Good Example Of Short Diagnostic Essay And Journal Notesby (Name) Essay

Short diagnostic essay and journal notes

Part 1
Introduction
Yancy (2008, p.155) say that philosophy is a situated activity shaped by different norms, assumptions, intuitions, and ways of thinking concerning the world. Philosophy engagement has a focus in history where embodied activity emerges in a diverse context. Most of the philosophers employ pretense in their work since they ignore confluent social forces that shape history. Philosophers neglect critical research as they despise human sciences. The leading male figures in philosophy are busy defending the validity and dignity of the subject other than provides a critical theory. Male philosophers absorb themselves in the question of rank and hierarchy rather than critical reflection in the particular works and methodologies.
Philosophy at this point detaches itself from background assumptions that depict a specific horizon of understanding. Later on, philosophy presumes to reside in the static and disembodied realm where it becomes a site of bad faith (Yancy, 2008, p. 156). Since it rejects effective history it appears dead, irrelevant, escapist, and lacking in particularity. Philosophers since time immemorial portray women in bad light especially those that make headway in the discipline. According to Doeuff (2008, p. 41) the feminist that attempt to involve themselves in philosophy experience sexist statements and attitudes. The feminist work developed is more rigorous critical research amidst prejudices from men that established the field with no form of criticism. The feminist work guided by values fights a sexist ideology that provides excuses for sexual discrimination. Some philosophers argue that society should deny girls formal education rather they should receive informal training in home making.
Haslanger (2008, p.211) observes few women in the cohort philosophy where there is outright discrimination. For example during her school years at Berkeley in the late 70s there was only one woman in a class of ten. The lecturers too formed a belief that women were incapable of having seminal ideas. The faculty failed to notice that graduate student classes in the 90s lacked women. There was blatant discrimination concerning women in graduate school while there was no issue with men. The graduate women groups face alleged sexual harassment, and other sorts of discrimination. Philosophy seems to have a hostile treatment toward women and minorities since it denies them a good working environment and mutual respect.
When Anita Allen shares her resume upon request of two philosophers, they request to have sex with her (Yancy, 2008, p. 156). As a black woman philosopher it displays racist and sexist in the profession. The philosophers did not have interest in her intellectual acumen and philosophical imagination rather in her body that was the locus of their libidinal concern. Conversely, it shows that American Philosophical Association is grandiloquent discourse with numerous pretentiousness ideologies where the male philosophers hold power and have the willingness to use the power to exploit, humiliate, and oppress women. Black women encounter untold suffering in the attempt of defining themselves as philosophers as the world fails to take them seriously and disapprove their critical and original thought. Black women philosophers have been physically disrespected, discriminated as Jezebels, and marked as devoid of intelligence. The Black women face a daunting task in the attempt to philosophize within hostile spaces where their presence seems odious.
Schemas depict unconscious bias since they supply ambiguous data. They have primitive set of dispositions typically subjective unlike individual hypotheses. An example of schema conflict is the assumption that women are life-giving and nurturing while troops are life-giving and nurturing. The feminist philosophers note the gender ditochomies in the discipline that depict male as masculine and objective while female is emotional. Philosophy often assumes that women do not have interest in the topics of mind and language while in reality women perform well in linguistics. The virtual absence of feminist philosophy in the journals appears reactionary. Antifeminist bias in philosophy comes from the fact there is little feminist work submitted to the journals. The features of the philosophy schemas include hyper masculine philosophy departments that are highly judgmental, competitive, hostile towards females, socially dysfunctional departments, and oriented toward individual accomplishment. Women and minorities that succeed to adjust or manage dysfunctional social environments can conform to the milieu governed by certain masculine norms. Yancy (2008, p.158) says that there is a lot to glean in social history of black women in the field of philosophy such as how they have struggled to define themselves in toxic spaces and the philosophical context.

