Queering Philosophy I
Queer Theory and Philosophy
Hall (2022) describes what it would take to queer philosophy. She notes that there is a tension between queer theory and contemporary academic philosophy. While queer theory is well-known to those working in gender studies and feminist theory, mainstream philosophy has not quite caught up. Hall writes:
When it comes to queer theory, mainstream philosophy, it must be said, has never gotten used to it. Despite the fact that many, if not most, other humanities disciplines long ago embraced queer theory as a legitimate area of study and a desirable area of specialization, queer philosophy has yet to make an appearance among the officially recognized areas of specialization in philosophy, nor has it regularly appeared among the desired specializations and competencies listed in philosophy job descriptions in the US. (p. 1)
Hall correctly notes that philosophy, unlike other humanities disciplines, is unwilling to recognize queer theory as a legitimate way to do philosophy. What makes this more surprising is the fact that the philosophy of gender and sexuality has become quite popular in recent years. What is going on?
There are many obstacles facing the uptake of queer theory by academic philosophers. In the following series of posts, I will discuss these obstacles. This post takes up the first obstacle.
Philosophy’s Purity Problem
I once heard Lynne Tirrell say that philosophy has a purity problem. By this, she meant that philosophers tend to insist on their specific, home-grown methodologies. They are often averse to interdisciplinarity, and even when they are interested in interdisciplinarity work, it tends to be work that engages with math and science. You can be an empirical philosopher of mind, working at the intersection of neuroscience and philosophy. You can be a logician who is also in the math department. You can be a biologist who works on philosophy of science. You can be a political philosopher who is also a political scientist. These kinds of interdisciplinary contributions are becoming mainstream, if they are not already.
Other sorts of interdisciplinary engagements do not seem accepted. English, literature, romance studies, cultural anthropology, black studies, history, theatre and dance — philosophy, as a whole, does not appear to welcome these sorts of interdisciplinary interventions. They are not, as far as I can tell, afforded the same respect. In fact, I am pretty sure that many philosophers will not afford the work done in these disciplines any kind of respect at all.
The reason why the interdisciplinary work within the humanities matters to queer philosophy is because much of queer theory has been developed within the humanistic disciplines. Most obviously, many people who have worked in queer theory have been literary scholars. If mainstream philosophy seeks to maintain its purity via avoiding literary scholarship, then it necessarily excludes engagement with queer theory. This is true for feminist theory and social theory more generally, I think.