 Welcome to this lecture series in aspects of western philosophy, this is the 40th lecture. The previous lecture was on postmodern approaches and we have seen some of the major features of postmodernism. And this lecture will focus on three important moments and their deconstruction, feminism and discourse theory. They are not philosophical schools, that is the reason why I prefer to call them approaches. They are part of the broader larger postmodern movement, because it was this postmodern sentiments that made these approaches possible. And they are very different in nature, so let us discuss them one by one, deconstruction. So before that, these are the sources and references on the base of which this lecture is prepared. Deconstruction as I already mentioned is a postmodern approach and this is what one of the major founders or one of the major proponents of postmodernism, Jacques Derrida says about postmodernism, it is not a method but an activity of reading, an activity of reading text, an activity of interpreting, an activity of understanding to extend the scope of the notion of reading. So Derrida himself says that it is not a method but an activity of reading. And it is associated with certain techniques of for reading text developed by Jacques Derrida, Paul de Man and many others. And we still see it, it is a major trend in philosophy in literature and in art criticism. And it refers to certain new strategies for interpreting literally text, particularly in the domain of literature, this is a very influential movement, rather it is being adopted as a method, though Derrida himself says that it is not a method, rather it is an activity of reading text but many literary critics have adopted it as a method, interestingly. And it is a poststructuralist approach, advocates certain very radical positions regarding language and meaning. So, in one sense to understand deconstruction, we have to understand what is structuralism, we have already very briefly mentioned what structuralism is in some of our previous lectures. So, because structuralism has got a very definite philosophical position and poststructuralist approaches rather oppose these fixed, these definite assumptions of structuralism and deconstruction is one of them. And in this course, deconstruction advocates or rather it opposed to certain very radical positions regarding language and meaning. We do not have the time to discuss all these things in detail. The purpose of this lecture is to give a very brief outline of what deconstruction is, what feminism is, some of the very fundamental assumptions and approaches of these methods or these orientations. Now, when we talk about the poststructuralist approach, it agrees with structuralism to a very great extent that human subjects are culturally constructed, which is against some of the previous metaphysical assumptions that prevailed in western philosophy, where reality is largely conceived as something which is existent, something which is independent of human mind or human reality or human culture and society or human cognition and human language by and large. So, in one sense structuralism opposes these assumptions and in that way, poststructuralism also agrees with the structuralist assumptions about reality. Structuralism believes that reality and human subjects are to a very great extent culturally constructed and it but at the same time, poststructuralism challenges as I already mentioned certain very important assumptions of structuralism and structuralism says that structures of meaning are stable, universal or a historical. So, this is again a very important aspect of poststructuralism because structuralism advocates or it opposed to the view that meaning is stable, the meaning is constant and it is universal, it is a historical but poststructuralist approaches try to oppose this, challenge these fundamental assumptions of structuralism and it opposes similar views advocated by phenomenology and psychoanalysis. We have already seen phenomenology a bit in detail in one of the previous lectures. Phenomenology of Husser particularly, Edmund Husser the German philosopher, what it tries to do is to arrive at some of the immediately given data to consciousness and the most important slogan of phenomenology is back to things themselves. So which assumes that there are certain things which are in themselves, which exist as themselves which are directly given to the human consciousness when the human consciousness access them. So, something which is the data which is directly given to the consciousness is the subject matter of phenomenology. So, which assumes that there are certain fundamental data which can be called as essences which are directly given to consciousness and this data, this fundamental data this immediate data which are given to consciousness are pure, they are they can be found in the consciousness this is the basic assumption of phenomenology. And poststructuralist approaches oppose such a view again in psychoanalysis when we come to psychoanalysis for the Freudian psychoanalysis assumes that there is one fundamental meaning that lies in the subconscious mind which can be understood through analysis. So, there is a specific method which is adopted by the psychoanalyst by means of which a specific method of interpretation they adopt by means of which they reach this data this fundamental data which lie in the subconscious mind and which they consider constitute the most important meanings to be understood. So, in phenomenology also there is a method because Husserl propagates he advocates a method the phenomenological method of bracketing by means of which you reach the essences and finally, you reach the consciousness the pure consciousness. Similarly psychoanalysis also adopts a method the method of analysis by means of which the fundamental data can be captured. So, they all believe that there is a set of pure data which is available for the phenomenologist in the consciousness and for the psychoanalyst in the subconscious mind. And poststructuralist approaches oppose idea of a stable reality and the very concept of a method to reach this reality which is advocated by phenomenology and psychoanalysis and many other philosophical assumptions. So, now when we talk about the philosophical