Gender and Sexuality in Stoic Philosophy

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-3-319-53693-4
Verlag: Springer International Publishing

Buch, Englisch, 307 Seiten, Format (B × H): 153 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 5207 g

This book investigates the Ancient Stoic thinkers’ views on gender and sexuality. A detailed scrutiny of metaphysics, ethics and political philosophy reveals that the Stoic philosophers held an exceptionally equal view of men and women’s rational capacities.  In its own time, Stoicism was frequently called ‘ the manly school’ of philosophy, but this volume shows that the Stoics would have also transformed many traditional notions of masculinity. Malin Grahn-Wilder compares the earlier philosophies of Plato and Aristotle to show that the Stoic position often stands out within Ancient philosophy as an exceptionally bold defense of women’s possibilities to achieve the highest form of wisdom and happiness. The work argues that the Stoic metaphysical notion of human being is based on strikingly egalitarian premises, and opens new perspectives to Stoic philosophy on the whole.

Zielgruppe

Research

Autoren/Hrsg.

Grahn-Wilder, Malin

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Antike Philosophie
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziale Gruppen/Soziale Themen Gender Studies, Geschlechtersoziologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Moderne Philosophische Disziplinen Feministische Philosophie, Gender Studies
• Geisteswissenschaften Religionswissenschaft Religionswissenschaft Allgemein Religiöse Fragen von Sexualität, Geschlecht und Beziehungen

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Part I        The Body: Gender From Generation to

Decoration

1.       Introduction<

2.The Origin of Gender: Myths and Biology

2.1.    Plato’s Philosophical Myths of Gender and Sexuality

2.1.1. Genders, Planets, and Lust: Aristophanes’ Speech

2.1.2.  Noble Birth without Sex – Phaedrus, Pausanias and Socrates

2.1.3.  Women as Former Vicious Men – Plato’s Timaeus

2.2.    When Hot Meets Cold and Form Meets Matter  – Gender and Generation in Aristotle’s Biology

2.2.1. Why are Higher Animals Gendered?

2.2.2. Gender and Form: Sameness and Difference

2.2.3.           Aristotelian Metaphysics of Gender

2.2.4. Hot Men and Cold Women

2.3.    Galen on Gender: Scientific, Medical and Philosophical Perspectives

          2.3.1.Two Genders, Four Elements and the Problem of Gender Resemblance

          2.3.2. From Agricultural Analogy to Dual Seed-Theory

          2.3.3. On Cold and Idle Women

3.       Semen, Zeus and the Birth of Cosmos: Gender in Stoic Cosmogony and Cosmology

3.1.    Gender and the Two Principles

3.2.    Fire and Sperm: Generation in a Material World

3.3.    On the Sexual Encounter between Zeus and Hera – a Biological Myth?

3.4.    Sexual Analogies in Stoic Cosmology

4.       The Metaphysical Insignificance of Gender

4.1.    The Stoic Theory of Categories: Gender and Substance

4.2.    Gender and the Qualified: Common and Individual Features

4.3.    The Disposed and the Relatively Disposed: Gender and Relations

4.4.    Reproduction and Rational Capacities:  the Stoic theory of pneuma

4.5.    Stoic Notions of Embryology

4.6.    From Genital Difference to Good Life

5.       Perfumed Men and Bearded Philosophers – The Stoics on Signs of Gender

5.1.    Hair, Prohairesis and Human Flourishing

5.2.    On Hairy Bodies and the Works of Nature

5.3.    The Philosopher’s Beard

5.4.    Gendered Signs and Effeminate Vanity – Early and Roman Stoics Compared

6.        Fiery and Cold Natures – Stoic Physiognomics of Gender

6.1.    Beautiful Souls in Beautiful Bodies

6.2.    Seneca on the Elements and Gendered Characteristics

Summary of Part I

PART II character: education of gender and therapy of sexuality

7. Gender and Education from Classic to Hellenistic Thought

7.1 Character as a Philosophical Problem

7.2.    Equal Education, Gendered Characteristics and Eugenic Policies Critical Assessments on Gender in Plato’s Republic

7.2.1. On Educability of Men and Women

7.2.2.From Eugenics to Education

7.2.3.Philosophers, Lovers and the End of Gender Dimorphism?

7.3.    Aristotle on the Education of Young Men: Habituation of Character and Political Goals

7.3.1.           Aristotle on Childhood and Habituation

7.3.2 Gender, Virtue and the Politics of Education

7.3.3. Female Virtue and Happiness

8.       The Stoics on Equal Educability of Girls and Boys, and the Origin Gendered Characteristics

8.1.    Musonius on Why Girls Should Be Educated

8.2.    Inborn Capacities, Cultural Impact, and the Question Concerning Gendered Characteristics

8.2.1. Non-rationality and Moral Irresponsibility – Stoic Views on Children

8.2.2. Oikeiôsis and the Theory of Preconceptions: Arguments for Equal Educability of Girls and Boys

8.2.3.Gendered Characteristics and Cultural Corruption

9.       To Become Properly Manly – Gender, Happiness and the Figure of the Sage

9.1.    Manly Stoics, Effeminate Epicureans

9.2.    The Sage, Apatheia and the Feminine

9.3.    Female Idealizations and Exemplifications

9.4.    Genders and Persona

10.     How to Take ‘Certain Spasms’ Calmly – Sexuality in Stoic Philosophical Therapy

10.1. Making Friends Through Erotic Love

10.2. Sexuality and Inner Freedom

10.3.  Philosophical Exercises on Sexuality 1: Impressions

10.4. Philosophical Exercises on Sexuality 2: Abstinence

Summary of Part II

PART III community: Marriage, Family and Human Bonding

11. Gender, Politics and Economics: from Plato’s Utopianism to Cynic Radicalism 11.1.  End of Monogamy and (Other Forms of) Private Ownership in Plato’s Republic11.1.1 Polygamy and the Position of Women 11.1.2. Sexual Control and the Problem of Equality 11.2.  The Economics of the Free Man’s Household: Wife, Property, Slaves and Cattle

11.3.  Cynic Upheavals of Gender and Family Roles

12.     “Holding Women in Common” – Gender in Early Stoic Utopias

12.1.  Stoic Abolishment of Marriage and Other Social Institutions

12.2. Platonic, Cynic and Stoic Ideals of Polygamy Compared

12.3.  Wives, Pork and Theater Seats – Stoic Views on Women and Common Property

12.4.  Marriage and Non-Marriage, Incest and Virtue – Contradictory and Controversial Elements in Early Stoicism

13.     Is it Possible to Marry and Be Happy? The Later Stoics on Matrimony and Modes of Life

13.1.  Learning to Lose One’s Love

13.2.  Not Every Wife is Like Hipparchia – Epictetus on Conjugal and Parental Responsibilities 

13.3.  Marriage as a Natural Way of Life: Partnership and Sociability

13.4.  The Roles of Wife and Husband

13.5.  Should the Wife Stay by her Loom? Gender and the Division of Labor

14.     Gender and Stoic Cosmopolitanism

14.1.  A Spouse, A Human, a Citizen of the Cosmos – the Stoic Theory of Extending Circles

14.2.  The Importance of the Inner Circle

Summary of Part III

15.     Conclusion

Über Autor(innen)

Malin Grahn-Wilder is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Jyväskylä and a teacher of gender studies at the University of Helsinki. She worked on this book while she was a visiting scholar at the Columbia University in the City of New York in 2016. She has formerly published articles on Ancient philosophy and gender in several anthologies, and she also works professionally as a dancer and dance educator.