While Mary is listening to Jesus talking about the Big Issues, Martha is banging around in the kitchen. But does philosophy have to be about neuronal leisure time? (And I love your expression!). Does philosophy have to be expressed in a discourse during which we suspend the actual business of being alive, cooking and eating, bringing up children? Does it have to be codified in words, or can it be shown forth in our lives?

In Buddhism we are careful to remember that it's not a philosophy: compassion, equanimity, non-discrimination – these are not ideas or concepts, they are practices.

Maybe Martha's philosophy is a philosophy that is expressed in action, leaving words for the leisured (and the leisured are generally those who have got someone else to do make their meals for them). 

Thank you for your comment, dear Ronán, but I meant "philosophy" in the sense of systematic thought, not religion or spiritualism. I respect your point of view, but I am in total disagreement with you. Religion and Buddhism divest women of the space and time to think, and usually de-authorize women when we express ourselves outside what is ordered to us. In fact, in religion women must act prompted by obedience. Contrariwise, philosophy is theory, and implies freedom to think, because without this freedom action has no value. People must have the choice and the duty to think before they decide why and when and how to act. I want to get the exact opposite of your proposal: I want us women to theorize on our own chores, I want us to think, to philosophize on the tasks that have traditionally been given to us, so that we can really be useful for humanity, and especially to other women who are still the slaves of oppressive traditions.

Warm regards, Lilliana

Being a woman and being a philosopher print a particular stamp professional do. As a person, the philosopher woman can reflect and contribute in the field like the man, although he is free to be able to capture what is specific product of experience as a human male, but the human male is in turn exempt from the rich unique experience of women Wuer the can feed at the time of making philosophical. Then, gender may be a differentiator vector of experience baggage from which to philosophical operation, but will not give more or less, but something different to everyone, like many other elements of experience that will nourish your product. female unique experiences: to be or to become a mother, a differentiated body experience, the perception of a potential prospect different discriminatory in different cultures, perceptions of bodily pleasure own gender, view each other as similar but different and even potential competitor, differential brain recording space and time, feelings; Finally, it is difficult to think that aspect is different and can not be addressed or not from a gender perspective and when it is the vision of a genre potentially feed the vision of another kind, enriching the understanding of the human.

Lilliana,

I love your "willful banality of philosophy"! Philosophy is often regarded as the science of dreamers and thinkers. In the U.S. many people who cannot decide what they want to be when they grow up get their Degree of Philosophy :~)  The best man at my wedding and former company CFO had a MA in philosophy and was immensely proud of it. However, I do believe that philosophy has a place in the world. We need thinkers who can ponder life so that the rest of us can go about our daily lives.

That said, I think that women should philosophize about whatever they think is important or worthwhile, or even trivial. Whether it is concerning the responsibilities of motherhood or the inequity of society, another view would be welcomed. Why should we be restricted to the male viewpoint only?

I have admired 19th century author Kate Chopin for her writings on subjects, some taboo, which were not talked about by women. She wrote about being unfaithful, child rearing, women's mistreatment in society, the unfairness of male-oriented society for women, etc. Her writings enounce these things in a way that makes one consider them philosophically. There are layers of meaning bound up in words. Her most famous book, "The Awakening", is a master at drawing the reader in and making him/her both pity and hate her actions at the same time.

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I am not suggesting that Buddhism is either a religion nor a 'spirituality' – which is just a term for a religion that has been asset-stripped by capitalism. It is a practice.

Systematic thought is a male invention, and like organised religion I think that rather than asking how can women join the club, we have to wonder if the club is not the problem. It is no less alienating than religion, another male invention. I am not persuaded of the value of theorising, which reveals my own biases as a health researcher. We say 'there is nothing as practical as a good theory'. I value ethics, because it is about the actions were most is at stake. Centuries of epistemology have taught us less about knowledge than you can learn in a day browsing the frontiers in neuroscience website, and as for æsthetics…

Let me put it to you that philosophy is not cumulative, in the way in which physics is cumulative, but secular, in the sense that fashion is secular. In any age, philosophy is an exercise in mirror-gazing, Caliban seeking to justify his appearance. Ethical systems, for example, have evolved to justify and systematise social expectations, not to inform them.

