Very little gives me more pleasure than a good philosophical fight, and I suspect that the other women panelists on this site feel the same way. Perhaps we are the exceptions that prove the rule of the womanly cooperative virtues. Yet I also know of many men who have no stomach for a good philosophical argument, and I've never heard anyone suggest that we should change our methods so that more men will feel more "comfortable" in philosophy.

More to the point, I'm not sure that I understand the contrast between adversative and cooperative methods of doing philosophy. The most forceful defense of a philosophical position will often be given by a person who believes that it is true, and correspondingly the most telling criticisms of an argument will often be discovered by those who are skeptical of the truth of its conclusion. But such a give and take between philosophical adversaries seems to me to be the best cooperative means of gaining philosophical insight. As Socrates explained to his adversary Callicles, in Plato's Gorgias:

“ . . .I’m afraid to pursue my examination of you, for fear that you should take me to be speaking with eagerness to win against you, rather than to have our subject become clear. For my part, I’d be pleased to continue questioning you if you’re the same kind of man I am, otherwise I would drop it. And what kind of man am I? One of those who would be pleased to be refuted if I say anything untrue; one who, however, would be any less pleased to be refuted than to refute. For I count being refuted a greater good, insofar as it is a greater good for oneself to be delivered from the worst thing there is than to deliver someone else from it. I don’t suppose there’s anything quite so bad for a person as having false belief about the things we’re discussing right now” (G. 457e-458a).

It's certainly true that many philosophers, men and women alike, can be downright obnoxious when they are arguing, and I don't doubt that some obnoxious behavior is caused by sexism in particular. But this problem seems to me to have little to do with the typical method of philosophy, and everything to do with the character of some who make use of it.

Just to respond to a few of Jyl's points.

(1) We practice philosophy according to a sort of lawyers-in-court model. This practice has its downside. It encourages aggression, which often impedes rather than promotes progress. And it leads people often to defend views that they do not strongly believe in, and certainly wouldn't, if they reflected honestly and outside of the context of the good fight that they are enjoying. This also can impede progress.

Sometimes we'd do better to admit that none of us understands the subject matter very well - because it is so extremely difficult, not because we are thick - and tried to muddle along together.

(2) The combative nature of the practice, and the aggression that this encourages, have indeed caused very talented philosophers not to enter the profession. Some of these are men. But I strongly suspect that more are women.

If that empirical suspicion of mine were correct, then that would provide one among several good reasons for philosophers to consider adopting different and more co-operative modes of interaction.

(3) I think that women tend to favour co-operative modes of interaction to combative ones and that in that respect women are superior to men.


(4) But then this issue really is very difficult, and, hey, what do I know?