Louise Antony
Biographic Data
| ID | 1034433 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Louise Antony |
| GIVEN NAMES | Louise |
| FAMILY NAME | Antony |
| SIGNATURE | ANTONY L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3116-4895 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 17 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1982 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 3 |
Politics, Words, and Concepts: On the Impossibility and Undesirability of ‘Amelioration’
Recently, several philosophers have argued that there is a political necessity to alter certain important concepts, such as WOMAN, in order to give us better tools to understand and change oppressive conditions. I argue that conceptual change of this sort is impossible. But I also argue that it is politically unnecessary – we can effect progressive change using the same old concepts we've always had
Ethical Naturalism: Problems and Prospects
This chapter discusses fundamental problems and prospects for ethical naturalism. Section 1 explains what is meant by “ethical naturalism” and surveys different versions of the view. Section 2 discusses the central philosophical challenge to ethical naturalism, viz., the “Normativity Objection.” Section 3 offers a battery of responses to it on behalf of the ethical naturalist. Section4 explores a promising and novel approach to ethical naturalism…
The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
Over the last few decades, interest has grown among academic philosophers in what’s come to be called “public philosophy”: talks and writings aimed at a nonacademic audience. This is a salutary development. Not only do philosophers have much of substance to say about matters of general concern, they have approaches to the considering of difficult questions that can illuminate unfamiliar (and sometimes, unpopular) points of view, sort out alternat…
Only Natural: Gender, Knowledge, and Humankind
This volume brings together sixteen essays by Louise Antony that reflect her distinctive approach to issues at the intersections of feminist theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Antony proceeds from the Quinean precept that we treat knowledge as a natural phenomenon. This approach offers feminists and other progressive theorists vital tools with which to expose and dismantle ideological conceptions of knowledge, h…
Bias
This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist philosophical reflections on bias and objectivity. Some feminists have argued that objectivity is an unachievable and thus inappropriate epistemic norm for human beings. But at the same time, these feminists have criticized philosophy for displaying masculinist bias. This complex critique faces a problem I’ve called the “Bias Paradox” and that Helen Longino calls an “Essentia…
Not rational, but not brutely causal either: A reply to Fodor on concept acquisition
Jerry Fodor has argued that concept acquisition cannot be a psychological or “rational-causal” process, but can only be a “brute-causal” process of acquisition. This position generates the “doorknob --> DOORKNOB” problem: why are concepts typically acquired on the basis of experience with items in their extensions? I argue that Fodor’s taxonomy of causal processes needs supplementation, and characterize a third type: what I call “intelligible-cau…
Feminism Without Metaphysics or a Deflationary Account of Gender
A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity
Reality and reduction: What's really at stake in the causal exclusion debate
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
The Mentoring Project
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Subordination, Silencing, and Two Ideas of Illocution
Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of Authority
Feminism is an antiauthoritarian movement that has sought to unmask many traditional “authorities” as ungrounded. Given this, it might seem as if feminists are required to abandon the concept of authority altogether. But, we argue, the exercise of authority enables us to coordinate our efforts to achieve larger social goods and, hence, should be preserved. Instead, what is needed and what we provide for here is a way to distinguish legitimate aut…
Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of Authority
Feminism is an antiauthoritarian movement that has sought to unmask many traditional “authorities” as ungrounded. Given this, it might seem as if feminists are required to abandon the concept of authority altogether. But, we argue, the exercise of authority enables us to coordinate our efforts to achieve larger social goods and, hence, should be preserved. Instead, what is needed and what we provide for here is a way to distinguish legitimate aut…
The Puzzle of Patriotism
Is patriotism a virtue? Popular U.S. opinion would seem to say "yes." Indeed, the answer would be so obviously "yes" that popular opinion would be perplexed by even asking the question. Loving one's country, it would seem, is as natural a duty as loving one's children. The unpatriotic person is as vile and malformed as Medea. But if patriotism is a virtue, then everyone ought to be patriotic, not just Americans. The French should be patriotic, th…