basis of deconstruction we eventually reach the phenomenal influence of this great German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche. Nature's criticism of the idea of absolute knowledge we have already discussed Nietzsche's philosophy and its contributions in one of the previous lecture. So, I am not elaborating on this, but we Nietzsche has categorically opposed the idea of the very possibility of absolute knowledge because absolute knowledge presupposes a concept of truth a concept of universal truth. And Nietzsche has a very interesting view about truth he says that truth does not exist the absolute truth does not exist. Nietzsche he says is arbitrary and truth is a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, anthropomorphisms in short a sum of human relations which have been subjected to poetic and rhetorical intensification translation and decoration. So, there is nothing called universal truth with a capital T as the traditional metaphysical tradition of western philosophy has been advocating. So, once such a concept of truth is destabilized or overthrown then what remains what remains to be found out there is nothing that remains to be found out by means of adopting a definite method whether it is reality social reality or anything for that matter even in a text the concept of truth is destabilized by Nietzsche's philosophy and that has been a phenomenal influence on deconstruction. Another very important and very significant influence comes from this great German another great German philosopher Martin Heidegger he says that the idea of ontological difference. So, Heidegger's philosophy particularly his philosophy as it is advocated in being and time which works on the basis of or rather enters around the notion of being with a capital B. So, he says that there is a basic distinction between being and beings of entities. So, this is called the ontological difference the fundamental ontological difference between being and the being of entities. This is concept which is so central to Heidegger's early philosophy and being and the structure of being lie beyond every entity and every feature of an entity that there can possibly be. So, we can never know this being this is and in connection with this concept Heidegger has gone back to the Greek tradition and developed a notion of Aletheia or unconcealment being is unconcealed to the being of man, but each moment of unconcealment is different each moment of unconcealment is unique. So, there is nothing called an objective absolute truth where a complete unconcealment of being happens to one individual entity. So, all these philosophical insights have created a very interesting and a very important intellectual atmosphere in European philosophy. So, another very important influence is Heidegger and many others and what you mean by deconstructing. So, here Nancy Holland says in this context I quote to deconstruct is to take a text apart along the structural fault lines created by the ambiguities inherent in one or more of its key concepts or themes in order to reveal the equivocations or contradictions that make the text possible. So, this is a very interesting aspect of deconstruction. So, our traditional understanding of our traditional way in which we understand a text a text is given let us take a poem or any text for that matter. Let us take the epic Ramayana, there is a story which talks about Rama in which Watmugi says that Rama is the embodiment of Dharma, he is the embodiment of righteousness and the whole story tells us about how Rama has to go to the forest and finally, Sita was abducted by Ramana and then there was a war followed by which Rama kills Ramana and takes brings back Sita and lot of other incidents happens in this epic in which Rama is being projected as a central character the book itself is called the Kavya itself is called Ramayana it is a story of Rama. So, there is a central meaning which is communicated through this text and Ramayana is also a religious text it is not only a poetic work in India it is also a religious text for many Hindus. But the common meaning which is communicated which has been handed down for generations by this text has been questioned or can be questioned by different possible other readings. So, Ramayana can be read in different ways the same Ramayana can be read in different ways which there can be a feminist reading of Ramayana you can read Ramayana by emphasizing the character of Sita whether Rama has done justice to Sita all kinds of questions can be interesting questions can be raised once you consider Ramayana as a text not as a religious book academically. So, this possibility of different readings what makes a text what makes that you know a text is can be read a text can be read the same text can be read in different ways. So, this is a very interesting phenomenon and this is phenomenon is being analyzed by these philosophers and the deconstructions would say that the very possibility of different readings is already inherent in the text that is because the text which is composed in a language itself contains that possibility of different readings there are multiple layers of meaning language as the ability to hold in it multiple layers of meaning and often some of these layers are hidden. So, we have to actually bring that bring this meaning out. So, the whole effort of deconstruction is to bring out such meanings which are not apparently present. Now, here it opposes structuralism phenomenology and psychoanalysis we have already explained this. Now, again structuralism gives priority to universal structures that subsume both the individual and the society and believe that we can thus transit the conflict between the individual and society. So, they in fact emphasize on the commonalities the universal features deconstruction criticizes the idealistic overtone of structuralism which believes in the common universal structures. So, there are no such common universal structures, but there are various different structures. So, the idea of difference which actually is being derived from the concept of ontological difference as discussed in Heidegger's work which we have already mentioned. So, again what Kantor says deconstruction is a radical variant of structuralism a culturally