Synopsis
A German treatise on
masculinity as 'being a named somebody'. Both masculinity and femininity
are thought phenomenologically from the standing-ness of being in
a dimension of whoness or quissity
(as distinct from the traditional metaphysical category of whatness
or quiddity, i.e. essence). An alternative
to philosophical feminist discourse to date is offered by proposing a shift
of location to the thinking of being. Such a shift enables the
standard alternative of nature (biology, genetics, etc.) on the one hand
or society ('nurture', social practices, discourse, culture, etc.) on the
other to be skirted, opening up another view of what human being could
be 'in between'.
Abstract
Does the thinking of being have something to offer
to feminist discourse? This treatise is based on the premise that it does.
Instead of proceeding from the facticity of gender, it asks the question
concerning the historical essencing of masculinity and femininity. Both
of these are modes of being and thus have to be investigated from the understanding
of being that has prevailed latently in the metaphysical tradition.
The treatise concentrates on masculinity and attempts
to think it as being-a-named-somebody. The existential category of whoness
is developed in contrast to the traditional category of whatness, i.e.
essence, quidditas. The guiding thread for this development is the standing
character of the being of beings which has been transferred reflexively
in the metaphysical tradition from beings in the third person to the first
person. This translation of standingness to the first person is
put into question, thus revealing the insecure standing of masculinity
conceived as whoness.
Towards the end of the treatise, the phenomenon
of femininity is developed in the attempt to find words for the scarcely
disclosed dimension of the
second person, which has likewise been
submerged beneath the whatness of the third person in the metaphysical
tradition.
The final chapter thinks the phallus as the hidden
god of standingness in the Western history of being. The phallus and the
logos have been covertly in cahoots since the ancient Greeks.
ME Cologne, July 1996
Copyright (c) 1985-2009 by Michael
Eldred, all rights reserved. This text may be used and shared in accordance
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artefact
Verlag Dr. Josef H. Röll, Dettelbach, Germany under the title
Phänomenologie
der Männlichkeit - kaum ständig noch, 266 pp., 1999 Hardback
ISBN 3-89754-137-8. €30.00