Renowned philosopher gives lecture at Tufts

Women. Womyn. Lend me your ears. Andrea Nye, a published feminist philosopher gave a lecture earlier this month on the nature of feminism and modern philosophy. Speaking to a crowd of mostly women, she argued that feminism is for everyone.

"I think feminism and modern philosophy are really the same thing," Nye said. "Looking at the roots of modern thought, one can see that the goals of the feminists are really the same of all modern thinkers."

Speaking of the noted philosopher Emanuel Kant, she said that although Kant thought negatively of women, he was in fact the father of modern philosophy and feminism. Although many people disregard Kant in their arguments, Nye chose to make him a central part of her lecture.

"Kant, in his writings posed several important questions: one: What can I know? Two: What should I do? 3. What can we hope for?" Nye said. "These questions are at the very center of feminist thought; we always question about the world and the questions posed by Kant bring us feminists back to the core issues of feminism and I think... everyone else as well."



While most of Nye's lecture focused on the works of Kant and how his ideas related to modern philosophical thought and the feminist movement, she also discussed how modern science is affecting the feminists.

"There is a lot of new science out there that can drastically change the way we interact at the moment, in terms of reproductive sciences," Nye said. "Can we in the future alter people to remove unwanted traits? Could we make racists and sexists less prejudicial or can we remove race altogether?"

"I think these scientific issues, while at the center of the feminist movement at the moment, are issues that effect not just the feminists," Nye continued.

Nye argued that the advances in science are also changing people's views on societal roles. "Kant wrote that there is a certain natural process to the world; that is, we are defined by natural experiences _ or natural selection," she said. "Man is aggressive because he has been shaped by nature to be the hunter and warrior and woman have been shaped by their own existence. With societal and scientific changes, these traditional male and female roles do not necessarily apply any longer."

Those in attendance praised Nye's speech.

Robin Mangino, an English teacher and graduate student working on her PhD, was interested in Nye's original arguments about nature versus society. "I think her general project of reading modern philosophy in a way that exposes the tensions between essentialism and anti-essentialism, so prevalent in feminist discourse, is interesting...although I'm not sure that I agree that feminism is modern philosophy," Mangino said. "I also thought that Nye's use of real-life examples helped her appeal to a more general audience."

Of the few men in attendance, freshman Steven Keppel, learned for the first time that feminism is _ and what it is not. "When you think about feminism, the first images that pops into your head are women pushing to show that females are better than males. However, now I can see that feminism is not just about pushing for womanly values or for equal rights; it's about the betterment of every person," Keppel said.

Megan Nelson, also a freshman, agreed with Keppel. "Dr. Nye really changed my views on what feminism is to women and men. However, I wish that I knew more about Kant's teachings; it would have really helped me understand Dr. Nye's arguments."

Nye received her BA from Radcliffe College and her PhD from the University of Oregon, both in philosophy. She has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and at the University of Glasgow. She is the author of many books and papers including Philosophy and Feminist: At the Border~ Philosophy of Language: The Big Questions, and has been published in The Journal of Value Inquiry, Hypatia, and Signs.

As a part of a lecture series cosponsored by the Women Studies and Philosophy Department, there will be several other lectures in the coming weeks.