and to some extent politically left wing offshoot of structuralism we will see the implications of this later. Now, let us see some of the fundamental ideas of structuralism the text institutions traditions societies believes and practices do not have unambiguously definite meanings as they do not have very strict and rigid boundaries this is what precisely I mentioned I took the example of Ramayana text institutions traditions societies believes and practices. So, we can actually put into question when we try to understand these phenomenon whether it is a certain social practices that exist in our society we have already seen that in our political development we have questioned and criticized and challenged certain practices like sati untouchability etcetera they gain institutions and traditions all these can be considered as phenomenon that can be understood that can be questioned that can be challenged and that can be read in different ways. So, because they do not have unambiguously definite meanings again there is nothing outside or beyond the text. So, that there is a platform outside the text where you can locate the meaning for example when you talk about the text when you talk about Ramayana since I have already mentioned that example the author of Ramayana what may be there is an immediate tendency to associate the meaning of the text with the author's intention which is a problem in hermeneutics. So, here again the deconstructionist would question that they would say that there is nothing beyond the text we do not have to search for the author's intentional life that lies outside the text in order to locate the meaning of the text. So, the text the meaning of the text has to be found within the text itself and text every text since it is a linguistic entity it will deconstruct itself because it contains multiple layers of meaning often some of these meanings contradict with each other. So, naturally there is a tendency to deconstruct itself there is not one canonical signification to a text there are several simultaneous layers of meaning which I have already mentioned. There are infinite meanings in the text so there is no one single universal objective meaning. Now, when we talk about text meaning and analysis again we come across the notion of meaning which is so central for deconstruction the idea of conceptual opposition what is it the essential oppositional and conflictual nature of language. It means every text every institution every phenomenon to be understood is found in language language is a fundamental structure to be understood. But then again language there is an essential oppositional and conflictual nature of language every language has that feature the nature of language is said that it conceals meaning because there are multiple layers of meaning for a person who is trying to approach the text can read out only a finite number of meanings based on the context from which the text is read. There are infinite meanings in the text and the necessity of an interminable analysis we will discuss this is a very interesting concept because deconstruction does not believe that the analysis of the text will end somewhere by locating the real meaning of the text like psychoanalysis for example the psychoanalytic process ends somewhere where the real meanings are located within the unconscious mind of the person. But here there is nothing called the real meaning or a universal objective meaning so analysis has to continue it is it needs to be interminable look for differences oppositions and conflicts not for something which is universally accommodating everything. Now between writing and speech there are certain conceptual oppositions Derrida talks about certain conceptual oppositions the fundamental one is between writing and speech the deconstructor looks for the ways in which one term in the opposition has been privileged over other in a particular text argument historical tradition or social practice. So this is what I said in the reading of the text what happens is that there is a privileged meaning which always surfaces which always try to influence us when we approach the text. The example which I cited is Ramayana you can take any text for that matter there is a privileged set of meanings or a argument historical tradition or social practice. So the deconstruct has to be aware of this privileged meaning one term may be privileged because it is considered the general normal central case and this assumption has to be questioned by the deconstructor because it is considered more true more valuable more important or more universal than its opposite. So what on what basis what is the criteria on the base of which you consider one term or one way or one set of meanings as more valuable and more important or universal or central. So there are certain ways in which there are certain reasons for which set of a particular word or a set of meaning is treated as privileged. Since things can have more than one opposites many different types of privileges can occur simultaneously. So this actually brings out this possibility actually shows up the contradictions involved in the text the conflicts that the text may contain within itself. So the deconstruct should be aware of and sensitive to such conflicts which the text itself shows up and it is in this context the concept of interminable analysis is proposed because there are infinite meanings the apparent coherence needs to be deconstructed every text deconstructs itself going to its intrinsic oppositions because there is no one single meaning or one set of meanings which constitute the very central essence of the text but there are several opposite contradictory conflicting meanings and this makes the text an entity which has intrinsic oppositions rejects the idea of extra textuality we access the text always from a context. So the context is very important the specific definite context is extremely important the text again Dorita says the text is a differential network a fabric of traces referring endlessly to something other than itself to other differential traces. Now in this context it would be very interesting to see deconstruction and as an ideological critic. So it is in this sense in the beginning of this lecture mention that it is a left