Asserting the Feminine Perspective in Linguistic Meaning | Jessica McIntyre

In their essay, "How Can Language Be Sexist?,"

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contemporary philosophers Merril and Jaakko

Hintikka make a distinction between masculine and feminine methods of approaching linguistic mean 

ing, for they suggest that the feminine perspective has been neglected in Western philosophy.  Taking

the Hintikkas  distinction into account, it is apparent that Ludwig Wittgenstein s

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notion of "meaning as

use" provides the needed balance, because his account uses "feminine" methods for determining mean 

ing.  While Wittgenstein s "meaning as use" doctrine generally reflects a feminine method, his stance of

"meaning as use" is able to encompass the "masculine" method as well.  Wittgenstein's position allows

for both masculine and feminine methods of identification and individuation, and the "meaning of a

word" is determined on a grander scale, in a social context, through a representation of feminine meth 

ods, using functional (relational) aspects of language use.

At the beginning of his essay, "Meaning and Use," Wittgenstein addresses the same problem

with Western philosophy as do the Hintikkas, namely, that philosophers have focused on the idea that

language formed so that " every word has a meaning, and that the meaning is correlated with the word.

Asserting the Feminine Perspective in Linguistic Meaning   Jessica McIntyre

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