女性主义理论和普通语言哲学:托里尔·莫依教授访谈录

Feminist Theory and Ordinary Language Philosophy:an Interview with Toril Moi

托里尔·莫依教授将维特根斯坦、卡维尔和奥斯汀传统中的普通语言哲学引入女性主义理论和妇女创作,打通文学、哲学和美学的学科交叉。其女性主义思想主要体现在三本书中:《性/文本政治:女性主义文学理论》、《西蒙娜·德·波伏娃:知识女性的形成》、《性、性别与身体》。她认为,波伏娃的女性主义创作通过对日常生活经验的关注实践了“由个人的通达哲学的”这一普通语言哲学观。莫依还试图用普通的日常用语,而非空洞的形而上学用语来解释理论和政治之间的关系。本次访谈主要聚焦于莫依关于女性主义理论与普通语言哲学之间联系的一些相关讨论,比如波伏娃《第二性》中的存在主义女性主义、莫依之《性/文本政治:女性主义文学理论》中的“文学理论”向“理论”的转换、其既非本质主义又非建构主义层面上的“何谓女人”以及后结构主义之“理论紧身衣”等。莫依还提倡中国当下的女性创作和女性主义批评应更多关注女性经验,追求正义、平等、自由的价值。

Toril Moi initiated ordinary language philosophy in the tradition of Wittgenstein,Cavell and Austin into feminist theory and women’s writing,opening up the intersections of literature,philosophy and aesthetics.Her feminist ideas are primarily manifested in three books:Sexual/Textual Politics:Feminist Literary Theory,Simone de Beauvoir:The Making of an Intellectual Woman,and Sex,Gender and the Body.She argues that the feminist writing like that of Beauvoir’s,through the attention to ordinary everyday experience,builds up the connection between the personal and the philosophical,as suggested in Stanley Cavell’s ordinary language philosophy.Moi has also tried to work out the relationship between theory and politics in ordinary,everyday terms instead of the empty terms of metaphysics.This interview mainly focuses on Moi’s discussion on the connection between feminist theory and ordinary language philosophy,such as her understanding of Beauvoir’s existentialist feminism in The Second Sex,the revolution that transformed“literary theory”into“theory”in her Sexual/Textual Politics,her third-way(neither essentialist nor constructionist)understanding of“what is a woman”,and her reference to poststructuralist theory as“theoretical straitjacket”.Moi also advocates that women writers and feminist critics in China should show concern for women’s experiences,thus appealing to the value of justice,equality and freedom.