wing offshoot of post-structuralism. So it can be treated as an ideological critic where the privileged is opposed but the privileged is rather being questions and criticized. Ideologies often privilege certain features of social life and deemphasize other features. So this happens in every society in every ideology certain features of social life are emphasized particularly in most of our societies where once upon a time religious societies or religion was a dominant narrative. So in religious forms of life certain features of life is highlighted considered as most important than others. What is what is deemphasized so deconstruction says that we have to analyze what is deemphasized what is overlooked or what is suppressed in a particular way of thinking or in a particular set of legal doctrines. So something which is marginalized so we have to really look into the margins. So this possible readings different forms of readings of the text different kinds of reading of the text actually opens up a lot of possibilities for the deconstructor. How suppressed or marginalized principles return in new guises and let us see this in this context since we do not have time I will try to wind up my discussion on deconstruction here with highlighting certain important aspects. The impact of deconstruction of course we all know that deconstruction has become one of the most dominant trends in literary criticism. The ways in which texts are read by in different ways by different critics. It demolishes the traditional conceptions of textual meaning where textual meaning is considered as a sacred universal platform in which it lies a historical platform in which it is situated. So deconstruction demolishes such ideas and the internal and it brings out the internal conflicts in language and text that create ruptures in its surface meaning. So deconstructionist would remind you that the apparent surface meaning of the text if you read it closely if you adopt the deconstructionist approach it will start exposing the ruptures created by the internal conflict of language and text. And it asserts that there is no single meaning of the text along with the immediate message a text gives out on its surface it also projects conflicts which bring out the imminent gaps in the text. So this is a very interesting aspect there are certain gaps there are certain imminent gaps in the text because of the conflictual nature of language. And the deconstructor has to capture those gaps he has to magnify those gaps or rather he has to be sensitive to those gaps. The internal conflict create imminent gaps the text hence we cannot fix the meaning. Analysis should focus these gaps which can be found in the margins of the text. So this is what I said earlier we have to actually look at the marginalized meanings. So analysis should aim at this aspect rather than trying to see the fundamental essential common and universal analysis should aim at understanding the gaps the ruptures the conflicts. Vitro gaze from what appears to be the most important central or crucial instead focus the secondary eccentric literal marginal parasitic bounded line cases. So borderline cases so these are these are emphasized by the deconstructionist analysis. So instead of the most important and central meaning which is which can be treated as the essence or which traditional philosophical systems treated as the essence we have to look for the marginalized which is parasitic which lies at the borderline. Now with this we will wind up the discussion on deconstruction and we can see that this is definitely an offshoot of or rather constitute one of the very important movements one of the very important approaches within the post modern stream. Now let us talk about let us see another one feminism. Feminism is again we can treat feminism we can when you try to understand feminism interestingly it is also a kind of understanding the world. It is also an approach by means of which you understand the world by means of which you read a text by means of which you understand yourself. So in that sense it is not just a social or a political movement it is it suggests a way of being for all of us. So in that sense feminism is a very significant 28th century and 25th century movement what is feminism. So at the very outset it is very difficult to define these post modern approaches to give precise definitions to them. But let us try to understand them by situating them in certain context. So when we try to understand what is feminism you can see that it is a form of resistance again patriarchal domination. I do not think any feminist would oppose this characterization of feminism. Because feminism all forms of feminism for that matter is categorically against all forms of patriarchal domination. The patriarchal domination the patriarchal social system which has created a series of dominations in our society. The struggle to end sexist oppressions there is a definite approach which aims at ending all forms of sexist oppressions in society various works of society. It is a political moment an idea or ideology an approach to life and to raise questions of equality and justice. All these are again you know when you try to see it as a political moment. They criticize the patriarchal social order which we have already mentioned questioning the ways in which the social order has fixed identities. This is very interesting because every society has or rather one way in which the patriarchal social order operates is through the establishment of certain institutions. Institutions like for example one of the strongest institution is the institution of family. And most of the societies have their slightly different of course but their conceptions of family marriage family relationships etcetera. What happens here is that along with this creation of an institution called a family you are also creating certain identities certain very strong identities for example husband and wife. So and this is so fundamental for the institution of family. They have certain roles the identity of the husband and the identity of a wife they are quite fixed if you come to the traditional Indian setting. Even which is even today very relevant which is prevailing even today in many places the husband and wife have certain definite