Kobieca podmiotowość w ujęciu postkartezjańskim. O strukturalnych korzeniach przemocy wobec kobiet w kulturze europejskiej
Feminine subjectivity in post-Cartesian terms. On structural roots of violence against woman in European culture

Author(s): Kamila Żukowska
Subject(s): Gender Studies, Sociology of Culture
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego
Keywords: woman; Descartes; philosophy; res extensa; res cogitans
Summary/Abstract: The problem addressed in the article concerns the Cartesian division between res cogitans and res extensa, which in feminist philosophy is considered to be the one of the most important causes of the cultural oppression against women. By referring to the ancient philosophy and medieval aesthetics, the article reconstructs the medieval world of meaning, which is the key issue to understand the ideas underlying the essentially binary way of thinking, as seen in the Cartesian system. First, the article describes the theory by Pierre Chaunu, for whom it is a demographic situation in which anti-feminine philosophical system arises, that is responsible for gynophobic and anti-corporeal thought (so-called a feeling of full world). Next, the philosophy of Descartes is analysed in psychological terms – in accordance with the method suggested by Susan Bordo, who tried to interpret his idea to separate the mind from the world as resulting from his attempt to deal with a cultural separation anxiety. At the same time, this anxiety as such is shown to be an effect of an ideological watershed for which scientific revolution and collapse of past social and religious order is responsible. Thus, finally, the philosophical reasons for the modern objectification of women, considered to be a procreation machine and not a donor of life, are provided and analysed.

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