Literature student here. My professor made it sound so complex and you just did it so smoothly and lucidly that I now understand it. Your students are lucky to have you as their teacher. Been watching your videos for the past couple days since I discovered this channel and I am so glad I did
I had Butler's "performativity" completely wrong, which I also learn here, is a common thing. Thanks for the succint clarifications as to what Butler was really saying. (My son has a class at the local community college and his teacher has not clarified this; perhaps he cannot. My son's class is taking the more "theatrical" understanding; one "performing" ones gender. You made your points clearly, and ths was easy to understand.
As a student of existentialism i was struck by your comments about being and becoming. It is a central idea in existential therapy that we are always in a process of becoming, i'd never come across the connection with Hegel before. Thanks
I think this is the clearest explanation I've ever found! Thank you! In terms of Speech Act theory, I like Searle's classification of illocutionary acts better: - Representatives: assertions. Similar to Austin's constatives, I think - Directives: orders, requests, anything that tries to get someone to do something - Expressives: self explanatory - Commissives: a speech act where the speaker commits themself to doing something in the future - Declaratives: speech acts that bring about the state of affairs which they refer to (marrying someone, baptising someone, firing someone from their job). I think this one corresponds with Austin's performatives.
I really appreciate your presentations, even on subjects I wholeheartedly disagree with. You don't lace your lectures with prescriptive language like many professors.
I don't know how I stumbled into this video...I am not studying philosophy in any way....although I do have my own self-generated philosophies that I ponder on frequently....but what I am amazed at is your incredible oratory skills....the way you speak with utterly clear enunciation and fluidity, no awkward ummms or uhhhs...it is simply amazing what a great speaker you are.
'''She's - simply - the best in this domain. Brilliant'' That's what any gullable imbecile easily impressed by big meaningless words would say! ''Gender is fluid? heteronormativity/ Althusserian hegemony of power'' , don't speak crap, PROVE IT , explain it in non jargon terms if it MEANS SOMETHING.
Being vs Becoming was the argument between Parmanides and Heraklitus. That's when it started, in Greece of course, as usual. Heraclitus was the father of the dialectical schema (διαλεκτικό σχήμα) not Hegel. He called it "Εναντιοδρομία" wich means conflict of directions. Thank you.
As usual everything is attributed to the zGreekd Totally fals history. The dialectic started in the orient , taken over to the Hellenes during the Persian empire. Yes Parmenides and Plato are awsome. This philosophers lost real philosophy as a second rate philosopher came to dominate the west.The Heracltisn dialectic is very elementary , and Parmenides Buddhism is the other side of the coinThe west is too narcissistic to give credit to the black Indians . In the meantime the half hearted study of the dialectic gave us Hegel’ s justification of Nazism and Marx’ s inability to ascertain that alienation is an ontological category thst sees an incarnation in the labor theory of value has also been the cause of Stalinist horror. Butler has a point but she gets ossified in a dialectic where the negation of negation is seen as a necessar positive that differs from the original positvity
This is the standard way Butler is taught in Philosophy (since it's how she was taught to me in my Freshman philosophy course), but after reading her work itself I became immediately aware that yes while she is influenced by Hegel and Phenomenology, Butler is primarily a Lacanian theorist. And I think the reason why most people in philosophy, in gender studies as well don't focus on this is because they don't understand Lacan, and they have a distaste for Freud who a thorough reading of is required for properly understanding Lacanian psychoanalysis. But although, for whatever reason (and I think that reason being that 3rd and 4th wave feminists tend to live in a kind of social-justice fantasyland, and so-called "queer theorists" to an even greater extent) that many feminist and gender studies theorists have rejected Freud, Butler is quite adamant in her interviews that she is committed to a psychoanalytic perspective on these matters even though she is herself critical of it. But I think for Butler, it's really only appropriate to study her after having a good background on Greek philosophy, Nietzsche, Phenomenology, Hegel's thought, a little bit of Kant, a LOT of Freud, and especially, especially Lacan, as well as all the Feminist Lacanian thinkers who came after him whom she frequently references. I mean by all this that she is really only appropriate for Graduate students and maybe some very bright Undergrads in their senior year, the way her thought is taught atm doesn't do justice to her work as a whole.
Butler's 1987 'Subject of Desire - Hegelian Reflections' indicates a deep anchoring in Hegel. If you feel strongly that Lacan is overwhelmingly prominent, can you give a simple direction to the linkage between Lacan and gender performativity?
@@fredwelf8650 The entirety of Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter. Also I didn't say she wasn't a Hegelian, just that she is taught without reference to Lacan/Freud which is the majority of her work.
@@uperdown0 Butler’s “Gender Trouble” is a criticism of compulsive heterosexuality that employs Freud and Lacan, and psychoanalysts and anthropologists, as supporting the feminist themes against compulsory heterosexuality and phallocentrism. I am surprised that Sartre’s strong arguments ‘The Look’ and ‘Bad Faith’ are not included!
@@fredwelf8650 Well, yes, but it's also where she establishes her own metaphysical system. You seem very well-read, but I have to say I've never actually read anything I found compelling by Sartre, I'm not surprised he isn't mentioned.
Love your lectures very much. Could you provide us the further reading list in the description section please. Thank you. And could you please deliver some lectures on late 20 th or 21st century ideas.
This is so amazing. Please don't look at comment section. I know a lot of people from Biology and other branches of science who engages with these arguments carefully.
It's also imperative to note that Austin's speech act theory didn't quite hold up with his initial distinctions between performatives and constatives. Upon reading his book 'How to Do Things with Words,' after a few chapters, he abandons this idea. for butler to adopt an abondoned idea, somehow says it all.
So here is the contradiction between Butler and speech-act theory… the theory underlines that authority is required for performativity to mean anything. Butler says that it exists the moment the words are uttered. But with regards to gender, who has the authority to make such a change. At least one that is not merely mimetic.