duties. And in the patriarchal order the husband the kind of freedom the husband enjoys the man enjoys is not there for the women. So these are very interesting questions which the feminist approaches would question would try to raise and try to find solutions through various approaches. Now let us see the historical background the long history of subordination of women to men we all know that in most of the human societies this is happened women were subordinated. Religious traditions often gave theological justification to this subordination we have seen the Bible in the which is a sacred book for the all the Abrahamic traditions. It is been stated that God has created man God itself God himself is a male character and again God has created man. So man is the first creation of God and women woman was created from man. So in a sense woman is a shadow of man you can critically approach this whole narrative in this fashion. Woman is not independent of man but also always dependent on man and then the ways in which various religious traditions have ascribed duties for men and women. Even in India we could see that various traditions particularly in the Dharmic traditions particularly in like Hinduism and Buddhism they all have their conceptions of women where a certain form of subordination is instituted. There are certain very controversial practices like Sadi which makes women a shadow of man in the Indian context. Philosophers like Aristotle considered women as inferior and historically this is associated with several moments of political activism that try to obtain justice for women. So the question the way in which women started rebelling against these such dominations have a long history. There are certain exceptional voices here and there but as a moment it was it took off as a moment a powerful moment only in the 20th century. Women's suffrage moment in Europe and the US late 19th and early 20th century these movements have actually created a lot of sensibilities which favor the right which prompted us to which prompted the entire humanity to view certain genuine problems women facing all over the world. Women's movement of the 1960s demanding equal legal rights and political participation in various parts of the world and major concerns of feminism as I already mentioned is to end sexism sexist exploitation and oppression and sexism exploitation based on sexism and oppression based on it happen through institutions. And most of these institutions as we have already mentioned are patriarchal opposes patriarchy as a system of domination and they all claim for they all argue for equality but not merely about women seeking to be equal to men and it is very important to note that in a genuine feminist approaches are not anti male though we could see that at some stage at some stage feminist approaches were predominantly adopting an anti male approach but this is subsequently changed. Feminist to create gender justice equal rights for women based on the idea of equality of the sexist so the concept of gender justice is a very dominant a very central feature in the feminist concerns feminist are made not born that is a very interesting thing because feminist are not just I mean when you talk about who is a feminist a feminist need not be necessarily a women both men and women can be feminist because they are not born as feminist but they are made females were as socialized to believe sexist thinking and values as males hence before women could change patriarchy they have to change themselves because both men and women contribute to the creation and the sustainance of this patriarchal order it is not that men were responsible for this it is a social order which is out there and both men and women have jointly created it and they have to jointly change it but that is why before women could change patriarchy they have to change themselves. And when we talk about the philosophical foundations of feminism we have moments like liberalism where equality personal autonomy importance of democracy rights of individuals etcetera are emphasized and we could see that all these have become prominent in Europe after enlightenment for example the concept of equality prior to enlightenment in the pre modern societies this concept of equality was not that predominant that the society had been divided into different classes of people like clergyman peasants farmers all kinds of different people different classes of people rather so the concept of equality was not predominantly there but after enlightenment we had already seen this in some of the previous lectures that enlightenment had brought in a kind of sensibility that there is something in each individual which needs to be respected something like a concept of moral sense a kind of an agent C so each human being is potentially an agent hence there is a kind of equality that functions at that level so there is equality and personal autonomy and then at the social level social and political level there is there is an increasing democratization emphasis on the rights of the individual etcetera so when you talk about the different types of feminism so we could see that there are lot of I mean there are many types say for example let us start with the socialist we will only discuss some of the prominent views of or prominent types of feminism here there are socialist Marxist post modern lesbian eco feminism existentialist feminist less liberal feminist radical feminist diversity feminist all kinds of different types that exist and they often overlap as well and among these different types I will just take up three or four for discussion socialist feminism where the problem is due to a combination of male domination and class exploitation they identify the fundamental problem lies there combination of male domination and class exploitation gender and sexuality are social constricts that are capable of transformation so they believe that these two aspects gender and sexuality their social context and and that can be changed home is a place of protection as work at home they contribute to society at large social worth is very important because in traditionally the roles were divided for men and women women were mostly confined to homes and men used to go and work socialist feminists