Abstract

This dissertation focuses on the relationship between man , nature and women . I contend that, through the mediating concept of beauty, Kant associates women with nature. Additionally, Kant's notion of sublimity indicates that nature is inferior to man. If women are associated with nature, and nature is inferior to man, then this would seem to indicate that Kant conceptualizes women as inferior to men. I argue that this is indeed the case, and undertake an ecofeminist analysis of Kant's so-called Copernican view of nature. ;This dissertation contains five chapters. Chapter 1 is a straightforward exegesis of the beauty/sublimity distinction as it appears in both Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime and in the Critique of Judgment. I discuss beauty and sublimity in terms of the four moments of judgment, and develop the similarities as well as the differences between them. Chapter 2 is a comprehensive description of Kant's view of women as it is expressed in works that span his career---from an essay on mechanics written in 1747 to Anthropology From a Pragmatic Point of View . This chapter is structured around three main topics: the female character ; women's civil status; and sex and marriage. In Chapter 3, I consider the implications of Kant's view of women in light of the beauty/sublimity distinction. I claim that according to Kant, women's cognitive limitations seem to preclude both aesthetic experience and moral agency, that Kant does, in fact, associate women with beauty, and so with nature, and that despite Kant's claims, his "universal" accounts of knowledge, morality, and aesthetics are imbued with the particular, empirical assumption of specifically male subjectivity. I conclude this chapter with the assertion that Kant's view of women should be rejected as incompatible with Kant's Critical philosophy. In Chapter 4, I consider the so-called Copernican view of nature that is expressed in the Critical works. I consider each work in turn, and establish the following: in the Critique of Pure Reason , nature is depicted as only existing insofar as it is an object of human experience, is both a product of and exists only in the human mind, and is governed by laws imposed by human understanding; in the Critique of Practical Reason, Kant describes nature as "below" humans , and as lacking moral worth; and in the Critique of Judgment, nature is characterized as having been designed as a means to the end of human pleasure, as insignificant compared to the magnitude and might of human reason, and as teleologically subordinate to the end of human culture. Finally, in Chapter 5, I assess Kant's view of nature from the perspective of ecofeminism. I argue that Kant's Copernican view of nature incorporates normative dualisms which sanction oppression and domination, and that this view of nature is pragmatically untenable. I finish by providing a brief sketch of a more sustainable conception of nature