Question Why have philosophers presented themselves as asexual in their writings? Derrida asks this question in 'Derrida', but I have not seen it answered anywhere.

Accepted:
June 14, 2010

Comments

Here are some philosophical questions that I happen to be interested in (or have been interested in, in the past). "Are beliefs functional states?", "What makes our knowledge of our mental states particularly authoritative (if it is)?", "What is the best formulation of a causal theory of reference?", "How much mathematical knowledge can usefully be thought of as logical knowledge?", "Can one give a cogent neoHumean account of the notion of a scientific law?". And there's lots more where they came from -- all highly abstract conceptual questions. And in engaging with these very abstract questions (just as with mathematicians or scientists engaging with their abstract questions), I'm a very long way indeed from dealing with anything that engages with my sexuality. So surprise, surprise, you won't learn anything much about that from reading what I've written on those topics. Sexuality just doesn't come into it.

And so it is with an great deal of what is written by a great number of philosophers. It would be absurd to say we "present ourselves as asexual"; it's just that our topics have nothing whatsoever to do with sex. (I suppose if you are some kind of dingbat Freudian, you might speculate that we reveal something about our sexuality by the very fact that such abstract matters fascinate us. But common observation suggests quite otherwise. Looking round my philosophical acquaintance, puritans and libertines, straight and gay, romantics and party people, it seems we are quite as sexually diverse as the rest of the population)

However, there is also of course a good deal written by many philosophers that does engage with less abstract, more immediately human, concerns. And here too it would be absurd to sweepingly say that philosophers "present themselves as asexual". How could that be said, to take just one example, of a writer like Martha Nussbaum?

Ignore that typical Derridian silliness. When the topic -- as it is with a lot of philosophy -- is quite remote from anything to do with sexuality, of course philosophers trying to get at the truth about it typically do so without "presenting themselves" as sexual beings. And when the topic -- as it is with a lot of other philosophy -- is more closely bound up with the human world, then there are plenty of philosophers who do write in a way that is appropriately more personally coloured.

Question Why have philosophers presented themselves as asexual in their writings? Derrida asks this question in 'Derrida', but I have not seen it answered anywhere. Accepted:June 14, 2010

Question Why have philosophers presented themselves as asexual in their writings? Derrida asks this question in 'Derrida', but I have not seen it answered anywhere.

Accepted:
June 14, 2010