Natures and Norms
Feeling Fine About the Mind
According to a recently developing line in postmodernist feminist theory, contemporary analytic epistemology is fundamentally and irremediably flawed in its failure to take account of' gender.' A strikingly similar attack on contemporary analytic philosophy of mind is mounted by John Searle in The Rediscovery of the Mind. Currently available approaches to the understanding of mental phenomena, Searle charges, are also fundamentally and irremediab…
Mental Causation
Law and Order in Psychology
Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology
I analyze and criticize Naomi Scheman's argument for the claim that psychological individualism—the thesis that psychological states are entities or particulars over which psychological theories may quantify—has no legitimate philosophical backing and is instead an element of patriarchal ideology. I conclude that Scheman's argument is flawed and that her thesis is false. Psychological individualism is perfectly compatible with and may even be req…
The Metaphysics of Mind
Anomalous Monism and the Problem of Explanatory Force
La metaphysique quinienne de Davidson, si elle rationalise la doctrine du monisme anormal, rend impossible une reponse satisfaisante au probleme de la force explicative dans les termes d'une theorie causale de l'action
The Varieties of Reference
The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher: Discussions and Replies
The Method of Applied Logic: Some Philosophical Considerations.- Reply.- Rescher's Hypothetical Reasoning: An Amendment.- Reply.- Hypothetical Reasoning and Conditionals.- Reply.- Rescher's Theory of Plausible Reasoning.- Reply.- A Modal Logic of Place.- Reply.- Familiar Mental Phenomena.- Reply.- Toward a Theory of Attributes.- Reply.- Potentiality from Aristotle to Rescher and Back.- Reply.- Substances and Individual Notions.- Reply.- Utilitari…
Anomalous Monism and the Problem of Explanatory Force
La metaphysique quinienne de Davidson, si elle rationalise la doctrine du monisme anormal, rend impossible une reponse satisfaisante au probleme de la force explicative dans les termes d'une theorie causale de l'action
Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of Authority
Feminism is an antiauthoritarian movement that has sought to unmask many traditional “authorities” as ungrounded. Given this, it might seem as if feminists are required to abandon the concept of authority altogether. But, we argue, the exercise of authority enables us to coordinate our efforts to achieve larger social goods and, hence, should be preserved. Instead, what is needed and what we provide for here is a way to distinguish legitimate aut…
Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology
I analyze and criticize Naomi Scheman's argument for the claim that psychological individualism—the thesis that psychological states are entities or particulars over which psychological theories may quantify—has no legitimate philosophical backing and is instead an element of patriarchal ideology. I conclude that Scheman's argument is flawed and that her thesis is false. Psychological individualism is perfectly compatible with and may even be req…
The Mentoring Project
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Law and Order in Psychology
The Philosophy of Nicholas Rescher: Discussions and Replies
The Method of Applied Logic: Some Philosophical Considerations.- Reply.- Rescher's Hypothetical Reasoning: An Amendment.- Reply.- Hypothetical Reasoning and Conditionals.- Reply.- Rescher's Theory of Plausible Reasoning.- Reply.- A Modal Logic of Place.- Reply.- Familiar Mental Phenomena.- Reply.- Toward a Theory of Attributes.- Reply.- Potentiality from Aristotle to Rescher and Back.- Reply.- Substances and Individual Notions.- Reply.- Utilitari…
The Varieties of Reference
Anomalous Monism and the Problem of Explanatory Force
La metaphysique quinienne de Davidson, si elle rationalise la doctrine du monisme anormal, rend impossible une reponse satisfaisante au probleme de la force explicative dans les termes d'une theorie causale de l'action
The Metaphysics of Mind
Law and Order in Psychology
Is Psychological Individualism a Piece of Ideology
I analyze and criticize Naomi Scheman's argument for the claim that psychological individualism—the thesis that psychological states are entities or particulars over which psychological theories may quantify—has no legitimate philosophical backing and is instead an element of patriarchal ideology. I conclude that Scheman's argument is flawed and that her thesis is false. Psychological individualism is perfectly compatible with and may even be req…
Mental Causation
Feeling Fine About the Mind
According to a recently developing line in postmodernist feminist theory, contemporary analytic epistemology is fundamentally and irremediably flawed in its failure to take account of' gender.' A strikingly similar attack on contemporary analytic philosophy of mind is mounted by John Searle in The Rediscovery of the Mind. Currently available approaches to the understanding of mental phenomena, Searle charges, are also fundamentally and irremediab…
Natures and Norms
The Puzzle of Patriotism
