Wonderful stuff... and you triggered a consciousness-raising trauma I experienced during my first year in grad school. :^)
Nearly 45 years ago now (!) Anne Conway anchored my first exposure to the seemingly built in misogyny in the discipline. It was in a course on Descartes' Meditations and there, at the back of the text, was his correspondence with an astonishing number of the most brilliant women in Europe at the time. The correspondence was, not surprisingly, infinitely more interesting than the Meditations. I remember reading Anne Conway's critique of his work with something like awe at the clarity of her insight -- nodding my head almost off my shoulders in agreement with pretty much every word. (I still feel like this.) She pretty much cut him to pieces... very satisfying, btw. :^)
During our next class I asked what I thought would be an obvious question: "Why in the hell would Descartes persist in publishing what he did, fully aware of the flaws in his argument that Anne Conway had so easily brought to light?"
One of the worst professors I ever had looked up and said, with a slight hint of condescension, "Well, Descartes had bigger fish to fry."
I was floored. "Like what??" I asked.
The Professor turned and said, "let's just get back to the text."
And suddenly, so much became perfectly clear.... plus I learned how no professor should ever answer a student.
Wonderful stuff... and you triggered a consciousness-raising trauma I experienced during my first year in grad school. :^)
Nearly 45 years ago now (!) Anne Conway anchored my first exposure to the seemingly built in misogyny in the discipline. It was in a course on Descartes' Meditations and there, at the back of the text, was his correspondence with an astonishing number of the most brilliant women in Europe at the time. The correspondence was, not surprisingly, infinitely more interesting than the Meditations. I remember reading Anne Conway's critique of his work with something like awe at the clarity of her insight -- nodding my head almost off my shoulders in agreement with pretty much every word. (I still feel like this.) She pretty much cut him to pieces... very satisfying, btw. :^)
During our next class I asked what I thought would be an obvious question: "Why in the hell would Descartes persist in publishing what he did, fully aware of the flaws in his argument that Anne Conway had so easily brought to light?"
One of the worst professors I ever had looked up and said, with a slight hint of condescension, "Well, Descartes had bigger fish to fry."
I was floored. "Like what??" I asked.
The Professor turned and said, "let's just get back to the text."
And suddenly, so much became perfectly clear.... plus I learned how no professor should ever answer a student.
Thanks for this.