Classical American Philosophy's Invisible Women

Abstract

In 1910 an American author wrote: Humanity, thus considered, is not a thing made at once and unchange- able, but a stage of development; and is still... 'in the making.' Our humanness is seen to lie not so much in what we are individually as in our relations to one another; and even that individuality is but the result of our relations to one another. It is in what we do and how we do it, rather than in what we are. Some, philosophically inclined, exalt 'being' over 'doing.' To them this question may be put: 'Can you mention any forms of life that merely "is," without doing anything?' (Gilman [1910] 1914, 16-17)1 This passage captures such characteristic pragmatist themes as process, evolutionary development, the self defined in relation to others, and praxis as determinative of being.2 It could have been written by any of the classical American pragmatists. What follows it, however, could not have been: during the comparatively short period of written history, "we have had almost universally what is here called an Androcentric Culture. The history, such as it was, was made and written by men. The mental, the mechanical, the social development, was almost wholly theirs. We have, so far, lived and suffered and died in a man-made world" (Gilman [1910] 1914, 17).