On the Nature of Human Sexual Difference: A Symposium
Description
This work offers a “symposium” on the nature of human sexual difference drawing on Plato’s masterpiece: having explored the observed phenomena of sexual difference, four stories are told of the origins, essence, and ends of the human male and female. First, the evolutionists, and then Simone de Beauvoir, and Judith Butler present their accounts. Next, a fourth (and unique vision for our age) is added: the thought of Thomas Aquinas is placed in dialogue with the evolutionists, Beauvoir, and Butler, thereby introducing into contemporary discourse a voice that is both ancient and new. The work seeks to trace each protagonist’s account to its fonts, so providing a perspective from which various streams of thought might be understood both in their divergence and common origins. It thus hopes to offer a common language and an interpretive key in a realm where confusion and misunderstanding too often reign
Chapters 4 & 5 on existentialist feminazi Simone de Beauvoir and Judith Butler are not worth reading; only ch. 3 on the evolutionists'/biologists' view and ch. 6 & 7 on the Thomistic view are worth reading.
§2.7.3,4 (ref:3.60,69):
Psychologist Richard Lippa reports that meta-analyses of studies of men and women show that men are found to be more aggressive than women in all but one measure of aggression: regarding indirect or relational aggression (e.g., harming another by means of ostracization or spreading malicious rumors) women were found to be more aggressive than men. […] women reported more distress in knowing of her husband developing an emotional attachment to another woman [cf. Leclercq, Jacques, Marriage and the Family, p. 126] than in learning of a sexual infidelity […]. Men show more distress at their partner’s sexual infidelity […].
2. The Explanandum
03/03/262. The Explanandum : 60
It is worth mentioning a rare but significant instance of an intersex syndrome: Researchers discovered a phenotypic female who was genetically slightly atypical in that 94% of her DNA was karyotype XY while the balance was missing the Y chromosome. However, her Y chromosome was apparently intact; Sry appeared to be present and not damaged. Nevertheless, internal and external genitalia were female and female secondary sex characteristics developed at puberty. More remarkably, this individual was able to have two natural pregnancies, one of which resulted in a miscarriage, but the other led to the birth of daughter. The daughter was also genetically XY. She, however, was born with gonadal dysgenesis (Dumic et al., 2008).
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 82
three areas of the brain appear reliably to be sexually differentiated: the hypothalamus, the amygdala, and the hippocampus.
Did Magda Arnold note this?
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 82
areas of the hypothalamus in homosexual males are more typical to those generally found in females
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 82
sexually dimorphic nature of the human amygdala. For example, it is significantly larger in men than in women (adjusted for total brain size
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 84
the human amygdala manifests a kind of baseline preference in which the female brain favors the left hemisphere and the male the right
Did Magda Arnold note this?
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 84
Cahill describes the hippocampus as “a region most associated with learning and memory
Would Magda Arnold agree?
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 85
the brains of men exhibit a far smaller degree of interconnectedness, both within and across the hemispheres, than do those of women, which, conversely, exhibit a significantly greater degree of interconnectedness both across the hemispheres and across lobes within a hemisphere.
Did Magda Arnold note this?
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 86
by analyzing the patterns of brain’s interconnectivity, some researchers have devised methods that allow them to determine the sex of that brain’s owner with ninety-three percent accuracy (Cahill, 2014b
Very interesting!
Cahill, L. (2014b). Equal ≠ the same: Sex differences in the human brain. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25009695
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 86
latest most definitive studies indicate that the female corpus callosum is on average larger than their male counterparts (Holloway, 2017, 22
02/12/262. The Explanandum : 86
Male brains are, on average, larger than female brains though females have more densely packed neurons in parts of their brain (Lippa, 2005, 99–100). Women have a higher percentage of gray matter while men have a higher percentage of white matter (Gur et al., 1999, 4065).
Did Magda Arnold note this?