Are human "essence" and human "condition" identical concepts? Can "drama" exist without "conflict?" Can the state of something with respect to its appearance be changed, while its inherent qualities, which are abstractions from similarities among particular things, are altered or modified? Are we then reifying the definition of inherent and indispensable in the concept of the essence of a thing?
how you experience yourself, that just sounds like experience. Phenomenology is about how things appear and then attempting to put aside your biases in order to investigate the structures of consciousness.
References about body as a historical idea in Merleau Ponty? The idea that comes from Husserl is the Korper. As I am a spanish speaker we translate Merleau Ponty s concept as "cuerpo propio".
Interesting stuff, thanks for taking the time to do these explanations. It confirmed for me how wrong Butler is - and how absolutely bewildering it is that she has become a kind of Jordan Peterson of the left.
I think 'Being is becoming', may be an implicit assumption of General Semantics. The point for GS being, the challange of using a static language to represent a dynamic reality.
I've not read the book. I get the impression from presentations of the ideas that there's too much focus on the idea of a singular notion of 'woman' or 'man' that arises from the performance, whereas of course particularly in modern societies we constantly move between different contexts such that I don't think we have much in the way of assumptions about gender roles. As for a deeper notion of what constitutes the masculine and feminine, I think a rather absent line of enquiry comes from biology, neurobiology, cognitive science etc.. The notion of social construction seems to me to overplay or prioritise the extent to which social context frames our conceptualisation of things, and underplay the extent to which biology and neurology create the experiential foundation for conceptualisation, and that this overemphasis on the former (for fear of some kind of biological essentialism) is feeding into social justice policies which are too fantastical in their expectations of 'liberation'. Rather than biology being an absolutely rigid determinant, in it there are structures that are stable enough that for practical purposes it makes sense to think of them as foundational... and then less fixed structures which vary more depending on cultural influence etc.. Combined with this there has to be an attempt to account for neurological diversity or neurodivergence, the implication of which is that certain modes of thinking/conceptualisation aren't universal, but for practical purposes it makes no sense to focus too much attention on hypothetical bias of neurological architecture, since there are more tangible problems to deal with. Along with this there has to be an acceptance that the culture at large needs heuristics that make daily life as friction-free as possible.
At 6:19 the conditions for the performative act to work have to be correct. As for example in British law, a marriage has to take place in a an approved location: a church or registry office. Many Moslem marriages take place in hotels or residences. "Many Muslims in the UK have an Islamic religious marriage ceremony - a Nikah - in an unregistered building and do not have an additional civil ceremony. This means that their marriage will not be recognised as being legally valid." 18 Feb 2020 Commonslibrary
I think that a "Marriage" is a legal term, indicating that an actual contract has been signed and acknowledged by the state as so, with all contractual law behind it. A "Wedding" is a social ritual, indicating that the society which the Parties belong to, accept that there is a union between them. Both are important for their specific role in the merger, but neither is essential for cohabitation. As Islam and thus Muslims express the greatest respect for law, both civil and religious, I'm surprised any would refuse to register their merger with the State. When the Marriage certificate is signed in the Registrar's office, the couple are legally "Wed", or merged if you prefer, regardless of where the "Wedding" takes place.
Hi! The text referred to is Butler's 1988 essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory" :) This video was originally created for a class, in which students read and discussed that text
Hi, these videos were originally created for a class that had a syllabus with readings on it. This is Butler's essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution"
Lee's Elucidation: A finite number of words must be made to represent an infinite number of things and possibilities. Language Habits in Human Affairs, Irving J. Lee, 1942. Apropos 'performative'.
I'm a big fan of Judith Butler. Brilliant person. I have some misgivings about Speech Act theory. It feels like a contrivance. Performativity the way I understand it is the natural expression of the embodied being. Prounouncing that someone is now joined is not required for them to be a couple. However, while in their encounter with others they may refer to themselves or as a couple and this is not a pronouncement upon them, but from them. Your videos are great. Thank you.
To paraphrase: "Under the right conditions a performative utterance like a judge declaring man and wife can bring about a new reality." I would submit that 99.9% of the 'work' in bringing about those conditions has already been done by the couple, how much credit can the officiant really claim in 'changing reality' here? Similarly for gender, I would say the heavy lifting in meeting the prerequisite conditions to manifest a gender identity is being done by biological and evolutionary processes. Of course, the waters have been muddied by those simply putting on a gendered affectation then making claims about their biological sex. Any critical examination of this idea is met with brutal condemnation, so I guess this is where the discussion ends.
To the extent that "marriage" is distinct from "being together", what the judge says makes all the difference in the world. Regardless, whether or not gender is mostly reducible to biology is not settled or even helped by the fact that claiming so "is met with brutal condemnation". You're free to have that conviction, but if you're going to take the controversy around it as some sort of sign that you must be in proximity of a "hard truth" you're operating at a pretty superficial level.
@@chuckles9767 Biology as a field of research is also part of the social. Scientists are society members, science is not outside of society and psychology. Thus, sex is also psychological and social, sex is always already gender because gender precedes sex.
4:10 Philosophy of Language boring?!? Sacrilege! Also, I never really thought of performative utterances primarily as philosophy of Language, but instead as Linguistic Pragmatics! Granted, my personal ontology has Linguistics (and all of Science) contained within philosophy, soo pretty synonymous.
She has to make little digs when it comes to Austin because he's analytic, not continental. It's a philosophical past-time for the two traditions to snark each other.
Sex and behaviour are highly correlated. For men testes produce testosterone and behaviour. Butler has causation the wrong way around. Thinks that behaviour causes testosterone and sex.
In the further thoughts department...Extremely clear and cogent. Thank you once again. I cannot help but conclude Butler cobbled together cherry picked ideas from Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, speech act theory, and cobbled them such that they "proved" what she'd set out to "prove." In quotidian life, children are having mental health crises because they can't decide what gender they are. Young people have their genetalia removed, breast tissue removed, forearm fat shaped like a penis, and then undergo gender "affirming" surgery that permanently mutilates their bodies. This kind of surgical malpractice is legitimated in part by the - gender-as-performance theory that does not prove viable in living life. After all, "man" does have an "essence." He can't be anything he imagines he is. To say otherwise is gnostism.
