Jennifer Hudgens - Academia.edu (original) (raw)
Papers by Jennifer Hudgens
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at Scholar... more This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please
The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist accordi... more The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist according to many feminists. In parallel, Nietzsche's theory of value, perspectivism, is relativist according to many philosophers. However, I propose a counter-reading of both Nietzsche's comments regarding women and his comments regarding perspective in which I interpret Nietzsche as neither misogynistic nor relativistic. I adopt a stance which is non-apologist, in that I do not merely wash my hands of Nietzsche's apparently sexist remarks about women as Walter Kaufmann does, for example. Rather I demonstrate that Nietzsche is performing a polemical attack on a particular kind of naïve feminism which only seeks certain privileges for women in principle without determining whether those privileges are valuable for the empowerment of any actual women. I argue that Nietzsche's perspectivism and his remarks about women are explicitly and inextricably intertwined because of his repeated and explicit connections between ideas of women and ideas of truth. Thus any reading of Nietzsche's remarks about women must be tied to a reading of Nietzsche's remarks about truth and other axiological judgments made from necessarily human perspectives. Judgments made from the inhuman perspective of 'objectivity' fail to obtain regarding truth or women. Because Nietzsche's perspectivism advocates a non-relativist plurality of interpretations about truth and hence also truths about women, I argue that Nietzsche's perspectivism actually provides a feminist argument.
The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist accordi... more The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist according to many feminists. In parallel, Nietzsche’s theory of value, perspectivism, is relativist according to many philosophers. However, I propose a counter-reading of both Nietzsche’s comments regarding women and his comments regarding perspective in which I interpret Nietzsche as neither misogynistic nor relativistic. I adopt a stance which is non-apologist, in that I do not merely wash my hands of Nietzsche’s apparently sexist remarks about women as Walter Kaufmann does, for example. Rather I demonstrate that Nietzsche is performing a polemical attack on a particular kind of naïve feminism which only seeks certain privileges for women in principle without determining whether those privileges are valuable for the empowerment of any actual women. I argue that Nietzsche’s perspectivism and his remarks about women are explicitly and inextricably intertwined because of his repeated and explic...
There is little consensus among scholars as to what Nietzsche's "perspectivism" is ... more There is little consensus among scholars as to what Nietzsche's "perspectivism" is or what it entails. I will focus on a limited number of Nietzsche's commentators, describing and commenting upon the writings of Brian Leiter, R. Lanier Anderson, Maudemarie Clark, Christoph Cox, and John Wilcox. Each commentator provides insight into the problems generated by the interpretations previous commentators have given,
This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at Scholar... more This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Department of Philosophy at ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Philosophy Theses by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks @ Georgia State University. For more information, please
The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist accordi... more The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist according to many feminists. In parallel, Nietzsche's theory of value, perspectivism, is relativist according to many philosophers. However, I propose a counter-reading of both Nietzsche's comments regarding women and his comments regarding perspective in which I interpret Nietzsche as neither misogynistic nor relativistic. I adopt a stance which is non-apologist, in that I do not merely wash my hands of Nietzsche's apparently sexist remarks about women as Walter Kaufmann does, for example. Rather I demonstrate that Nietzsche is performing a polemical attack on a particular kind of naïve feminism which only seeks certain privileges for women in principle without determining whether those privileges are valuable for the empowerment of any actual women. I argue that Nietzsche's perspectivism and his remarks about women are explicitly and inextricably intertwined because of his repeated and explicit connections between ideas of women and ideas of truth. Thus any reading of Nietzsche's remarks about women must be tied to a reading of Nietzsche's remarks about truth and other axiological judgments made from necessarily human perspectives. Judgments made from the inhuman perspective of 'objectivity' fail to obtain regarding truth or women. Because Nietzsche's perspectivism advocates a non-relativist plurality of interpretations about truth and hence also truths about women, I argue that Nietzsche's perspectivism actually provides a feminist argument.
The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist accordi... more The nineteenth-century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche is notoriously a misogynist according to many feminists. In parallel, Nietzsche’s theory of value, perspectivism, is relativist according to many philosophers. However, I propose a counter-reading of both Nietzsche’s comments regarding women and his comments regarding perspective in which I interpret Nietzsche as neither misogynistic nor relativistic. I adopt a stance which is non-apologist, in that I do not merely wash my hands of Nietzsche’s apparently sexist remarks about women as Walter Kaufmann does, for example. Rather I demonstrate that Nietzsche is performing a polemical attack on a particular kind of naïve feminism which only seeks certain privileges for women in principle without determining whether those privileges are valuable for the empowerment of any actual women. I argue that Nietzsche’s perspectivism and his remarks about women are explicitly and inextricably intertwined because of his repeated and explic...
There is little consensus among scholars as to what Nietzsche's "perspectivism" is ... more There is little consensus among scholars as to what Nietzsche's "perspectivism" is or what it entails. I will focus on a limited number of Nietzsche's commentators, describing and commenting upon the writings of Brian Leiter, R. Lanier Anderson, Maudemarie Clark, Christoph Cox, and John Wilcox. Each commentator provides insight into the problems generated by the interpretations previous commentators have given,