Feminist Metaphilosophy

The present volume consists of contributions by invited authors (Alejandra Castillo, Kristie Dotson, Rachel Falkenstern, and Danila Suárez Tomé and Diana Maffía) and contributions selected through a call for papers and blind reviewing process (Luciana Cadahia, Michelle Ciurria, Karen Glavic, and Damiano Migliorini), in addition to the articles by the editors (Valentina Bortolami and Giovanna Miolli). Kristie Dotson’s contribution "Metaphilosophy: A What and Why" opens this issue. Her elaboration provides an example of what we have called the union of critique and imagination for the proposal of alternative ways of doing philosophy. To this aim, Dotson deploys an approach to metaphilosophy centered on the practice of storying. In "¿Es posible una recuperación de la fenomenología desde la filosofía feminista?", Danila Suárez Tomé and Diana Maffía propose the recovery of phenomenology in a feminist key as a tool to acquire self- knowledge and emancipatory theoretical knowledge from sexual experience. The essay "De la revuelta feminista, la historia y Julieta Kirkwood" by Alejandra Castillo deals with the oeuvre of the Chilean feminist writer Julieta Kirkwood to highlight its historiographic and knowledge aspects, outlining in particular the concept of feminist knowledge that emerges from it. In the article "Philosophy, Feminism, and the Popular Field in Latin America", Luciana Cadahia examines the relationship between philosophy and feminism in Latin America through the exploration of the tension between affirmative power and negative thinking. She concludes that feminism can be understood as negative and that it is necessary to recompose feminist and other anti-oppressive struggles. Karen Glavic’s contribution "La cita feminista: Nelly Richard entre feminismos, crítica cultural y filosofía chilena" interprets Nelly Richard’s use of citation as a particular approach to theory bearing a feminist, affective, and desiring dimension. Richard’s ‘feminist citation’ is presented as a space for dialogue with philosophy, history, aesthetics, visual arts, and cultural criticism. Glavic further analyzes Richard’s treatment of citation by relating it to Juan Dávila’s artistic work and the understanding of citation as a ‘gesture’ in debates on visual arts in Chile. In "On the Uses and Abuses of Doing Feminist Philosophy with Hegel", Rachel Falkenstern explores how metaphilosophical issues of feminist approaches to Hegel have been and are influenced by the complex interweaving of the historiography of philosophy, the philosophical canon, and historical sociopolitical forces that contributes to shaping professional practices as well as norms and definitions of philosophy. Damiano Migliorini’s article "Come nottola al tramonto: ipotesi su metodo e scopo delle future filosofie femministe" re-elaborates tools of the traditional philosophical canon. Starting from a Hegelian metaphilosophical premise, Migliorini interrogates two feminist theoretical traditions – sexual difference thought and queer theory – to advance an interpretation of the development of feminist thought as «intrinsically open to its own destabilization and sublation». Michelle Ciurria’s essay "A New Ameliorative Approach to Moral Responsibility" rediscusses a central concept of philosophy, namely moral responsibility. She correlates three important theories of moral responsibility with Haslanger’s taxonomy of philosophical approaches to elaborate a model of moral responsibility that has anti-oppressive functions, while also highlighting the need for counterhegemonic discourses around the concept of responsibility. Valentina Bortolami’s article "On the Metaphilosophical Implications of The Naturalism Question in Feminism" considers what risks and opportunities naturalism poses for feminists. Starting from Ásta’s article "The Naturalism Question in Feminism", Bortolami highlights two problems – that of normativity of oppression and justificatory stories – and suggests that they may find satisfying responses in feminist standpoint empiricism and feminist new materialism (feminist epistemologies which have rediscussed the key concepts of naturalism, nature and science). The articles section concludes with Giovanna Miolli’s essay "Composting Contemporary Metaphilosophy with Feminist Philosophical Perspectives: Towards an Account of Philosophy’s Concreteness". Miolli considers the criticism of abstractness often leveled at philosophy and argues for the concrete character of the philosophical endeavor (and of the philosophy of philosophy itself). To this end, she advocates a composting (in the Harawayan sense) of concepts and methodologies from contemporary metaphilosophy and some feminist philosophical proposals. The volume ends with a section of reviews devoted to publications in feminist philosophy. This issue offers reviews of: Angela Balzano’s "Per farla finita con la famiglia. Dall’aborto alle parentele postumane" (by Giovanna Miolli); Rahna McKay Carusi’s "Lacan and Critical Feminism Subjectivity, Sexuation, and Discourse" (by Elena Tripaldi); Denise Ferreira Da Silva’s "A Dívida Impagável" (by Aléxia Bretas); Jennifer C. Nash’s "Black Feminism Reimagined: After Intersectionality" (by Anna Guerini); Alison Stone’s "Being Born: Birth and Philosophy" (by Silvia Locatelli); and Françoise Vergès’ "The Wombs of Women: Race, Capital and Feminism" (by Sabrina Morán and María Cecilia Padilla). Overall, this special issue constitutes only a starting point with respect to the attempt to engage in an ‘explicit’ consideration of the metaphilosophical value of the feminist philosophical project. We hope that this effort can further stimulate «imagination, theory, and action» (Haraway) to make philosophy’s critical self-reflection ever more radical and aware.