Great video! But I guess the idea 'this isn't a doer behind the doing' is hard for most people to understand is just all originated from the structuralism fashion, and the history of philosophy in general (in against humanism etc.) this minor idea is of no significance to people outside the academics, I think, though it's where Butler got her theory popularized.
It’s interesting how at 6 mins in the video, you use the example of a wedding performative utterance of ‘man and wife’. Performative in itself? You’re not ‘just in your office’ (6.30) but producing media. Or a Freudian slip (ergo husband and wife)
In common usage now, 2024, say eg. a public figure does something & a commentator says "its performative", if basically means the opposite of what you're describing as the (original) definition ... so I wonder what value the word has any more for academic & philosophical purposes? And even in in common use -- no other option but to let it mean theatre, more like showy/pretentious/phony in it's effect, with that dimension of 'for an audience'.
I can't help imagining that your original philosopher of language acts JL Austin might have been noticing & thinking of Amateur Dramatics and the difference between language that says things or does things - and how the word meanings and what it does to the 'state of play' between humans could be teased out. ... So then... tracing how this current use grabs the more handy & 'obvious' theatre-meaning of performance (presumably fueled by social media conversations more than philosophers ones) is an amusing metamorphosis. Is this whole thing archeology now? But what word/s can we use for the original meaning? Is/was Judith Butler 😤/🤨/😏 ? I wonder if these days English is more than other languages cursed by these flips & twists in etymology What would Foucault do? 💭
I am curious if Butler tried to look at this from the perspective of science. Because to me its pointless to imagine human behavior outside our biological imperatives.
Did I understand correctly that every person is endowed with the authority to declare themselves a man or a woman by uttering performatives? Rather, it seems that society forces them to play their gender precisely in a theatrical sense, distributing roles in accordance with their biological sex.
As a literature professor, Butler is not qualified to speak with expertise on issues pertaining to biology, psychology, and sociology. She is a flim flam artist (just like Derrida was).
These philosophical theorists are all detached from biological reality. Gender expression is certainly influenced by changes in culture and history, but our genetic makeup, which shapes the brain (and thus behavior) as well as the rest of the body, remains largely constant, changing VERY slowly over geologic time spans.
Shame that actual human biology and actual sex differences do not seem to bother post-materialist Butler. The inability to accept that both biology and culture (i.e. objective reality, the psychological impacts of that reality and the cultural interpretation of that reality) lead to the meaning in society of man and woman is the fundamental flaw of gender studies as it remains within the post-materialist space. It would benefit so much with actually engaging with historical materialism as much of what passes for critical theory would.
@@00Platypus00 So it teaches that humanity is a sexually dimorphic species, and as with all mammals sex cannot be changed as it is a physical reality (i.e. Y chromosome or not Y), and that male and female differ significantly in many physical aspects including biochemically?
@@00Platypus00 ''Gender studies do not neglect "biology". You are wrong.'' It's more convincing if you type ''NO, UR WRONG, trnswomen are w0-MEN REEEEEE'' and then not giving any argument, perhaps yell 'fascist'' too, that's a neat trick.
@@thedualtransition6070 That is the function of biology to explain. Gender relates to socialization and its *interaction* with biological sex, and how different societies have different conventions and standards to gender. It turns out gender and sex are different things, mate.
There is a LOT of pretentious twaddle in Butler's philosophy. I'm currently going back through the canon so I have a decent enough command of Hegel, Marx, phenomoneology, Freud, and modern analytic philosophy to be able to understand what people like her are distorting. Given their penchant to use a page where a sentence will do, I think I'm going to be annoyed.
Butlers use of performance meaning speech acts and or using culture to say/perform gender just seems nebulous about what ‘really’ goes on. One important part of speech is it’s realism function. So a person says I’m a woman. The words don’t make her a woman. If the person speaks unrealistically then the performance is nil. The presumption of social performance is the reality of shared meaning. So sometimes a fool doctor assigns gender in an ambiguous body. That seems like a performance of a specific gender which the abused person denies. The speech act is not realistic, but also not performative in that the gender choice by the doctor is spoken but fails to create a reality. Butlers’ theorizing seems to reject the reality function of language.
"One important part of speech is it’s realism function" You're entire line of reasoning rests on this assumption, which you fail to justify, let alone explain (what is a "realism function"?).
@@fede2 thanks for question. For example if someone says to me is that water in the well I can drink, and I say yes that is true, that is a realism function. Language performs realism roles in our lives, otherwise why bother using it?
@@doylesaylor Partly, but it doesn't follow from that that it's its only role or its most important one. Seems like the assumption here is that the meanging of all possible experience is relatively unambiguous and passively waiting for its proper designation, which needs to be addressed.
@@fede2 thanks again, if not realism one might say antirealism has a role to play in language. Antirealism might be lying, but Antirealism might be simply abstract with no quality of real. The problem of course is why would humans engage in using Antirealism? Besides that, language matters in exchange or connecting people. Connectivity can’t be performed in language if the language has nil meaning.
@@doylesaylor I'm not required to deny the possibility of meaning to challenge your "realism". It takes for granted that meaning is purely given as opposed to constituted and that it's mostly unambiguous and non-problematic to boot. You're free to defend this position but, again, you're just taking it for granted.
If the starting point and the basis of a philosophy is flawed then the rest may follow good logic but the conclusions will likely be flawed. One is not born but becomes a woman has logic in that a female is obviously the finished article at birth, but Butler's apparent assumption that the biological fact of being born female does not of itself have important and significant effect on developing performativity is flawed and renders her work, maybe not worthless, but of limited value.
"One is not born but becomes a woman has logic in that a female is obviously the finished article at birth..." To the extent that "woman" and "female" are not synonymous, this is just not true. Further, the concept of "female" as a unitary biological given is not free of complexity.