Part 2 Race and Gender in Ancient Philosophy

It is uncertain to cite that Aristotle makes use of racial differences in his political theory an implication that he and other Greeks possess an idea of race. At the onset the issue of race seems inapplicable to the ancient Greeks (Ward and Lott, 2002, p. 14). Greeks possess a concept equal to modern notion while adopting different terminology. Aristotle subscribes to biological notion of race that combined with determinism that ranks with biological variations in human populations in his theory of natural slavery. The development of realist thinking is among the first among other classical Greek intellectuals. Aristotle employs climate theory of rational differences in addition to the theory of natural slavery .the Greeks do not tire to differentiate themselves either culturally or ethnically from non-Greek nations such as the Persians. The political and social Greek institutions are non-egalitarian since they accept the natural differences of humans to reflect their perception of slaves and women. The presence of inequality in the political and social institutions does not have any connections with racial differences. For example the Greek citizen women correlate with other women from the world where women are inferior to men. Greek intellectuals use color terms to differentiate persons and other things. They use the term leukos to signify positive range of senses such as fair and beautiful while leukochros signifies weakness of men especially in their moral character. In the Republic, Plato employs leukos to depict lovers that lack masculine qualities. Aristotle uses the term pale-skinned or dark-skinned to refer to a woman biological works. The light-skinned are feminine while the dark-skinned are masculine in nature. Aristotle uses the term leukos to signify essences and accidental compounds. During the archaic era, the Greeks wrote concerning the non-Greeks especially from Africa that reveals no cultural prejudice. Additionally, Herodotus does not portray discrimination against non-Greeks throughout his works that detail the history of Egyptians. He describes Libyan Ethiopians as dark-skinned, curly-haired, long-lived people after detailing their way of dressing, and weapons (Ward and Lott, 2002, p. 16).
The Greeks use the term barbarian during the Persian war to refer to specific ethnic group (Ward and Lott, 2002, p. 15). Most scholars agree that the use of the term is during the Greek and Persian conflict as Athenians deliberately reshape Persians identity as barbarian .They did that to polarize the conflict in cultural and ethnic terms and strengthen Greek nationalism. The Greeks appear self-controlled, masculine, and egalitarian where the Persians possessed opposite of those qualities. The general acceptance of Greek cultural supremacy seem to persist from the fifth through the forth century amidst criticism posed by various Greek enlightenment thinkers. Plato opinion in the issue is complex since he depicts the Greek-barbarian opposition in times of dramatic other than scientific purposes. In the Politicos, Plato critics the opposition between Greeks and Persian where he quips that barbarian is not a real term. His opinion is that thinkers make a mistake when they divide the human race into homogeneous and barbarians. According to him barbarian is not a natural kind of humans. According to Aristotle, European tribes have excessive wild disposition while they remain free, lack political organization, and are incapable to rule. Asians are said to be barbaric and slavish while Europeans are only barbaric. Being a citizen in a barbaric or slavish state is not enough to make someone to have that character of a slave nature. The climate induces timidity and gentleness in the Asian disposition where one becomes enslaved by Asian tyrants. The inference of being slavish to being natural is legitimate if Aristotle has dual meaning for the term slave (Ward and Lott, 2002, p. 17). Aristotle inference is wrong in the use of the term slave or barbaric in the context of both Asia and European since these states have their own crafts and the people exist in the Greek cities as a whole.
The first discussion of gender in the Republic starts with a question from the poet to Sophocles concerning his sex life and whether he makes love to his woman. Sophocles asserts that he is lucky to have escaped from that kind of life the way a slave runs away from tyranny or savage. The interpretation is that female gender is a reference to a slave. Socrates disapproves the use of female gender in that kind of context since it has a negative association. In a different context, Socrates suggests that the unhealthy city subscribes to female taste since it has devices for the adornment of women such as nurses and nannies. One can note the inferiority of women in Book III where in the activity depicted, Socrates state that the coward acts of sobbing and lamentations belongs to women. Socrates continues to assert that women and children are the ones that cannot control their desires to moderate reactions in pleasures and pain
Plato’s reference to the female gender does not allow for the participation in the affairs of the city much less equal participation. In Book V, Socrates has the challenge of explicating the status of women where he observes that females are weak while males are strong. Similarly, he cites that both should be taught the same things. According to Socrates some of the weakness trait attributes to differential teaching between the male and female gender. Plato acknowledges this contrast while he discusses the status of women and that the proposed equitable education for women would precipitate ridicule in the society if carried out in practice. In a different context, Socrates says that it is impossible to compare naked women with wrinkled old men. In his statement, the men that laugh at naked women are immature. Plato appears to agree to the opinion of gender equality to some aspects. For instance any gender can manage the city in every way of life while they qualify for some jobs in terms of strength. Nature ascribes roles to the gender where both may have different superior traits.
Mills (1997, p. 9) informs that the racial contract integrates different contracts in one. The political contract highlights the origin of the state together with political obligations to it. A political contract establishes an agreement between the state and society to have a sovereign governing entity. Mills (1997, p. 10) observes that moral contract marks the foundation of the moral code established for the society. It helps regulate the behavior of people in the community. The racial contract applies a classical model since it has social and political properties. The contract explains the creation of transformed society together with the establishment of the state. Consequently, Racial Contract is descriptive while its limitations it that it ignores the basic political realities. The Racial Contract set formal and informal agreements between members of one race to cater for gender differentiation. Mills (1997, p. 12) asserts that the logical class of the social contract undergoes refraction with shifts in accordance to key terms and principles. The contract to establish society and government transforms abstract race less men from becoming racial polity. The colonizing mother country changes its relation to the new polities to alter its own citizens. Mills (1997, p. 13) elucidate that the establishment of society implies denial that a society already exists as the creation of society require intervention of white people with sociopolitical connections.
Pile (2006, p. 52) argue that people open themselves to modern Western instituted society with sovereign liberty to operate in market relations, as legal subjects to engage in liberal political affairs of the country. In essence, people enjoy these and other rights as private property owners. The fundamental owning property defines fundamental relationship between subject of Western modernity and their world. The immediate awareness of an individual emanates from self-centered awareness expressed in the term ‘I.’ that term provides all to engage in a world of possibilities in terms of race, gender, ethnic community, and class. Pile (2006, p. 53) argue that the focus of liberty permits one to appreciate the owning property ability by being in the world. The modern Western subject self-relation manifests in the power to re-conceive and organize the world in a way to enable the subject to affirm itself in it. The implication of the world in terms of abstract activity in the modern Western subject makes manifest the fundamental terms of its potential being in the world. The relation of dependence is at the centre of the ontology of the property relation.

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