mental health. For example, in this book the chapter on epistemology deals with issues of knowledge in such a way that it can easily help the reader to think about questions relevant to a definition of mental heath such as, Who says what constitutes ‘correct’ thinking, knowledge, or ‘truth’? How can those who are powerless or marginalized have their particular perspective of knowledge and truth taken seriously? And how can one’s subjective knowledge and truth gain credibility when the so-called legitimate methods by which one’s knowledge gains credibility, and the ‘permission’ to share that knowledge, are controlled by a section of the population of which one is not a member? The chapter on metaphysics deals with such issues as androcentrism in which males are considered the norm against which females are measured, how the male perspective of ‘reality’ has been universalized by scholars and is assumed to include the female perspective, how a woman’s experience of pregnancy alters her conception of individuality (since the line between an other who is within and an other who is outside becomes blurred by pregnancy), and how gender has created a power-differential between men and women which is not merely theoretical but affects the ‘reality’ that is actually experienced.

The chapter which is perhaps of greatest interest to visitors to this web site is chapter 4, titled "Feminism and psychoanalysis: Using Melanie Klein" (68-86). It deals specifically with a comparison between Jacques Lacan’s rejection of Freud’s psychoanalytic theory of child and ego development and Melanie Klein’s account. The focus is on the fact that Klein’s psychoanalytic model predates Lacan’s linguistic account, and that it accepts a strongly biological or essentialist view of personality development while most contemporary feminists do not. The author, Sarah Richmond, argues that Klein’s model is a more cogent explanation of how mothering creates misogyny (women-hating) in boys than either Freud’s or Lacan’s explanations. She also cites this as justification for fathers to be more involved in child-rearing. While the descriptions of Freud’s, Lacan’s, and Klein’s conception of how boys end up hating their mother’s breasts is couched in thickly layered psycho-babble, this chapter gives a wonderful insight into how both psychoanalysts and feminists have struggled to explain why men hate women. Of course it begs the question, Is misogyny as prevalent as these writers would have us believe? Klein’s carefully constructed model of child development, and Richmond’s endorsement of Klein also raises the prickly issue of a feminist creating a universal or generalizable model, something which many feminist writers have criticized vehemently in men’s writings. Difference is an important part of feminist thinking, and most of the other authors make it abundantly clear that feminists do not all subscribe to the same ideology.

Despite chapter titles–such as "Feminism in epistemology: Pluralism without postmodernism" –which may be somewhat intimidating to the non-academic reader, the authors in this book write in easy to understand prose. Each is careful to explain terms which may not be familiar to non-philosophers, and sentences are kept at a readable non-academic length. Overall the book accomplishes its stated task of informing readers new to the field of feminism how feminism has made a difference not only in theory but in practice. While some books on feminism can be discouraging for men due to their overt hostility to anyone of the male gender, this book remains informative while avoiding a radical political tone. I found only one instance of an odd juxtaposition of terms in which "males" are contrasted with "women" (206). But this may have simply been a typographical error.

My biggest criticism is the fact that the index in this book is an index of names only. This is an unfortunate approach to indexing since it is useless on two counts: first it is useless for those who have trouble remembering names, and second it is useless for those who may wish to locate what the thirteen different essays have to say about a particular issue such as "postmodernism." When will publishers, especially academic publishers like Cambridge, wake up to the fact that most readers of academic books rely on a book’s index in doing their research? In fact I make it a personal policy never to purchase a book that does not have a good general index. Having said that, locating information in this book is made somewhat less miserable by the fact that many chapters are sub-divided by headings which highlight the dominant issues discussed. Index aside, I recommend this book as a very good introduction to the importance of feminism in philosophy.

Copyright Peter Raabe 2001.


Peter B. Raabe teaches philosophy and has a private practice in philosophical counseling in North Vancouver, Canada. He is the author of the book Philosophical Counseling: Theory and Practice (Praeger, 2001).

Categories: Philosophical