Everyone should watch "What is a Woman" - by Matt Walsh It's funny to watch these people fall over themselves when their shallow ideas are challenged. It's a funny movie to watch, it's available online for free. They speak so confidently until you analyze their bad ideas. They've never been challenged.... Once you challenge them they'll fall back on insults, walking away/disengaging with the conversation, or using victim hierarchy cries for attention. These people truly are NPC's.... they are all the same, they repeat the same lines, they use the same defense mechanisms when challenged. If they left for Mars tomorrow no one would notice.... that's how dumb these ideas are. If everyone in the hard sciences left, we'd freak tf out lmao that's the difference
Sorry, but it does not matter what I do, or what people do in interaction with me, I will still be a man. Put in other terms, I will keep becoming a man.
@@fede2 The central hegelian idea of being is becoming is exactly what I am adressing. It's a radical idea of freedom to change our historical circumstances, which is alluring, but mostly understood by wise people to be a prepubescent idea.
@@z0uLess True enough, but that's because your original statement is just that, a statement. I can't argue with you if you don't make an argument to begin with.
Very intresting. But man and woman are pre-determined by non-human agency before birth and constitue the formal aspect of which the body is the necessary material aspect. And the composite of form and matter was called soul. Self-determination is the attempt to fullfill the already given nature. So a man becomes a great man by perfecting the individual "gifts"( the pre-existing traits potentials, like certain disposition) offered; am I intellectually bend and will have more success in this field then an MMA ring or basketball ( both of which require a strong physical disposition). My vocation will have to reflect my nature. My cousin on the other hand is suitable for competing in high jump competitions and is very tall-he's also very smart ( not like this, I mean through reading or watching videos like this, but in the sense of being crafty and practical). There is a transgender woman in my class, she/he still writes her orginal name( which performs a masculine essence) alongside her new name. I think these people are soft and very sensitive, and seem sentimental about these things. And these things have to be shown them via the appropriate channels in society, like by their parents or friends. And with respect to societal measures that needs to be taken, thet can only be expected to take place incrementally otherwise it will be "revolutionary", and revolutions simply destroy too
sex and gender are not the same. For example, girls being thought of as liking dolls and boys liking cars is not genetic lol, it's a societal performance
Oh man, how did I get duped into GENDER theory. First and the last time I listen to this woman (and yes, I listened to all of it-without stabbing out my own eyes). For that, I know I deserve a medal.
@@bearsaremonkeys No, it's genetic. Cross culturally, male boys always prefer cars for example. In fact, in egalitarian societies like Scandinavia where females can be anything they choose, this trait is even MORE pronounced. Moral, aesthetic and cultural relativism aka post-modernism: is the intellectual cancer of the West.
You perform all the time for every cell in your body. You eat, sleep, "fall in love" (procreate). You only think you are doing it. Your body is running the show. Your psychology is recapitulating what you cells are doing chemically: sustain integrity and reproduce. Everthing else is just for show.
? This is incorrect. Husserl was Jewish, and was ousted from his university position and prohibited from publishing with the rise of the Nazi party. You may be thinking of Heidegger.
Pronouncing someone man and wife and other "performative" should be left out of Philosophy and kept in the legal space. All of these Marxist spins on learning are ridiculous. Legal Studies, Black Studies, Fat Studies, etc... These are all areas of the shallow pool for people who want to feel intelligent by expanding on broad pools of unintelligent work that relies on citations from other bad ideas. If we had a free market school system no one would attend any of these classes.... they benefit from the fact that the government got involved using socialist policies for our mixed economy which is why college is so expensive to begin with. So it's socialist policies creating problems that are being complained about by Socialist who benefit from low IQ propaganda in classrooms due to the Socialist system in place :)
In what way is Butler's interpretation of Speech Act Theory "Marxist"? You sound incredibly condescending yet you don't seem to have a clear grasp on the ideas you are making claims about.
You just demonstrated that you neither have a basic understanding of Marxism, socialism nor education, yet think you're qualified to make general claims about it. Amazing.
@@geronimo8159 I think that any perspective on socialism, education and Marxism should consider comparing private schools, at all levels, to public schools (using the US form) and coming to a conclusion about why only some students excel - at both types of institutions. In this sense of only a fraction benefitting by getting a college degree and therefore a higher income, does not negate that everyone learns to read, write and figure to a functional extent. The problem is that education is not really embodied by the majority who are paranoid about the effect of reading, of books. The ideology related to education, like performing gender, is structural - the reasons for the institution go beyond individual achievement - while some people reflect and try to self-actualize.
Literature student here. My professor made it sound so complex and you just did it so smoothly and lucidly that I now understand it. Your students are lucky to have you as their teacher. Been watching your videos for the past couple days since I discovered this channel and I am so glad I did
I had Butler's "performativity" completely wrong, which I also learn here, is a common thing. Thanks for the succint clarifications as to what Butler was really saying. (My son has a class at the local community college and his teacher has not clarified this; perhaps he cannot. My son's class is taking the more "theatrical" understanding; one "performing" ones gender. You made your points clearly, and ths was easy to understand.
Extremely informative while you kept the language of the talk simple. Absolutely loved this talk. Thank you.
As a student of existentialism i was struck by your comments about being and becoming. It is a central idea in existential therapy that we are always in a process of becoming, i'd never come across the connection with Hegel before. Thanks
I think this is the clearest explanation I've ever found! Thank you!
In terms of Speech Act theory, I like Searle's classification of illocutionary acts better:
- Representatives: assertions. Similar to Austin's constatives, I think
- Directives: orders, requests, anything that tries to get someone to do something
- Expressives: self explanatory
- Commissives: a speech act where the speaker commits themself to doing something in the future
- Declaratives: speech acts that bring about the state of affairs which they refer to (marrying someone, baptising someone, firing someone from their job). I think this one corresponds with Austin's performatives.
Thanks so much for this explication of Butler and her philosophical roots. Nothing said here is not relevant nor boring. Another sterling podcast.
I really appreciate your presentations, even on subjects I wholeheartedly disagree with. You don't lace your lectures with prescriptive language like many professors.
