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Ontology of Sex
In her revealing new book, Carrie Hull employs examples from biology, anthropology and psychology to illustrate and endorse the progressive ideals of poststructuralism while demonstrating the superiority of a realist account of sex and sexuality.
- GenresPhilosophy
200 pages, Paperback
First published November 10, 2005
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September 12, 2021
“Thus, when they aren’t dabbling in science, poststructuralists and constructivists assert the bankruptcy of the realist notion that similarity, … , can be used to ground any natural kinds or categories. Instead, things are arbitrarily linked in a process called “entrenchment” by Goodman, and “construction” or “constitution” by Foucault and Butler. There are no good abstractions from this perspective, regardless of the empirical data.” [p97]
While cultural studies has generated countless volumes about sex and gender in recent decades, biologists have continued to learn a huge amount that is new about the nature and development of sex. Butler is a dilettante who has dipped into this science to pull out some congenial material, while airily dismissing biology as useless, ignoring the way science has continued to question and improve upon earlier findings and theories, rendering her already selective (cherry picked) sources out of date and invalid. Yet while she claims that biology is incapable of explaining anything useful about sex and gender, she attributes extraordinary capabilities and causative powers to language and culture without ever attempting to explain how on earth that works.
Carrie Hull writes: “I was initially drawn to both biology and philosophy of science because it struck me as odd that sweeping statements about sex were being formulated without the benefit of either. … Constructivists and poststructuralists have offered no explanation for how we can come to identify a kind, even a culturally constructed one.” [p139]
As the notion has taken such an incredible hold, that biology must defer to culture studies when dealing with questions of sex and gender, it seems more than reasonable to ask a leading “authority” such as Butler to explain and justify the grounds for their beliefs and theories. This is not easily achieved because Butler is evasive and refuses to pin her flag to any definitive philosophical position.
“"Martha Nussbaum... has levelled a scathing criticism of scholars who create an "aura of importance" by refusing to state their own beliefs, thereby assuming the status of an intellectual star rather than an "arguer among equals."" [p39]
However, as Iris Murdoch once enjoyed reminding us, people pronouncing the death of metaphysics either make a string of unexamined metaphysical claims which they are unable to justify when challenged, or at least require metaphysical foundations in order to stand on their chosen ground. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... In the same spirit, Carrie Hull has set aside Butler’s protestations and established the philosophical ground on which Butler stands.
The tradition in which she locates Butler’s writing can be tracked from Hume’s assertion that we cannot be certain the sun will rise tomorrow, through the philosophers Nelson Goodman and W.V.O. Quine, to the behaviourist B.F. Skinner and the postmodernist Michel Foucault. Emerging from this is the claim that what we know of the world is nothing more than language, words connected with other words. We never directly perceive the material world as it is, in itself, but only construct a version of the world that meets the needs of our culture and time, which is likely to include support for dominant power structures.
While carefully unpicking major flaws and limitations in this way of thinking and arguing, Carrie Hull recognises the need to refute the claim that what we know of the world is not better than a “social construct” or a cultural artefact. She does a really excellent job in setting out a position in favour of reality – the assurance that there is a material reality independent of social conventions and that we can both perceive reality and describe it. Science indeed can select rationally between alternative beliefs about the world both by demonstrating that some are false and also by providing useful explanations as to why things are as we find them.
I was interested to see how much she was taking from Roy Bhaskar, a philosopher I have read in the past and need to go back to. Checking my reviews, I am a bit put out at how long it is since I promised myself to do this. On the other hand, he has stayed in my memory and influenced my reaction to the postmodern twaddle which I have since been exposed to.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Carrie Hall has exposed with great clarity the feet of clay on which Butler’s specious writings have been standing unchallenged for too long. It is quite astonishing how easily our society has succumbed to a belief that we can learn more about sex from an incoherent and almost unreadable cultural studies lecturer than from a whole tradition of biological science.
While cultural studies has generated countless volumes about sex and gender in recent decades, biologists have continued to learn a huge amount that is new about the nature and development of sex. Butler is a dilettante who has dipped into this science to pull out some congenial material, while airily dismissing biology as useless, ignoring the way science has continued to question and improve upon earlier findings and theories, rendering her already selective (cherry picked) sources out of date and invalid. Yet while she claims that biology is incapable of explaining anything useful about sex and gender, she attributes extraordinary capabilities and causative powers to language and culture without ever attempting to explain how on earth that works.
Carrie Hull writes: “I was initially drawn to both biology and philosophy of science because it struck me as odd that sweeping statements about sex were being formulated without the benefit of either. … Constructivists and poststructuralists have offered no explanation for how we can come to identify a kind, even a culturally constructed one.” [p139]
As the notion has taken such an incredible hold, that biology must defer to culture studies when dealing with questions of sex and gender, it seems more than reasonable to ask a leading “authority” such as Butler to explain and justify the grounds for their beliefs and theories. This is not easily achieved because Butler is evasive and refuses to pin her flag to any definitive philosophical position.
“"Martha Nussbaum... has levelled a scathing criticism of scholars who create an "aura of importance" by refusing to state their own beliefs, thereby assuming the status of an intellectual star rather than an "arguer among equals."" [p39]
However, as Iris Murdoch once enjoyed reminding us, people pronouncing the death of metaphysics either make a string of unexamined metaphysical claims which they are unable to justify when challenged, or at least require metaphysical foundations in order to stand on their chosen ground. https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... In the same spirit, Carrie Hull has set aside Butler’s protestations and established the philosophical ground on which Butler stands.
The tradition in which she locates Butler’s writing can be tracked from Hume’s assertion that we cannot be certain the sun will rise tomorrow, through the philosophers Nelson Goodman and W.V.O. Quine, to the behaviourist B.F. Skinner and the postmodernist Michel Foucault. Emerging from this is the claim that what we know of the world is nothing more than language, words connected with other words. We never directly perceive the material world as it is, in itself, but only construct a version of the world that meets the needs of our culture and time, which is likely to include support for dominant power structures.
While carefully unpicking major flaws and limitations in this way of thinking and arguing, Carrie Hull recognises the need to refute the claim that what we know of the world is not better than a “social construct” or a cultural artefact. She does a really excellent job in setting out a position in favour of reality – the assurance that there is a material reality independent of social conventions and that we can both perceive reality and describe it. Science indeed can select rationally between alternative beliefs about the world both by demonstrating that some are false and also by providing useful explanations as to why things are as we find them.
I was interested to see how much she was taking from Roy Bhaskar, a philosopher I have read in the past and need to go back to. Checking my reviews, I am a bit put out at how long it is since I promised myself to do this. On the other hand, he has stayed in my memory and influenced my reaction to the postmodern twaddle which I have since been exposed to.
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Carrie Hall has exposed with great clarity the feet of clay on which Butler’s specious writings have been standing unchallenged for too long. It is quite astonishing how easily our society has succumbed to a belief that we can learn more about sex from an incoherent and almost unreadable cultural studies lecturer than from a whole tradition of biological science.
Displaying 1 of 1 review