rigorous and nuanced account of the potential of a Dionysian perspective seems an urgent
priority.^26
The third arena for possible mediation between feminist concerns and analytic
philosophy of religion lies in the related area of claims to an immediate contact with the
divine. It is here that Jantzen's and Anderson's rightful interests in the category of desire
seem to me to come into relation with an important existing epistemological discussion in
analytic philosophy of religion about the possibility of direct “perception” of God. If God
is to be “perceivable” in some sense analogous to (but not identical with) the direct
perception of objects (so Alston, seeking to evade Kant's objections), then certain
“doxastic practices” may, according to Alston (1991), be the crucial means and mediation
of such perception. Desire, as a core factor in the quest for God, cannot be ignored—
indeed, is projected into center-stage—if women mystical theologians such as Teresa of
Avila are utilized as key examples of epistemic intimacy with God, as in Alston's work;
but nor can the transforming practices of “contemplation” (that are the means of that
erotic desire being propelled toward God) be pushed to one side epistemically. Here we
have a nexus of entangled themes—desire, intimacy, relationship, transformative
practice, knowledge of God, and gender—which urgently require further analytic
explication. Why is it that the woman stars so often as the site of highest intimacy with
the divine in the discourses of analytic philosophy of religion? And what can we
conclude from this about the necessary transformation of existing epistemic categories in
the light of gender analysis, reflection on “practice,” and an acknowledgment of the
centrality of desire for an adequate account of the perception of God?^27 My approach
here, unlike Anderson's, again suggests that analytic philosophy of religion is already
signaling its need of gender analysis if it is even to further its own current projects and
disputed issues. But that is a continuing task, and challenge, for the future.
I have attempted in this chapter to give a detailed account of the two most developed
feminist critiques of analytic philosophy of religion (to date), and to show how their
particular understandings of gender theory and of feminist epistemology fuel the
accounts they give. As we have seen, both their philosophical presumptions and their
pragmatic conclusions are very different from one another, even though they share a
number of central themes and influences, and both claim to be seeking some sort of
bridge between the disciplines of feminism and analytic philosophy. After providing an
appreciative, but critical, account of these first two options, I have suggested a third
alternative set of ploys to effect transformation of gender consciousness in the discourses
of analytic philosophy of religion. In so doing, I have urged—on rather different gender-
theoretical and epistemological grounds—that analytic philosophy of religion may
already be well on the way to undoing its own, and deeply rooted, masculinism. And it is
notable that this undoing is closely related to a critique of foundationalism (in all its
forms), and also, perhaps more surprising, of the neo-Kantian “recession from reality”
stance. As the discipline continues to engage the insights of contemporary continental
philosophy and social theory, and to begin to interact more deeply with current feminist
theory, we may indeed hope for some significant signs of rapprochement and mutual
learning. Perhaps only humility is needed.
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