Abstract
In this chapter, I describe the contemporary debate on the nature of individuals and the contributions that feminist theorists have brought. Criticising the atomic, isolated notion of individual self, feminist theorists have been looking for alternative conceptions that do not exclude the relationships individuals bear among themselves and that recognise social dynamics as constitutive of individuality. Within this context, Spinoza appears as a “noble ancestor” of relational accounts of individuality and individual autonomy (Armstrong et al., 2019). Feminist historians and Spinoza scholars such as Armstrong (2009) and Tucker (2019) have shown that readings of Spinoza as a partisan of individual egoism are wrong. One reason lies in what Ravven (1998), for example, defends: according to Spinoza's metaphysics, the bounds of individuals are always wider in body and in mind than the bounds that are visible through the shapes of a person. Conway also offers a similar account of individuals (Duran, 1989; Pugliese, 2019), but her relational theory is still not yet read by feminist theorists in the context of the disputes over the metaphysics of individuality. Given Spinoza and Conway’s common philosophical interests, I will compare their theory of individuals so as to show how Conway offers an original contribution to the feminist debate by using gender analogies to characterise her metaphysical claims.
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Notes
- 1.
I have drawn a general picture of an early modern conception of the self, but the problems regarding selfhood in metaphysics are various and concern issues such as the problem of individuation, self-consciousness, and subjectivity. Thiel (2011) offers an overview of the early modern theories of the self showing their wide range and complexity.
- 2.
I use the term “feminist critique” and “feminists” very generally. I am aware that there are many differences between feminists and, most importantly, that women do not form a homogeneous group standing for the same causes and debating the same issues. I am not too concerned with these differences here because I am interested in a specific critique of traditional accounts of selfhood and individuality offered by certain feminists historians of philosophy. Recently there are moral feminists that question the very need for a relational account of individuality such as the one offered by Khader (2020). I am not going to engage with this criticism here because I am interested in locating Conway on a specific debate where relational individuality is key.
- 3.
This way of reading a text takes into consideration that context and first person idiosyncrasies may have an active influence on the results of a philosophical investigation. Contingencies can influence investigations even if those results—in the end—have a universal character and a genuine ontological or metaphysical thesis that is supposed to describe everything that there is. In this sense, the gender, race, geopolitical location, and social status of the person who is writing somehow appear in their work no matter how far the argument in the text is from the contingent and particular characteristics of the one who is offering the argument.
- 4.
- 5.
As Mackenzie (2019) characterized “the notion of intersectional identity is a metaphor used by feminists and critical race theorists to characterize the way experiences of social subordination across multiple identity categories, such as gender, race, class or sexual orientation, constitute identities as complex and often internally conflicted.” (Mackenzie, 2019, 16).
- 6.
de Vega claims that this is the case because Spinoza argues that “the more complex the mechanisms of the body, the more complex the mechanisms of thought in the mind. From this is would follow that a more complex body is a more complex mind. In other words, the more the body is capable of, the more the mind is also capable of. Without aiming to claim superiority of one over the other, I am tempted to say that female bodies are more complex, and capable of more complex functions than are male bodies. Granted they are both complex organisms, even without any medical knowledge of human bodies one could certainly say that due to female reproductive organs, the female body is inherently more complex and capable of doing much more. It has the capacity for more complexity, even if this capacity (say, reproduction) is not instantiated.” (de Vaga, 2019, 3).
- 7.
“But perhaps someone will ask whether women are under the power of their husbands by nature or by custom. If this has happened only by custom, then no reason compels us to exclude women from rule. But if we consult experience, we’ll see that this occurs only because of their weakness.” Spinoza, Political Treatise, Chap. XI (Curley, 2016, 603).
- 8.
During the Q&A, Sabrina Ebbersmeyer suggested that during the Seventeenth Century the work of the Renaissance philosopher Marcilio Ficino was more spread and better known than Proclus’. She suggested that Ficino might be Conway’s reference for neoplatonism. It is important to note that because the relationship between Conway and neoplatonic reception in the Renaissance should be further investigated.
- 9.
It is interesting to note here that Conway brings classical Ovidian themes to her metaphysics, just like Spinoza (Pugliese, 2019).
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Pugliese, N. (2022). Conway and Spinoza on Individuals: Frameworks for a Feminist Metaphysics. In: Lopes, C., Ribeiro Peixoto, K., Pricladnitzky, P. (eds) Latin American Perspectives on Women Philosophers in Modern History. Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences, vol 13. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00288-5_11
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