I don't know how I stumbled into this video...I am not studying philosophy in any way....although I do have my own self-generated philosophies that I ponder on frequently....but what I am amazed at is your incredible oratory skills....the way you speak with utterly clear enunciation and fluidity, no awkward ummms or uhhhs...it is simply amazing what a great speaker you are.
Ummm, ahh, hmmm, well we have to take note of all the times a vlogger cuts segments with an obvious jaggedness in the video. Watch again.
Simp
So glad I discovered this. RUclips can be intelligent thanks to you.
😂
She's - simply - the best in this domain. Brilliant
'''She's - simply - the best in this domain. Brilliant''
That's what any gullable imbecile easily impressed by big meaningless words would say! ''Gender is fluid? heteronormativity/ Althusserian hegemony of power'' , don't speak crap, PROVE IT , explain it in non jargon terms if it MEANS SOMETHING.
Thanks for clarifying 'performative' is derived from Speech Act Theory [ John Searle ] which was Never Boring!!!
Thank you, thank you, thank you for this. I'm 9 months late, but this was the lecture I needed today.
Being vs Becoming was the argument between Parmanides and Heraklitus. That's when it started, in Greece of course, as usual. Heraclitus was the father of the dialectical schema (διαλεκτικό σχήμα) not Hegel. He called it "Εναντιοδρομία" wich means conflict of directions. Thank you.
Butler herself makes many references to the greek philosophical tradition, as well as phenomenology or psychoanalysis.
@@pedrova8058 It's a very nice podcast. She simplifies the meanings. The enlightenment started in ancient Greece. Thank you.
@@Ganja64 die hard greek fans be like
As usual everything is attributed to the zGreekd Totally fals history. The dialectic started in the orient , taken over to the Hellenes during the Persian empire. Yes Parmenides and Plato are awsome. This philosophers lost real philosophy as a second rate philosopher came to dominate the west.The Heracltisn dialectic is very elementary , and Parmenides Buddhism is the other side of the coinThe west is too narcissistic to give credit to the black Indians . In the meantime the half hearted study of the dialectic gave us Hegel’ s justification of Nazism and Marx’ s inability to ascertain that alienation is an ontological category thst sees an incarnation in the labor theory of value has also been the cause of Stalinist horror. Butler has a point but she gets ossified in a dialectic where the negation of negation is seen as a necessar positive that differs from the original positvity
This is one great teacher/lecturer.
This is the standard way Butler is taught in Philosophy (since it's how she was taught to me in my Freshman philosophy course), but after reading her work itself I became immediately aware that yes while she is influenced by Hegel and Phenomenology, Butler is primarily a Lacanian theorist. And I think the reason why most people in philosophy, in gender studies as well don't focus on this is because they don't understand Lacan, and they have a distaste for Freud who a thorough reading of is required for properly understanding Lacanian psychoanalysis. But although, for whatever reason (and I think that reason being that 3rd and 4th wave feminists tend to live in a kind of social-justice fantasyland, and so-called "queer theorists" to an even greater extent) that many feminist and gender studies theorists have rejected Freud, Butler is quite adamant in her interviews that she is committed to a psychoanalytic perspective on these matters even though she is herself critical of it. But I think for Butler, it's really only appropriate to study her after having a good background on Greek philosophy, Nietzsche, Phenomenology, Hegel's thought, a little bit of Kant, a LOT of Freud, and especially, especially Lacan, as well as all the Feminist Lacanian thinkers who came after him whom she frequently references. I mean by all this that she is really only appropriate for Graduate students and maybe some very bright Undergrads in their senior year, the way her thought is taught atm doesn't do justice to her work as a whole.
Butler's 1987 'Subject of Desire - Hegelian Reflections' indicates a deep anchoring in Hegel. If you feel strongly that Lacan is overwhelmingly prominent, can you give a simple direction to the linkage between Lacan and gender performativity?
@@fredwelf8650 The entirety of Gender Trouble and Bodies that Matter. Also I didn't say she wasn't a Hegelian, just that she is taught without reference to Lacan/Freud which is the majority of her work.
@@uperdown0 Butler’s “Gender Trouble” is a criticism of compulsive heterosexuality that employs Freud and Lacan, and psychoanalysts and anthropologists, as supporting the feminist themes against compulsory heterosexuality and phallocentrism. I am surprised that Sartre’s strong arguments ‘The Look’ and ‘Bad Faith’ are not included!
@@fredwelf8650 Well, yes, but it's also where she establishes her own metaphysical system. You seem very well-read, but I have to say I've never actually read anything I found compelling by Sartre, I'm not surprised he isn't mentioned.
@@uperdown0 Then you haven’t read Sartre.
Love your lectures very much. Could you provide us the further reading list in the description section please.
Thank you.
And could you please deliver some lectures on late 20 th or 21st century ideas.
This is so amazing. Please don't look at comment section. I know a lot of people from Biology and other branches of science who engages with these arguments carefully.
Lol
It's also imperative to note that Austin's speech act theory didn't quite hold up with his initial distinctions between performatives and constatives. Upon reading his book 'How to Do Things with Words,' after a few chapters, he abandons this idea. for butler to adopt an abondoned idea, somehow says it all.
So here is the contradiction between Butler and speech-act theory… the theory underlines that authority is required for performativity to mean anything. Butler says that it exists the moment the words are uttered. But with regards to gender, who has the authority to make such a change. At least one that is not merely mimetic.
Awesome! It really helped me understand Butler's thinking
Are human "essence" and human "condition" identical concepts? Can "drama" exist without "conflict?" Can the state of something with respect to its appearance be changed, while its inherent qualities, which are abstractions from similarities among particular things, are altered or modified? Are we then reifying the definition of inherent and indispensable in the concept of the essence of a thing?
This is awesome. I finally understand the philosophical roots of the idea that one can become another sex.
how you experience yourself, that just sounds like experience. Phenomenology is about how things appear and then attempting to put aside your biases in order to investigate the structures of consciousness.
Thanks for the lucid explanation of Butler's theory. I reject most of it, but at least I better understand it now.
