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Abstract
The last writings of Pamela Sue Anderson dwell in some depth on the facts of “mutual vulnerability” and “precarious life,” whether at a practical level or in philosophical argument. This topic can be considered in relation to the founding values of “philosophy” in the tradition we inherit from Plato. Although military imagery (immunity to attack etc.) is foregrounded in the Platonic conception of “dialectic” – that is, conversation or dialogue in a specialized sense, capable of leading to the stable possession of truth – we should also remember the more ordinary (imperfect, incomplete) prototype of conversation from which this idealized version emerges: conversation as exemplified by the sacrificial figure of Socrates, who claims not to know anything. The present paper suggests that there are these two sides to the classic dialectical encounter: aporia itself, along with the ambition to escape from aporia – to be no longer at a loss. But it also considers why, in that case, writers such as Anderson (or like Judith Butler) should still find so much potential in the theme of “precarity.” This question returns us to the institutional critique of philosophy: to a mismatch between (1) the moment of vulnerability inherent in the discipline a priori, and (2) the lived experience of vulnerability about which some practitioners of the subject – namely women and other disadvantaged groups – know so much more than others.
disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1 Pamela Sue Anderson, “Silencing and Speaker Vulnerability: Undoing an Oppressive Form of (Wilful) Ignorance,” ed. Nicholas Bunnin, in Love and Vulnerability: Thinking with Pamela Sue Anderson, ed. Pelagia Goulimari, Spec. issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 25.1–2 (2020) 36. All references to Pamela in the present discussion are to material contained in a dossier of unfinished writings compiled shortly after her death. I am very grateful to Pelagia Goulimari for making this work available, and for the leading part she played in organizing the March 2018 conference at Mansfield College, Oxford, dedicated to Pamela’s memory. Thanks also to everyone who took part in discussion of this paper in its earlier form as a talk delivered on that occasion; and to Alison Assiter for written comments.
2 Pamela Sue Anderson, “Creating a New Imaginary for Love in Religion,” ed. Paul S. Fiddes, in Love and Vulnerability: Thinking with Pamela Sue Anderson, ed. Pelagia Goulimari, Spec. issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 25.1–2 (2020) 47.
3 Reprinted in French Feminist Thought: A Reader, ed. Toril Moi (Oxford: Blackwell, 1987).
4 Anderson, “Silencing and Speaker Vulnerability” 42. The phrase “harsh realities” is Pamela’s. For some topical input on these realities, see The Guardian (G2) 26 July 2017, where a woman Labour MP is quoted as saying (about the recent murder of her colleague Jo Cox): “We don’t have bodyguards, we don’t wear flak jackets; we are completely vulnerable.” See also The Guardian 6 Sept. 2017: “Diane Abbott received almost half of all the abusive tweets sent to female MPs in the run-up to the general election, an Amnesty International study reveals.”
5 Anderson, “Silencing and Speaker Vulnerability” 38.
6 Ibid. 36–37.
7 Ibid. 43.
8 Republic VII, 534bc, trans. Desmond Lee (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1974).
9 Another Platonic observation: Republic I, 345b.
10 Even Wittgenstein, for all the radicalism of his later method, continues to aspire to a state of “complete clarity,” meaning that the problems of philosophy should “completely disappear” (Philosophical Investigations, 3rd ed., trans. G.E.M. Anscombe (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1967), section 133; emphasis added).
11 See Apology 23ac, trans. Hugh Tredennick (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969).
12 Compare Protagoras 329b.
13 Compare Meno 84bc.
14 See, for example, her Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence (London and New York: Verso, 2004), especially chapter 5.
15 Pamela Sue Anderson, “Towards a New Philosophical Imaginary,” eds. Sabina Lovibond and A.W. Moore, in Love and Vulnerability: Thinking with Pamela Sue Anderson, ed. Pelagia Goulimari, Spec. issue of Angelaki: Journal of the Theoretical Humanities 25.1–2 (2020) 8; emphasis in original.
16 Anderson, “Towards a New Philosophical Imaginary” 9.
17 Homo Academicus [1984], trans. Peter Collier (Cambridge: Polity, 1988; first published in French).
18 I am expressing myself speculatively here because I do not feel qualified to report on relevant discussions actually in progress at the present time – but, of course, this is not meant to imply that they are not happening.
19 Anderson, “Silencing and Speaker Vulnerability” 44.
20 Pamela credits these terms to Kristie Dotson (Anderson, “Silencing and Speaker Vulnerability” 38–39). She explains that “quieting” takes place when an audience refuses to listen, while “smothering” involves the self-suppression or “coerced silencing” of a speaker; either way, communication fails because the speaker is not recognized as a “knower” by the relevant audience.
21 Hipparchia’s Choice: An Essay Concerning Women, Philosophy, Etc., trans. Trista Selous (Oxford: Blackwell, 1991) 281–82; emphasis added.
22 Anderson, “Creating a New Imaginary for Love in Religion” 49.