I fear that by advocating a women's philosophy, you are proposing doing something better which was better not done at all.

I understand you, dear Ronán, but I do not agree with you. That does not mean you are not welcome in this discussion.

Best regards, Lilliana

Dear James, the fun part of my proposal is to philosophize about those subjects that have been refused by standard philosophy because they are "trivial" or "banal". Those rejected subjects happen to be related to the traditional tasks assigned to women in home and society. I suddenly discovered that these "trivial" or "feminine" subjects have become extremely important: birthing, recycling, nurturing, etc. Feminism sought to "free" us women from those tasks, but I propose to free ourselves into the thinking and theorizing about those subjects: like sitting and the table to greet the refugee as an act of mutual nourishment, a new ethics. I believe in a philosophy of the greeting at the door, at the threshold, at the place where dark becomes bright and viceversa: the ideal place of transformation, of "becoming": the threshold. Maybe I do not have the best words to express this, and that is why I offered a sort of "allegory". Thank you for being here!

Warm regads, Lilliana

Perhaps women can think at many more things at the same time then men having consequences for philosophical expression? Is that the essence of the question? E.g. Gender specific ways of thinking? When gender equality would be imposed in a science Framework, does this imply that the priority in science practice is the social dimension?

Very interesting observations on Hannah Arendt and why totalitarianism is an issue for women philosophers.  I do think however that Arendt's view of the banality of evil was wide of the mark.  The Nazis were far from banal and she had completely misunderstood the personality of Eichmann even though she was present at his trial and heard the evidence of it.  

She may have been too closely involved to make an objective appraisal and that would be understandable.  Eichmann was not banal, neither he nor Himmler were the obsessive bureaucrats or clerks that they are often conveniently portrayed as.

Both men were not simply amoral cogs in an evil machine, they were evil.  Both men knew exactly the consequences of their actions and were proud of them, Eichmann rejoiced at having the deaths of 4 million Jews associated with him personally.  Himmler revelled in the notion of subjugating and exterminating inferior races in his speeches.   

It is doubtful that Hannah Arendt's misreading of the very real evil of Nazism was a product of her being female, plenty of male commentators on Nazism subscribe to the concept of the banality of evil.  It may be a coping strategy, we after all are very afraid of how the Nazis showed us just how evil humanity can be at times.

Dear Marcel, I strongly believe that there is no superiority of one gender over the other. As I said, this a speculative question that has to do with doing philosophy from what you usually do in everyday life. If you wash clothes every day, why not develop a philosophy of hygiene? Such a philosophy would lead us far! This is just an example. You perfectly understood the question. We, as a humanity, have been looking for intelligence and depth in subjects that are so big they do not serve the essence of proximity. I am asking that devote more time to proximity, and it has been the duty of women throughout millennia to devote ourselves to that. While thinking about this, I marveled at the importance of the threshold, the limit, hybridity, doors and windows, precisely in the context of greetings, welcome, the Other, refugees, embrace, etc. Don't you think that we should begin from what is close, with thinking in that that most affect us. Not gravitational waves, but welcoming an Other to come through your door and sit at your table,  a philosophy of solidarity with the pain or the forsakenness of the others... It sounds little, but right now it is quite indispensable. Thank you for being here, Marcel.

Dear Barry, Arendt's phrase had a specific context that was ignored by people who were expecting something else from her when she went to Jerusalem to report for the Times the proceedings against Eichmann, who had alleged through his trial that the crimes against the Jews he was accused of were not his because he was just "doing his job". The issue for Arendt was "human responsibility", which in Eichmann was absent simply because they were not his decisions and he just had a bureaucratic duty devoid of decision-making powers. Arendt's point was that this bureaucracy of terror literally abolished responsibility, forethought, intent, etc. And that, tragically, evildoing could no longer be a allocated on a specific person. Whoever gave the order would have been responsible. That person could no longer be traced back. Arendt was horrified at this evaporation of responsibility for terrible crimes.

