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Presence with a Difference: Buddhists and Feminists on Subjectivity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Anne C. Klein
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Abstract

Essentialist and postmodern feminisms are often regarded as incompatible. I propose that Buddhist theories of subjectivity change the nature of the tension between them as presently construed because Buddhist traditions describe a mind not wholly governed by language, and a subjective mental dimension that is entirely integrated with the body and its sensations. A corollary is the compatibility Buddhists perceive between conditioned subjective states (akin to postmodern feminisms) and the unconditioned (akin to essentialist feminisms).

Type
Embodying Subjectivities
Information
Hypatia , Volume 9 , Issue 4: Special Issue: Feminist Philosophy of Religion , Fall 1994 , pp. 112 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © 1994 by Hypatia, Inc.

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