Is patriotism a virtue? Popular U.S. opinion would seem to say "yes." Indeed, the answer would be so obviously "yes" that popular opinion would be perplexed by even asking the question. Loving one's country, it would seem, is as natural a duty as loving one's children. The unpatriotic person is as vile and malformed as Medea. But if patriotism is a virtue, then everyone ought to be patriotic, not just Americans. The French should be patriotic, th…
Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of Authority
Feminism is an antiauthoritarian movement that has sought to unmask many traditional “authorities” as ungrounded. Given this, it might seem as if feminists are required to abandon the concept of authority altogether. But, we argue, the exercise of authority enables us to coordinate our efforts to achieve larger social goods and, hence, should be preserved. Instead, what is needed and what we provide for here is a way to distinguish legitimate aut…
Because I Said So: Toward a Feminist Theory of Authority
Feminism is an antiauthoritarian movement that has sought to unmask many traditional “authorities” as ungrounded. Given this, it might seem as if feminists are required to abandon the concept of authority altogether. But, we argue, the exercise of authority enables us to coordinate our efforts to achieve larger social goods and, hence, should be preserved. Instead, what is needed and what we provide for here is a way to distinguish legitimate aut…
Subordination, Silencing, and Two Ideas of Illocution
The Mentoring Project
An abstract is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content
Reality and reduction: What's really at stake in the causal exclusion debate
A summary is not available for this content so a preview has been provided. Please use the Get access link above for information on how to access this content.
A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity
Not rational, but not brutely causal either: A reply to Fodor on concept acquisition
Jerry Fodor has argued that concept acquisition cannot be a psychological or “rational-causal” process, but can only be a “brute-causal” process of acquisition. This position generates the “doorknob --> DOORKNOB” problem: why are concepts typically acquired on the basis of experience with items in their extensions? I argue that Fodor’s taxonomy of causal processes needs supplementation, and characterize a third type: what I call “intelligible-cau…
Feminism Without Metaphysics or a Deflationary Account of Gender
Bias
This chapter offers an account of central issues and themes in feminist philosophical reflections on bias and objectivity. Some feminists have argued that objectivity is an unachievable and thus inappropriate epistemic norm for human beings. But at the same time, these feminists have criticized philosophy for displaying masculinist bias. This complex critique faces a problem I’ve called the “Bias Paradox” and that Helen Longino calls an “Essentia…
Only Natural: Gender, Knowledge, and Humankind
This volume brings together sixteen essays by Louise Antony that reflect her distinctive approach to issues at the intersections of feminist theory, epistemology, philosophy of mind, and philosophy of language. Antony proceeds from the Quinean precept that we treat knowledge as a natural phenomenon. This approach offers feminists and other progressive theorists vital tools with which to expose and dismantle ideological conceptions of knowledge, h…
Ethical Naturalism: Problems and Prospects
This chapter discusses fundamental problems and prospects for ethical naturalism. Section 1 explains what is meant by “ethical naturalism” and surveys different versions of the view. Section 2 discusses the central philosophical challenge to ethical naturalism, viz., the “Normativity Objection.” Section 3 offers a battery of responses to it on behalf of the ethical naturalist. Section4 explores a promising and novel approach to ethical naturalism…
The Right to Sex: Feminism in the Twenty-First Century
Over the last few decades, interest has grown among academic philosophers in what’s come to be called “public philosophy”: talks and writings aimed at a nonacademic audience. This is a salutary development. Not only do philosophers have much of substance to say about matters of general concern, they have approaches to the considering of difficult questions that can illuminate unfamiliar (and sometimes, unpopular) points of view, sort out alternat…
Politics, Words, and Concepts: On the Impossibility and Undesirability of ‘Amelioration’
Recently, several philosophers have argued that there is a political necessity to alter certain important concepts, such as WOMAN, in order to give us better tools to understand and change oppressive conditions. I argue that conceptual change of this sort is impossible. But I also argue that it is politically unnecessary – we can effect progressive change using the same old concepts we've always had
Philosophy (16 works) · Epistemology (15 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Psychology (9 works) · Political science (8 works) · Law (7 works) · Political Philosophy and Ethics (7 works) · Politics (6 works) · Analytic philosophy (5 works) · Computer Science (5 works)