References about body as a historical idea in Merleau Ponty? The idea that comes from Husserl is the Korper. As I am a spanish speaker we translate Merleau Ponty s concept as "cuerpo propio".
Interesting stuff, thanks for taking the time to do these explanations. It confirmed for me how wrong Butler is - and how absolutely bewildering it is that she has become a kind of Jordan Peterson of the left.
I think 'Being is becoming', may be an implicit assumption of General Semantics. The point for GS being, the challange of using a static language to represent a dynamic reality.
I've not read the book. I get the impression from presentations of the ideas that there's too much focus on the idea of a singular notion of 'woman' or 'man' that arises from the performance, whereas of course particularly in modern societies we constantly move between different contexts such that I don't think we have much in the way of assumptions about gender roles. As for a deeper notion of what constitutes the masculine and feminine, I think a rather absent line of enquiry comes from biology, neurobiology, cognitive science etc.. The notion of social construction seems to me to overplay or prioritise the extent to which social context frames our conceptualisation of things, and underplay the extent to which biology and neurology create the experiential foundation for conceptualisation, and that this overemphasis on the former (for fear of some kind of biological essentialism) is feeding into social justice policies which are too fantastical in their expectations of 'liberation'. Rather than biology being an absolutely rigid determinant, in it there are structures that are stable enough that for practical purposes it makes sense to think of them as foundational... and then less fixed structures which vary more depending on cultural influence etc.. Combined with this there has to be an attempt to account for neurological diversity or neurodivergence, the implication of which is that certain modes of thinking/conceptualisation aren't universal, but for practical purposes it makes no sense to focus too much attention on hypothetical bias of neurological architecture, since there are more tangible problems to deal with. Along with this there has to be an acceptance that the culture at large needs heuristics that make daily life as friction-free as possible.
If you take neuro sciences and cognitive psychology probably the whole gender theory falls apart.
Your channel is a gem.
At 6:19 the conditions for the performative act to work have to be correct. As for example in British law, a marriage has to take place in a an approved location: a church or registry office. Many Moslem marriages take place in hotels or residences.
"Many Muslims in the UK have an Islamic religious marriage ceremony - a Nikah - in an unregistered building and do not have an additional civil ceremony. This means that their marriage will not be recognised as being legally valid."
18 Feb 2020 Commonslibrary
I think that a "Marriage" is a legal term, indicating that an actual contract has been signed and acknowledged by the state as so, with all contractual law behind it. A "Wedding" is a social ritual, indicating that the society which the Parties belong to, accept that there is a union between them. Both are important for their specific role in the merger, but neither is essential for cohabitation. As Islam and thus Muslims express the greatest respect for law, both civil and religious, I'm surprised any would refuse to register their merger with the State. When the Marriage certificate is signed in the Registrar's office, the couple are legally "Wed", or merged if you prefer, regardless of where the "Wedding" takes place.
It was not clear what text was being quoted on pages 521, and later 502. It was not Butler's Gender Trouble which is only pages.
Hi! The text referred to is Butler's 1988 essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution: An Essay in Phenomenology and Feminist Theory" :) This video was originally created for a class, in which students read and discussed that text
An incredible intervention
What is the text you are using? If you don't tell us the text as well as the edition, we can't follow along when you cite a specific page number.
Hi, these videos were originally created for a class that had a syllabus with readings on it. This is Butler's essay "Performative Acts and Gender Constitution"
Lee's Elucidation: A finite number of words must be made to represent an infinite number of things and possibilities. Language Habits in Human Affairs, Irving J. Lee, 1942. Apropos 'performative'.
I'm a big fan of Judith Butler. Brilliant person.
I have some misgivings about Speech Act theory. It feels like a contrivance. Performativity the way I understand it is the natural expression of the embodied being.
Prounouncing that someone is now joined is not required for them to be a couple. However, while in their encounter with others they may refer to themselves or as a couple and this is not a pronouncement upon them, but from them.
Your videos are great. Thank you.
Great explanation!
To paraphrase: "Under the right conditions a performative utterance like a judge declaring man and wife can bring about a new reality." I would submit that 99.9% of the 'work' in bringing about those conditions has already been done by the couple, how much credit can the officiant really claim in 'changing reality' here?
Similarly for gender, I would say the heavy lifting in meeting the prerequisite conditions to manifest a gender identity is being done by biological and evolutionary processes. Of course, the waters have been muddied by those simply putting on a gendered affectation then making claims about their biological sex. Any critical examination of this idea is met with brutal condemnation, so I guess this is where the discussion ends.
To the extent that "marriage" is distinct from "being together", what the judge says makes all the difference in the world.
Regardless, whether or not gender is mostly reducible to biology is not settled or even helped by the fact that claiming so "is met with brutal condemnation". You're free to have that conviction, but if you're going to take the controversy around it as some sort of sign that you must be in proximity of a "hard truth" you're operating at a pretty superficial level.
How are things like saying "I am a woman", changing our embodiment, our way of being in the world... NOT changing reality?
@@chuckles9767 so our thoughts aren't a part of reality? also, you can change your biology.
@@chuckles9767 Biology as a field of research is also part of the social. Scientists are society members, science is not outside of society and psychology. Thus, sex is also psychological and social, sex is always already gender because gender precedes sex.
@@chuckles9767 a rock is social though
Thank you!
4:10 Philosophy of Language boring?!? Sacrilege!
Also, I never really thought of performative utterances primarily as philosophy of Language, but instead as Linguistic Pragmatics! Granted, my personal ontology has Linguistics (and all of Science) contained within philosophy, soo pretty synonymous.
She has to make little digs when it comes to Austin because he's analytic, not continental. It's a philosophical past-time for the two traditions to snark each other.
Sex and behaviour are highly
correlated.
For men testes produce testosterone and behaviour.
Butler has causation the wrong way around. Thinks that behaviour causes testosterone and sex.