Hers was not a simple thing to disentangle. It is known that she could not sleep for years, it took her a lot of time to sit and write about her harrowing finding of "nothing", she was, as a philosopher, caught on a problem impossible to solve. In that context she coined the phrase "banality of evil", because evil could not be done by anyone doing his or her job, without realizing they were the channels of evil. Reading Arendt's book Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil has been one of the most terrible moments in my own life. Jews all over the planet wanted Eichmann hanged for the war crimes ordered by this bosses who were no longer there to wear the rope around their necks. This reminds me of Luciano Canfora's book titled Un mestiere pericoloso. La vita quotidiana dei filosofi greci, where he precisely tells how dangerous life was for philosophers in antiquity. This was Arendt's position, as, before her, Socrates' position. Telling his or her conclusions can cost a philosopher his or her life. Descartes had to flee France because of his views,  Galileo died in house arrest.

Arendt discovered that evil has become banal and told us about it, about law no longer being able to find a person guilty because that veredict needs intent. This is happening right now all over the world. For example, who is the culprit of destroying the Indonesian landscape and leaving millions of native farmers without land or home or food? Translational Corporations or the people all over the world who want to buy coconut oil?

Barry, these are terrible times. Evil is not what it used to be because we are lawless to face evil, which was Arendt's point. Eichmann was a scapegoat, a monstrous scapegoat. In sum, being a philosopher can be dangerous. And if the philosopher would have said "this man was directly responsible", then philosophy would have become banal, which is my point: how banal can philosophy become when humanity needs to think about everyday horrors that are close to us, inside our very homes, or the good things we can do by ourselves to another in need?

I want a philosophy that is not banal, useless.

Warm regards, Lilliana

Dear Ivo, as always, thank you for your insights and your links. I believe in speculation, because it is like a brain gymnasium where we can exercise our ability to think. I also believe in discussion and collective speculation. Transpersonal or collective thinking by way of constant discussion would be a way to finetuning, or honing, thinking skills, bearing in mind that thinking is a talent in itself. There is a philosophical treasure waiting for us in propinquity. I thought that, we women being historically devoted to proximity, those would be our philosophical subjects. But my proposal has the aim to propitiate thought, not only by women, but by everyone who wants to come and philosophize on the consequences of, let's say, opening our door and greeting an other. This is something very basic that would possibly end with us talking about greeting and welcoming a refugee, for example.

Warm regards, Lilliana 

Dear Deborah, thank you for coming close to things that are close to us. You made me think my little allegory over again, and Plato's cave came up, but our cave is that of domesticity, precisely the place I can call now the primal scene of philosophy for "women", and by "women" I mean those who are willing to come to the women philosopher's cave to think about how proximity has become essential as a subject of thought. Your anecdotes are simply splendid, and I have also similar examples: in my architecture history courses I always talk about architecture and humor, architecture and the monstrous, architecture and intimacy (a subject I study based on Mary Douglas's extraordinary Purity ad Danger). My colleagues make fun of me and then I make fun of architecture. Most of my students are women who are to become (I hope) architects and I want them to think about a philosophy of home building, intimacy, the kitchen, and not only waste their time inventing attractive facades. 

Ovid said in his delirious essay on "cosmetics" (literally, "the order of cosmos"), that, in order to come out into the world, a women must make up her best face, this being an expansion on his previous statement on his Art of Love —"Claude forem thalami. Quid rudes opus prodis?" or "Close that door! Why show an imperfect work?", referring to a woman abandoning her bedroom without doing her makeup.

I say to my future women architects (and to all young men who also want to "womanize" their craft): "Stay "home": there are more eventful ways to put order to the cosmos..."