would argue that home is a place of protection as work at home they contribute to society at large then eradication of all political economic and social foundations of contemporary society is the aim then all institutions like education work sexuality and parenting must undergo so socialist feminist would argue for a form of transformation a form of social transformation where the entire apparatus of the society all institutions of the society fundamentally undergo certain transformations sexual division of labor which locks men and women into stereotypical occupational categories must cease like men should go out and work in the factories and women should remain at home and work in the kitchen such stereotypical views should be deconstructed should be overthrown and so that is why sexual division of labor should be overthrown relationships in society workplace and family are naturally interdependent but have been artificially separated or placed in oppositional leading to alienation emphasis on collaborating with other oppressed groups so this is again another very important feature of socialist feminism is that they emphasize on collaborating with other oppressed groups for creating a better society because they believe in social transformation a total social transformation which would also bring in improvements in the ways in which men and women are treated now when we in opposition to this or rather if not in opposition in contrast to this liberal feminist would argue that liberal values like equality and autonomy are more important so you have equality your autonomy each individual is autonomous all humans are capable of self-determination and liberty irrespective of their gender irrespective of their sex and all are rational recognition of human rights individuals human beings have to be men and both men and women have to be respected equally based on the concept of human rights now when we come to Marxist feminism which is very close to socialist feminism they consider capitalism as a major factor in women's oppression like all Marxist they also believe that capitalism is a major factor here alienation in the workplace is a major issue because for Marxist alienation is a central problem which we have already examined when we discussed Marxism in one of the previous lectures they try to conceptualize gender oppression around class contradictions and class analysis so the Marxist analysis would divide society into two classes the the bourgeois and the proletariat and all gender of all forms of oppressions including gender oppressions can be constructed can be found are constructed around this fundamental opposition that exist in the society bourgeoisie is equated with men and women with proletariat so you can see that contradiction that class contradiction they bring here in order to analyze and now lesbian feminism it opposes the idea that heterosexuality is normal and all other sexualities as deviant so this is another very interesting aspect because the patriarchal social order will have a concept of sexuality and it has a very central very rigid concept of sexuality and considers all other forms of sexuality as abnormal and deviant see even the transgenders are treated as abnormal and they have no decent place in the society unfortunately even today in many societies they do not have a decent place but lesbian feminism would say that the sexualities themselves are the creation of the society which has to be overthrown sexuality and sexual orientations are social constructs according to them and opposes the patriarchal assumptions about sexuality which considers all other forms of sexuality as deviant and just to be very briefly mention about diversity feminism where the problems of women phase are problems women phase are different in different cultures and times they emphasize on differences and diverse problems there is no single feminist voice or perspective they would not say that there is feminism itself is not a single universal theory like what the Marxist feminists would argue there are multiple perspectives non-anglish non-western Dalit feminism etcetera so all other frameworks ignore this diversity which the diversity feminists would emphasize and when you come to existentialism women is constructed as man's other in authentic existence so man's other see in existentialist philosophy the concept of authentic existence is so central and the existentialist feminists would argue that traditionally women the existence of women is considered as a form of inauthentic existence the other of man which they oppose no recognition of her own subjectivity and to responsibility for her own actions and women is incidental and inessential as object to man who is the subject and absolute so now again the other form of feminism is radical feminism women's oppression is the most widespread and deepest form of oppression women's oppression can be considered as a conceptual model for understanding all other forms of oppression this is interesting because they consider that this can be treated as a conceptual model to understand all other forms of oppression that exist in the society and whatever actions we take in order to change such operations men control the norms of acceptable sexual behavior so oppose them and now another one is ecofeminism which is very interesting and very relevant today because there are in literary criticism particularly the ecofeministic reading is quite relevant this is more spiritual than political a patriarchal society will exploit its resources without regard to long term consequences as a direct result of the attitudes fostered in a patriarchal hierarchical society so this these are some of the different types of feminism which we have we can find out and now let us conclude our discussion on feminism we can conclude our discussion on feminism by highlighting some of the complexities that is involved in this very approach the first one is there are many of them the first one is class differences and race discriminations are causing a lot of problems because black women realize that they are never going to have equality within the existing white supremacist capitalist patriarchy so however the kind of feminist sentiments we talk about black women and white women are not going to be equal