Abstract

Philosophers are often rude about each other, but their rudeness tends to be off the record, anonymous or sneaked in under the bloodless academic lexicon of ‘the worry’, ‘the concern’ and ‘the potential limitation’. But Lorna Finlayson’s rudeness comes with no softening frills: against her tailored prose, her insults pop. They make for quite a treat: desert landscapes may be all very well, but there is no need for philosophical writing to share their wearying climate. Introductory texts — and this is an introductory text — must avoid being dry if they are to do any good at all, but this book does more than merely avoid dryness: it irrigates vast strips of feminist terrain that are often left untended, and shows the reader what might be done, with a little careful work. Finlayson is explicit that she conceives of her book as a corrective. Contemporary feminist political philosophy, like...