In the further thoughts department...Extremely clear and cogent. Thank you once again. I cannot help but conclude Butler cobbled together cherry picked ideas from Hegel, Merleau-Ponty, speech act theory, and cobbled them such that they "proved" what she'd set out to "prove." In quotidian life, children are having mental health crises because they can't decide what gender they are. Young people have their genetalia removed, breast tissue removed, forearm fat shaped like a penis, and then undergo gender "affirming" surgery that permanently mutilates their bodies. This kind of surgical malpractice is legitimated in part by the - gender-as-performance theory that does not prove viable in living life. After all, "man" does have an "essence." He can't be anything he imagines he is. To say otherwise is gnostism.
very interesting, thanks
Has anyone attemp to critizice gender theory through the lens of neuro sciences and cognitive psychology?.
Great video! But I guess the idea 'this isn't a doer behind the doing' is hard for most people to understand is just all originated from the structuralism fashion, and the history of philosophy in general (in against humanism etc.) this minor idea is of no significance to people outside the academics, I think, though it's where Butler got her theory popularized.
subverting the negative
sublimating the opposite
juxtaposing the real
#philosophy101
It’s interesting how at 6 mins in the video, you use the example of a wedding performative utterance of ‘man and wife’. Performative in itself? You’re not ‘just in your office’ (6.30) but producing media. Or a Freudian slip (ergo husband and wife)
In common usage now, 2024, say eg. a public figure does something & a commentator says "its performative", if basically means the opposite of what you're describing as the (original) definition ... so I wonder what value the word has any more for academic & philosophical purposes? And even in in common use -- no other option but to let it mean theatre, more like showy/pretentious/phony in it's effect, with that dimension of 'for an audience'.
I can't help imagining that your original philosopher of language acts JL Austin might have been noticing & thinking of Amateur Dramatics and the difference between language that says things or does things - and how the word meanings and what it does to the 'state of play' between humans could be teased out.
...
So then... tracing how this current use grabs the more handy & 'obvious' theatre-meaning of performance (presumably fueled by social media conversations more than philosophers ones) is an amusing metamorphosis.
Is this whole thing archeology now?
But what word/s can we use for the original meaning?
Is/was Judith Butler 😤/🤨/😏 ?
I wonder if these days English is more than other languages cursed by these flips & twists in etymology
What would Foucault do? 💭
I am curious if Butler tried to look at this from the perspective of science. Because to me its pointless to imagine human behavior outside our biological imperatives.
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Did I understand correctly that every person is endowed with the authority to declare themselves a man or a woman by uttering performatives? Rather, it seems that society forces them to play their gender precisely in a theatrical sense, distributing roles in accordance with their biological sex.
🌷😇🌷
As a literature professor, Butler is not qualified to speak with expertise on issues pertaining to biology, psychology, and sociology. She is a flim flam artist (just like Derrida was).
Oh, GOD. Derrida is so exhausting.
These philosophical theorists are all detached from biological reality. Gender expression is certainly influenced by changes in culture and history, but our genetic makeup, which shapes the brain (and thus behavior) as well as the rest of the body, remains largely constant, changing VERY slowly over geologic time spans.
Great explanation! (But Butler is still wrong, of course XD)
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💁♂
Shame that actual human biology and actual sex differences do not seem to bother post-materialist Butler. The inability to accept that both biology and culture (i.e. objective reality, the psychological impacts of that reality and the cultural interpretation of that reality) lead to the meaning in society of man and woman is the fundamental flaw of gender studies as it remains within the post-materialist space. It would benefit so much with actually engaging with historical materialism as much of what passes for critical theory would.
Gender studies do not neglect "biology". You are wrong.
@@00Platypus00 So it teaches that humanity is a sexually dimorphic species, and as with all mammals sex cannot be changed as it is a physical reality (i.e. Y chromosome or not Y), and that male and female differ significantly in many physical aspects including biochemically?
@@00Platypus00
''Gender studies do not neglect "biology". You are wrong.''
It's more convincing if you type ''NO, UR WRONG, trnswomen are w0-MEN REEEEEE'' and then not giving any argument, perhaps yell 'fascist'' too, that's a neat trick.
@@rocksparadox ...what?
@@thedualtransition6070 That is the function of biology to explain. Gender relates to socialization and its *interaction* with biological sex, and how different societies have different conventions and standards to gender. It turns out gender and sex are different things, mate.
So complex and esoteric as to mean nothing practically
There is a LOT of pretentious twaddle in Butler's philosophy. I'm currently going back through the canon so I have a decent enough command of Hegel, Marx, phenomoneology, Freud, and modern analytic philosophy to be able to understand what people like her are distorting. Given their penchant to use a page where a sentence will do, I think I'm going to be annoyed.
Butlers use of performance meaning speech acts and or using culture to say/perform gender just seems nebulous about what ‘really’ goes on. One important part of speech is it’s realism function. So a person says I’m a woman. The words don’t make her a woman. If the person speaks unrealistically then the performance is nil. The presumption of social performance is the reality of shared meaning. So sometimes a fool doctor assigns gender in an ambiguous body. That seems like a performance of a specific gender which the abused person denies. The speech act is not realistic, but also not performative in that the gender choice by the doctor is spoken but fails to create a reality. Butlers’ theorizing seems to reject the reality function of language.
"One important part of speech is it’s realism function" You're entire line of reasoning rests on this assumption, which you fail to justify, let alone explain (what is a "realism function"?).
@@fede2 thanks for question. For example if someone says to me is that water in the well I can drink, and I say yes that is true, that is a realism function. Language performs realism roles in our lives, otherwise why bother using it?
@@doylesaylor Partly, but it doesn't follow from that that it's its only role or its most important one. Seems like the assumption here is that the meanging of all possible experience is relatively unambiguous and passively waiting for its proper designation, which needs to be addressed.
@@fede2 thanks again, if not realism one might say antirealism has a role to play in language. Antirealism might be lying, but Antirealism might be simply abstract with no quality of real. The problem of course is why would humans engage in using Antirealism? Besides that, language matters in exchange or connecting people. Connectivity can’t be performed in language if the language has nil meaning.
