Old Dead White Men's Philosophy - Tapa dura

Until very recently the practice of philosophy was dominated by white, European men who are now (mostly) dead. Perhaps with the increasing participation of women in academia, and in society as a whole, philosophy is changing. Perhaps the way is now open for new interpretations, meanings, and dialogues in which women also speak. Where will such a speaking begin? Out of what tradition will they be able to speak?

In this insightful and challenging approach to some of the great classics of Western philosophy, Inglis and Steinfeld play with a past that never occurred, a past that would have supported women in their search for meaning. Inglis and Steinfeld are after a different kind of hermeneutics, one that reads between the lines, a hermeneutics of subversion. This feminist hermeneutics begins with the recognition of sexism in the traditional canon and stresses the relevance of focusing on the glaring absence of women's perspectives from the long history of that canon. It locates the impact of women's missing voices in the most central metaphors that inform Western thought. And then it rethinks the canon around the thought that is absent.

Here one may read about Plato's cave and the Eleusinian mysteries; what might happen if Anselm's proof for God encountered an argument for Goddess; a version of Kierkegaard's myth of Abraham in which he must respond to Sarah; a curious conversation between Nietzsche's Ubermensch and an old woman in a nursery rhyme; and a Heidegger who must confront the matricidal nature of his abyss.
Inglis and Steinfeld's distorted readings create texts that did not occur, could not occur. At best this is a future located behind our past. At least, it should provide an interesting exploration of the limits of interpretation.

Laura Lyn Inglis and Peter K. Steinfeld are professors of philosophy and religion at the School of Social Science, Philosophy and Religion of Buena Vista University in Storm Lake, Iowa.