Browsing by Author "den Besten, Lauren Marion"

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    A story of the scoliotic body: reimagining the posture of philosophy with Adriana Cavarero and feminist disability theory
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-11) den Besten, Lauren Marion; du Toit, Louise; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Philosophy.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis ventures to reimagine the body posture of the philosophical subject as inclined and scoliotic, as opposed to vertical. The first main objective is to elucidate the symbolic and physical denigration faced by women in general and people/women with disabilities, who are said to deviate from the vertical, erect, posture of the normative philosophical subject, emblematic of the Western symbolic order. I draw extensively from feminist philosopher Adriana Cavarero’s seminal works, especially Inclinations: A Critique of Rectitude (2016) and Horrorism: Naming Contemporary Violence (2009), together with feminist disability theory, to facilitate a nuanced and creative analysis of the vertical figure’s motive to denigrate bodies that incline. I show how this vertical figure has ‘disabled’ women’s bodies and the multifaceted ways in which vulnerability, gender, violence, and ethics intersect. The second main objective is to use Cavarero's concept of the inclined figure and feminist disability theory to reconceptualize the philosophical subject's body posture. In the place of the traditional upright figure, I seek to reimagine the philosopher’s posture as inclined and scoliotic, leading to a transformative understanding of ontology, ethics, and politics. Viewed from the philosophical perspective of the scoliotic subject, these domains of philosophy appear as concerned with the human condition of being inclined, corporeal, and vulnerable. The traditional reign of the philosophical subject characterised by verticality, self-sufficiency, disembodiedness and invulnerability, must end. I further aim to explore the potential of narrative language as a tool for deconstructing the symbolic order of the vertical figure and reinventing a language in which women, the disabled, and of course disabled women can speak philosophically in their own language and on their terms. Each chapter will be thematically marked by at least one of my disabilities or bodily differences: the curved spine, the naked pate of a woman with Alopecia, and the story of a girl with epilepsy serve as the corporeal tapestries or templates for my philosophical investigations. In so doing, my project has a fleshy, visceral outline and gestures towards my first act of philosophical disobedience, namely, to theorise through my own flesh. I will therefore read philosophy through a prism of narration about bodily existence, through relaying historical stories of discrimination, through relaying stories of pain and public humiliation, as well as, importantly, a political story of resistance to the injustices that accompanied these experiences.