@@doylesaylor I'm not required to deny the possibility of meaning to challenge your "realism". It takes for granted that meaning is purely given as opposed to constituted and that it's mostly unambiguous and non-problematic to boot. You're free to defend this position but, again, you're just taking it for granted.
Get Chris langen on the show!
If the starting point and the basis of a philosophy is flawed then the rest may follow good logic but the conclusions will likely be flawed. One is not born but becomes a woman has logic in that a female is obviously the finished article at birth, but Butler's apparent assumption that the biological fact of being born female does not of itself have important and significant effect on developing performativity is flawed and renders her work, maybe not worthless, but of limited value.
It's worthless
"One is not born but becomes a woman has logic in that a female is obviously the finished article at birth..." To the extent that "woman" and "female" are not synonymous, this is just not true. Further, the concept of "female" as a unitary biological given is not free of complexity.
Everyone should watch "What is a Woman" - by Matt Walsh
It's funny to watch these people fall over themselves when their shallow ideas are challenged.
It's a funny movie to watch, it's available online for free.
They speak so confidently until you analyze their bad ideas.
They've never been challenged....
Once you challenge them they'll fall back on insults, walking away/disengaging with the conversation, or using victim hierarchy cries for attention.
These people truly are NPC's.... they are all the same, they repeat the same lines, they use the same defense mechanisms when challenged.
If they left for Mars tomorrow no one would notice.... that's how dumb these ideas are.
If everyone in the hard sciences left, we'd freak tf out lmao that's the difference
Its from the Daily Wire, what do you expect x'D
Indeed
Sorry, but it does not matter what I do, or what people do in interaction with me, I will still be a man. Put in other terms, I will keep becoming a man.
You haven't addressed anything discussed in the video.
@@fede2 The central hegelian idea of being is becoming is exactly what I am adressing. It's a radical idea of freedom to change our historical circumstances, which is alluring, but mostly understood by wise people to be a prepubescent idea.
@@z0uLess And I guess we're just taking for granted that 1) this can only be understood in hegelian terms and 2) that it's incorrect. How substantial.
@@fede2 You are not making an argument, only scoffing at my original statement.
@@z0uLess True enough, but that's because your original statement is just that, a statement. I can't argue with you if you don't make an argument to begin with.
Very intresting. But man and woman are pre-determined by non-human agency before birth and constitue the formal aspect of which the body is the necessary material aspect. And the composite of form and matter was called soul. Self-determination is the attempt to fullfill the already given nature. So a man becomes a great man by perfecting the individual "gifts"( the pre-existing traits potentials, like certain disposition) offered; am I intellectually bend and will have more success in this field then an MMA ring or basketball ( both of which require a strong physical disposition). My vocation will have to reflect my nature. My cousin on the other hand is suitable for competing in high jump competitions and is very tall-he's also very smart ( not like this, I mean through reading or watching videos like this, but in the sense of being crafty and practical).
There is a transgender woman in my class, she/he still writes her orginal name( which performs a masculine essence) alongside her new name. I think these people are soft and very sensitive, and seem sentimental about these things. And these things have to be shown them via the appropriate channels in society, like by their parents or friends. And with respect to societal measures that needs to be taken, thet can only be expected to take place incrementally otherwise it will be "revolutionary", and revolutions simply destroy too
gender is written into every cell genetically, how can it be performative ?
sex and gender are not the same. For example, girls being thought of as liking dolls and boys liking cars is not genetic lol, it's a societal performance
@@bearsaremonkeys the example you give is genetic, you are the victim of a dated ideology
Oh man, how did I get duped into GENDER theory. First and the last time I listen to this woman (and yes, I listened to all of it-without stabbing out my own eyes). For that, I know I deserve a medal.
@@bearsaremonkeys No, it's genetic. Cross culturally, male boys always prefer cars for example. In fact, in egalitarian societies like Scandinavia where females can be anything they choose, this trait is even MORE pronounced. Moral, aesthetic and cultural relativism aka post-modernism: is the intellectual cancer of the West.
You perform all the time for every cell in your body. You eat, sleep, "fall in love" (procreate). You only think you are doing it. Your body is running the show. Your psychology is recapitulating what you cells are doing chemically: sustain integrity and reproduce. Everthing else is just for show.
Great class, weak theory.
Yeah but Husserl was a Nazi 😅
? This is incorrect. Husserl was Jewish, and was ousted from his university position and prohibited from publishing with the rise of the Nazi party. You may be thinking of Heidegger.
well that explains why I failed that philosophy class
Hey guys, just so you know Butler uses they/them pronouns, please don't misgender them!
😂
Pronouncing someone man and wife and other "performative" should be left out of Philosophy and kept in the legal space.
All of these Marxist spins on learning are ridiculous.
Legal Studies, Black Studies, Fat Studies, etc...
These are all areas of the shallow pool for people who want to feel intelligent by expanding on broad pools of unintelligent work that relies on citations from other bad ideas.
If we had a free market school system no one would attend any of these classes.... they benefit from the fact that the government got involved using socialist policies for our mixed economy which is why college is so expensive to begin with.
So it's socialist policies creating problems that are being complained about by Socialist who benefit from low IQ propaganda in classrooms due to the Socialist system in place :)
In what way is Butler's interpretation of Speech Act Theory "Marxist"? You sound incredibly condescending yet you don't seem to have a clear grasp on the ideas you are making claims about.
Project harder, my guy.
You just demonstrated that you neither have a basic understanding of Marxism, socialism nor education, yet think you're qualified to make general claims about it. Amazing.
@@geronimo8159 I think that any perspective on socialism, education and Marxism should consider comparing private schools, at all levels, to public schools (using the US form) and coming to a conclusion about why only some students excel - at both types of institutions. In this sense of only a fraction benefitting by getting a college degree and therefore a higher income, does not negate that everyone learns to read, write and figure to a functional extent. The problem is that education is not really embodied by the majority who are paranoid about the effect of reading, of books. The ideology related to education, like performing gender, is structural - the reasons for the institution go beyond individual achievement - while some people reflect and try to self-actualize.
lololol "What is a ""philosophy""?"