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Millett's Rationalist Error

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2020

Abstract

This article examines Millett's condemnation of Ruskin in Sexual Politics (1977) to demonstrate that Ruskin's views on women are the product of a specific mode of experience—one that precludes his views being representative of traditional Victorian patriarchy. The article uses Oakeshott's philosophical framework of different modes of experience to illustrate that Millett narrowly interprets Ruskin's statements on women from her own modal perspective without considering his broader belief in the imaginative over the rational faculty.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © 2003 by Hypatia, Inc.

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