Un gran abrazo, Lilliana

Lilliana,

That was why I mentioned 19th century author Kate Chopin. Many consider her the first feminist of modern times for her unabashed writing about women and womanly subjects that were considered unmentionable during that era. Her writings showed other women that they were not alone nor were they aberrant, but that they shared a struggle with temptation, social injustice, male chauvinism, etc.

Lilliana

The Nuremberg Doctrine ruled out for ever the defence of "I was just obeying orders".  Eichmann of course is notorious not for obeying orders but for disobeying them.  He was not a functionary but a prime mover in the Holocaust from Wannsee to the ignoring of Himmler's orders to halt the transports from Hungary.

When I read the trial transcripts and the record of Captain Avner Less's interrogation of Eichmann I was shocked and numbed by the 'matter of fact' description of his role in the mass deportation and murder of most of Europe's Jewish population.  What is even more shocking is the raw cunning of Eichmann in avoiding culpability in the manner of the textbook psychopath.

Hannah Arendt contributed a great deal to the even now limited understanding of the Holocaust but she missed the point with Eichmann.  He was not banal, he was exceptional, larger than life and truly a monster.  

Dear James, I have read Kate Chopin with a lot of interest. I must say that there are many "first feminists", the most evident of which are the 17th century Venetian "cortigiana onesta" Veronica Franco, and, of course, Mary Wollstonecraft, Franco for her unabashed address at subjects pertaining to women and women's bodies, and Wollstonecraft for her minute "vindication for the rights of women", which is also the title her book which is the first (1792) feminist theoretical treatise ever. Chopin, together with writers like Charlotte Perkins Gillman —author of The Yellow Wallpaper— were certainly careful readers of Wollstonecraft, as many other women in the US who were trying to become a stronger part of society. I should go back and re-read these gems of feminist literature. Thank you for bringing Chopin into the discussion!!!

Warm regards, Lilliana

Dear Barry, I fully respect your point of view, but is so happens that this particular subject led Arendt to surmise elements of law that have not been dealt with up to now,  the fact that vicarious liability or responsibility no longer works as to linking a person to a crime. Reading Arendt's book I do not find it frivolous or blind. On the contrary, hers was a hard decision she knew would cost her dearly. But she made us aware of the fact that evildoers can get away with murder by throwing their responsibility upon the last guy in the chain of command. Nazis were brilliant in this. That is why they erased almost all evidence of their crimes and placed prisoners as guards at the door of gas chambers. This is being exhaustively studied right now. If you want, I can give you a few titles, Gerard Wajcman's being the most enthralling.

Thank you for being here, Barry. I appreciate it very much.

Lilliana

Lilliana

I do not consider Hannah Arendt frivolous or blind and you are quite right, she made us look at the evil that hides in all of us.  Perhaps she was referring to the commonality of evil when she called it banal. 

Lilliana

Disagreement is the very basis of research and scholarly activity and much more progress has been made from disagreement than was ever achieved by consensus.

I enjoy our exchanges of view too.

Barry 

Thank you, Barry, you are always welcome. Thinking together can be tough sometimes but it is a practice that we must hone and polish every day. In these days, it is so important!

In Spanish, un fuerte abrazo para ti!

Lilliana

The subject of philosophical cannot be isolated .It is the part of life for every human being in irrespective of CASTE,CREED & RELIGION.It is the subject which paves the way to our life for our progress from within & outside .

To me i desire to view the subject in above line .Philosophy comes to our mind passing the phase thru conscious & subconscious mind which may help us to tune our mind within inner powerful energy with our divinity within us.

Philosophy come to our rescue  mind when it turn to our religious rhythm ,which transform us the link of meditation & with the passage of time & also with our experience ,philosophy becomes the root of our life.

This philosophical helps us to receive the grace from within & from outside with the help of our religion .This will help us to receive the inspiration of the within & also from the natural traits of intuition .

This is my personal opinion 

How about 'gossip' vs. broadcasting who is in the right or wrong ?  

" what is subjective/truth: it is our perception of objects/events to emerge from their difference and diversity, not the objects/falsehood themselves . "