and they the black women are realizing that they are never going to have equality with this extremely with this with this white supremacist capitalist patriarchy and then there is a kind of polarization reformist emphasized gender equality while revolutionary feminists wanted to transform that system many feminist groups would like to transform the entire system while certain other groups would be satisfied only with you know attaining a kind of gender equality feminist theory remains as a privileged discourse available to those among us who are highly literate well educated and usually materially privileged this is another very interesting aspect because the kind of theory the kind of discourse which the feminist are trying to advocate are not going to touch the realities of many under privileged noneducated illiterate people particularly women in third world countries so some of the complexities involving in feminist there are basic there are many others we can highlight but at the same time none of us can deny the importance of feminism as a movement as an approach to understand reality as a critique as a criticism against existing social order now we will conclude this lecture by a very brief discussion on discourse theory which is also a very significant postmodern approach and discourse theory is again an offshoot of what is known as linguistic term where link language becomes philosophically significant by around 20th century this is a very significant phenomenon this is happened in European thought language has become philosophically significant see it is a social constructionist approach and language and language use do not purely reflect or represent our social and mental realities but they actually help construct or constitute these realities language is not just a medium or a vehicle through which you communicate but it is something which constitutes our reality discourse designate forms of representation codes convention and habits of language that produce specific field of culturally and historically located meaning so basically discourse theorist would argue that meaning is not fixed here they agree with others other postmodern approaches so in that way you know this is also a very strong postmodern approach they basically argue that it is the discourse which designates forms of representation codes and conventions and habits and produce meaning it is the discourse which produce meaning and some of the fundamental ideas language is structured according to different patterns that people's utterances follow when they take part in different domains of social life see for example in a medical discourse or in a religious discourse in a political these are all various discourses available the same terms or the same phenomenon will have different meanings in these different context so in one sense meaning is contextual here historical and cultural specificity are emphasized by all discourse theorist and discourse is a form of social action that plays a part in producing the social world and our ways of understanding the world are created and maintained by social processes now when we talk about beaning we have already mentioned that meaning is not fixed meaning is not universally available but it is discourses which fix meaning discourses are produced by social actors through their practices and the meaning of objects and actions is determined by historically specific systems of rules so the condition of the meaning of any object depends on the socially constructed system or rules so that depends on the discourse in what discourse people are participating in things in the world gain meaning only in the context of a discourse there is no discourse independent meaning here the French philosopher Michel Foucault's contributions are very important Foucault has talked about the important connection between meaning and discourse and also between knowledge and power discourse is made up of a limited number of statements and is essentially a fragment of history according to Foucault so there are statements which are contextual and a discourse is a group of statements in so far as they belong to the same discursive formation so he talks about the very idea of discursive formations truth is the discursive construction different regimes of knowledge determine what is true and far so again the concept of truth as a universal absolute reality does not exist truth is determined by the specific discourse in each context power is linked with knowledge power is spread across different social practices so here that is what one of the major contributions of Foucault is to highlight the link between power and knowledge and discourse so this is what Foucault says in his archaeology of knowledge power constitute discourse knowledge bodies and subjectivities it is responsible for creating our social world and for the particular ways in which the world is formed and can be talked about therefore power is both a productive and a constraining force and when you talk about discourse theory and reality discourse theorists would say that there is no reality as something which is given to us independent of our language every reality is created by discourse every reality is formed through discourse neither the world nor the subjects are given two of the most important metaphysical entities in western philosophy where the mind and the body or rather the world and the subject the world represents everything that is other than the subject which is vaguely the mind and the subject and metaphysically these two are fixed concepts the world exists independent of the mind and the mind exists independent of the world but these two concepts are questioned these two assumptions are questioned by the discourse theorist neither the world nor the subject are given even the subject is created through discourse everything evolves through discursively formed social practices this is the fundamental assumptions of discourse theory we will wind up this discussion here the idea of this lecture was to just give a basic outline of these different postmodern approaches called deconstruction feminism and discourse theory so we are also winding up our discussions on this course here the aspects of western philosophy this is last lecture the 40th lecture thank you