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The Feminist Concept of Self and Modernity

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2024

Xiao Wei
Xiao Wei*
Affiliation:
Tsinghua University
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Abstract

The relationship between community and individual is the key issue in contemporary political philosophy and ethics. The concept of self seems very important for individualism, communitarianism and feminism when they respond to relationships, particularly when we have to situate selfhood in the conditions of modernity. Consequently, this paper can be divided into seven parts. First it introduces the debate about the concept of the self between individualism and communitarianism. Second, it discusses the feminist critique of this issue and analyses the feminist concept of self, and then addresses modernity as the condition of women. Next it attempts to analyze how women situate themselves in the conditions of modernity. Then it discusses how Chinese women are reshaping their selfhood under the conditions of modernity, and finally draws some brief conclusions claiming that neither communitarian nor individualist self is adequate in contemporary society. Chinese women, it is argued, are expected to reshape their own selfhood resting on the positive side of Confucian ethics and a feminist concept of self.

Type
Articles
Information
Diogenes , Volume 56 , Issue 1 , February 2009 , pp. 117 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © ICPHS 2009

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