Is logic masculine? Is women's lack of interest in the "hard core" philosophical disciplines of formal logic and semantics symptomatic of an inadequacy linked to sex? Is the failure of women to excel in pure mathematics and mathematical science a function of their inability to think rationally? Andrea Nye undermines the assumptions that inform these questions, assumptions such as: logic is unitary, logic is independenet of concrete human relations, and logic transcends historical circumstances as well as gender. In a series of studies of the logics of historical figures—Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Abelard, Ockham, and Frege—she traces the changing interrelationships between logical innovation and oppressive speech strategies, showing that logic is not transcendent truth but abstract forms of language spoken by men, whether Greek ruling citizens, or scientists.
Author
Andrea Nye (born 1939) is a feminist philosopher and writer. Nye is a Professor Emerita at the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater for the Philosophy and Religious Studies Department and an active member of the Women's Studies Department. In 1992, Nye received the University of Wisconsin–Whitewater Award for Outstanding Research. Andrea Nye was born on October 22, 1939, in Philadelphia to attorney Hamilton Connor and home-maker Florence Deans. Nye received a B. A. in philosophy from Radcliffe College (Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study) in 1961 and a Ph. D in Philosophy from the University of Oregon in 1977. Nye has been affiliated with the University of Wisconsin—Whitewater for decades; first as an assistant professor from 1978 to 1985, then as an associate professor from 1985–1990, followed by a position as a professor of philosophy from 1990–2002. Nye has been a professor emeritus for the philosophy and religious studies department since 2002. Andrea Nye is also a member of the Liberal Studies Division at the Boston Conservatory teaching interdisciplinary courses in the Humanities. Nye's early work in philosophy of language included a thesis on private language and a monograph on the history of logic from a feminist perspective. In subsequent work, Nye turned more specifically to issues related to gender in language, the place of women in the history of philosophy, and feminist theory. Reviving the work of neglected or misinterpreted women thinkers was of special interest in later work, including translations and commentary on the letters of Elisabeth of the Palatinate to René Descartes (The Princess and the Philosopher), the political thought of Rosa Luxemburg, Hannah Arendt, and Simone Weil (Philosophia) and most recently, Diotima’s teaching on erotic desire in Plato’s Symposium (hl)(Socrates and Diotima). (from Wikipedia)
