Cognition and Eros: A Critique of the Kantian Paradigm

Tracing the idea of purity in cognition to Plato and the ancient Greek religions that influenced Kant's thought, Schott shows that Kant's isolation of pure knowledge from sensual existence reflects this ascetic tradition, which views the body, sexuality, and in particular women's sexuality, as sources of pollution. For Kant, as for classical Greek and, later, Christian thinkers, thought had to be divested of the pollution of sensuous existence. And because women have traditionally been associated with sensuous existence, this philosophical commitment to purity has justified the exclusion of women from the practice of knowledge.