Rethinking Birth and Maternity as Philosophical Categories: Hannah Arendt's Notion Of Natality In Dialogue With Contemporary Feminist Thought

我项目的目的是通过重新思考“出生”和“母性”作为哲学范畴，来挑战20世纪欧洲哲学的“死亡论”转向。我建议通过进一步从当代女权主义思想中汲取资源来发展汉娜·阿伦特的出生观念。至少从古希腊人的思想开始，死亡就被认为是人类存在的一个组成部分，但在20世纪，各种欧陆哲学家再次强调了这一点，对死亡提供了不同的解释（海德格尔1927年，l<s:1> vinas 1992年，德里达1993年）。在这种背景下，汉娜·阿伦特（1958）提出了“本性”的另一种范式。她用“主动性”来解释出生的意义，关注人类存在的肉体和多元现实。阿伦特提出的转变为一种新的女权主义哲学思潮铺平了道路，这种思潮集中于对性别、出生和母性概念的分析，最引人注目的是卡瓦雷罗、伊里加雷、克里斯蒂娃、鲁迪克和杜登的作品。我的研究目的是调查为什么，尽管这些女权主义立场取得了成功，仍然有一种倾向，拒绝生育和母性作为哲学范畴。这种拒绝是如何与20世纪哲学中死亡学的回归以及人类不加批判的性别分化联系在一起的？出生和母性的范畴可能对西方哲学传统构成什么挑战？这项研究将通过解释出生和母性来解决这些问题，而不是仅仅将其解释为受时间限制的自然事件，并与不加批判的女性气质相关联，而是作为真实存在的可能性，将其提升到哲学范畴。它将调查出生和以母亲为导向的哲学思想如何挑战传统的哲学和政治范畴，如自主、自由和主权的概念，并将发展一种哲学方法，使我们能够专注于人类状况的相互依存和关系。

The aim of my project is to contest the "thanatological" turn in twentieth-century European philosophy by rethinking "birth" and "maternity" as philosophical categories. I propose to do this by developing Hannah Arendt's notion of natality with further resources from contemporary feminist thought.Mortality has been conceived as a constitutive part of human existence since at least the thought of the ancient Greeks but in the twentieth century various continental philosophers foregrounded it again, offering different interpretations of death (Heidegger 1927, Lévinas 1992, Derrida 1993). In this context Hannah Arendt (1958) proposes the alternative paradigm of 'natality'. She interprets the meaning of birth in terms of 'initiative', attending to the bodily and plural reality of human existence. Arendt's proposed shift paved the way for a new feminist philosophical current concentrating on the analysis of the notions of gender, birth and maternity, most notably in the work of Cavarero, Irigaray, Kristeva, Ruddick and Duden.My research aims to investigate why, despite the success of these feminist positions, there is still a tendency to reject birth and maternity as philosophical categories. How is this rejection connected to the return of thanatology in twentieth century philosophy and with an uncritical sexual differentiation of humankind? What challenge may the categories of birth and maternity pose to the Western philosophical tradition?This research will address these questions by interpreting birth and maternity not as mere natural events, restricted in time and linked to an uncritical vision of femininity, but as authentic existential possibilities, to be elevated to philosophical categories. It will investigate how birth and maternally-oriented philosophical thought challenge traditional philosophical and political categories, such as the notions of autonomy, freedom, and sovereignty and will develop a philosophical approach that allows us to focus on the interdependence and the relationality of the human condition.