Words of Power

Is logic masculine? Is women's lack of interest in the "hard core" philosophical disciplines of formal logic and semantics symptomatic of an inadequacy linked to sex? Is the failure of women to excel in pure mathematics and mathematical science a function of their inability to think rationally? This study undermines the assumptions that inform these questions. In studies of Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Abelard, Ockham and Frege, the author traces the changing interrelationships between logical innovation and oppressive speech strategies, showing that logic is not transcendent truth but abstract forms of language spoken by men - whether Greek ruling citizens, imperial administrators, church officials or scientists. She relates logical techniques, such as logical division, syllogisms and truth functions, to ways in which those with power speak to and about those subject to them. She shows, in the settings of Ancient and Hellenistic Greece, medieval Europe, and Germany between the World Wars, how logicians reworked language so that dialogue and reciprocity are impossible and one speaker is forced to accept the words of another.
The question then is not whether women can do logic, but whether they are willing to use "words of power" to silence others, and whether such a refusal condemns them to powerlessness. Nye points the ways to another power in the words of women that might break into and challenge the rational discourses that have structured Western thought.