Denaturalization strategy in the philosophy of Judith Butler
This article shows the influence of Michel Foucault's philosophical systems on the formationof the post-feminist philosophy methodological principles. In particular, we consider two aspects of the corporeality ontology in Foucault'sphilosophy, namely: 1. A "Visible" body is proclaimed as a cultural construct, embodying the mechanisms of power - knowledge.2. Predetermination by discourse and the body political markedness are veiled by power discourse, creating the effect of naturalness.The principles of modern post-feminist and gender philosophy are perceived as a fundamental methodological principle. They areused to explain the phenomenon of Natural today, which includes not only "natural" body and "natural" sex, "natural" opposition of thesexes, "natural" sexuality and "natural" methods of its expression. In other words, understanding of the body within the framework ofthe discourse, which had been proposed and developed by Michel Foucault, put the category of natural into question and that helped toformulate and solve basic issues of feminism and gender studies anew. The leading American philosopher Judith Butler is consideredthe main theoretician to adopt Foucault's speculations and develop them in relation to a wider range of problems, is considered. Shedefine her approach a strategy of gender and sexual differences "denaturalization", which is mostly connected with the body denaturalizationand the subject deconstruction in critical ontology. In this perspective, the basic philosophy of J. Butler can be explicated in thefollowing basic aspects. 1. Denaturalization of the body / sex. J. Butler argues that male and female bodies do not exist beyond the culturalcontext. The human body, the body having sex is "tainted" by the discourse and it possess "real" and visible existence only due tothis fact. 2. Deconstruction of the female subject. Inconsistencies and contradictions of extreme female explication of the subject withinfeminism argues in terms of D. Butler, that this very subject is a discursive construct, not the previous condition, but the result of feministdiscourse. 3. Denaturalization of homosexuality and homo-identity or heterosexism overcoming. J. Butler represents the duality ofthe homosexual identity through the concept of "practice of shame". "Shaming a subject through his name" is one of the main goals ofhomophobic discourse. In heterosexist discourse a homosexual subject is constituted as a prediscourse natural substance so that an individual,being seduced by the apparent naturalness, would perceive a lesbian / gay identity and thus confirm the status of "pervert", theheterosexual norm "apostate". The perspective of deconstruction may be either revealing the emptiness of nothing or, according toJ. Butler, a liberating breakthrough that will, finally, become the door to the unknown, but positive society of mobile definitions. In anycase, the natural, material, corporeal cannot be perceived irrespective of the language, power and discourse any longer. The ontologicalstatus of these categories can no longer be considered a certain one.
Keywords
феминизм, гей-сообщество, денатурализация, гендерная идентичность, feminism, gay community, denaturalization, gender Identity, physicality, a discourse, a subject, deconstructionAuthors
| Name | Organization | |
| Khitruk Yekaterina B. | National Research Tomsk State University | lubomudr@vtomske.ru |
References