Descrições minoritárias

Research output: Types of ThesisMaster's Thesis

Abstract

One of the central ideas of this thesis is that there are sentences, such as «I am x», that cannot have a contractual value, because their meaning depends on the definition of the different groups which try to explain them. For example, if we change this sentence into «I am a twenty five year old man named John» we understand that such a statement looks like a simple fact and not like the beginning of various interpretation problems. Nevertheless, when we exchange «x» for a word like «woman» the question is no longer simple, and the images of an elegant middle aged lady, a challenging-looking English suffragette, a she robot indistinguishable from any other human being, or a pair of women in love walking through a park, will come to mind. To each of these characters correspond different versions of what for most people is supposed to be a woman, or a group of women and, if some of these definitions are of what most people think a woman should be, other belong only to minority groups. In this thesis we try and propose to describe a language problem, related to the way different people attempt to explain the same sentence. In the first and second chapters two different minority descriptions are discussed by the authors Donna Haraway and Judith Butler, in order to try to understand how they view the sentence «I am x». The way in which such a statement is inseparable from the expression «You make me x» will be the object of analysis in the third chapter, which concludes the thesis.
Original languagePortuguese
QualificationMaster of Philosophy
Awarding Institution
  • University of Lisbon
Supervisors/Advisors
  • Feijó, António M., Supervisor, External person
Award date1 Jan 2004
Publication statusPublished - 2004
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Discourse analysis
  • Minorities
  • Philosophy of language
  • Literary philosophy

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