02/12/262. The Explanandum : 104
women appear to place more importance on emotional fidelity than sexual fidelity
02/12/262. The Explanandum : 104
Men show more distress at their partner’s sexual infidelity
02/12/262. The Explanandum : 106
testosterone levels: levels are higher in the autumn than the spring, and higher in the morning than in the evening
02/12/262. The Explanandum : 106
spatial ability in men is better in the spring than the autumn and better in the evening than in the morning.
02/12/262. The Explanandum : 111
Most brain and behavioral differences are smaller than differences in height.
02/12/262. The Explanandum : 115
a part of the hypothalamus—the intermediate nucleus—is on average twice as large in males, but only until middle age
Did Magda Arnold note this?
02/12/262. The Explanandum : 127
There is no point qualifying brains or behavior as male or female; we should rather simply consider each individual mosaic of features as just that: individual.
03/03/262. The Explanandum : 138
Biason-Lauber, A., Konrad, D., Meyer, M., deBeaufort, C., & Schoenle, E. (2009). Ovaries and female phenotype in a girl with 46, XY karyotype and mutations in the CBX2 gene. The American Journal of Human Genetics, 84(5), 658–663.
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 139
Cahill, L. (2014b). Equal ≠ the same: Sex differences in the human brain. PubMed. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25009695
03/03/262. The Explanandum : 140
Dumic, M., Lin-Su, K., Leibel, N. I., Ciglar, S., Vinci, G., Lasan, R., Nimkarn, S., Wilson, J. D., McElreavey, K., & New, M. I. (2008). Report of fertility in a woman with a predominantly 46, XY karyotype in a family with multiple disorders of sexual development. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 93(1), 182–189. https://doi.org/10.1210/jc.2007-2155
02/11/262. The Explanandum : 145
Biason-Lauber et al., 2009 for the case of an XY individual born phenotypically male.
3. The Evolutionary Account
02/13/263. The Evolutionary Account : 155
computational theory of mind
02/13/263. The Evolutionary Account : 157
every aspect of our mental lives depends entirely on physiological events in the tissues of the brain” (2002, 41)
interesting: evoluʈonist/materialist afƒrms "nihil est in intellectu..."
02/13/263. The Evolutionary Account : 160
Our primary interest here is, of course, not with the nature of the human mind or with how it came to be, but rather with the nature of sexual difference and how it came to be. Ultimately, we will see that these two sets of questions are related to each other; each will help us understand the other
because intellect is man’s specific difference
02/14/263. The Evolutionary Account : 201
testosterone levels associated with healthy development can, in fact, suppress the immune system
02/14/263. The Evolutionary Account : 217
according to both Pinker and Bjorklund and Pellegrini, a mother’s first choice must be whether a given offspring merits the investment it will require:
hence follows abortion mentality
02/14/263. The Evolutionary Account : 219
evolutionary logic would predict that younger mothers would be more likely to abandon, abuse, or kill their children.
02/14/263. The Evolutionary Account : 221
Bjorklund and Pellegrini describe these phenomena as the fetus “strong-arming” the mother into providing adequate resources,
unjust agressor?
02/16/263. The Evolutionary Account : 242
Some studies have shown couples with dissimilar immune systems are more fertile (Geary, 1998, 133–134).
02/16/263. The Evolutionary Account : 258
Regarding the defeated Midianites, Moses’ instruction to the Israelites is severe: “Now therefore, kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman who has known man by lying with him. But all the young girls who have not known man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves” (Num. 31: 17–18).
02/21/263. The Evolutionary Account : 275
with homo sapiens: Women are the limiting factor in reproduction
02/16/263. The Evolutionary Account : 279
Puts, D. A. (2014, April 18). The evolution of human mating: David Puts at TEDxPSU [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXQwtTOnLvg
4. Simone de Beauvoir
02/21/264. Simone de Beauvoir : 285
fundamental dictum of Sartre: Existence precedes essence
not: agere sequitur esse
6. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis
02/23/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 516
The soul is indeed the form of the body; but the body is the composite.
02/23/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 527
Thomas notes that this power is one of two ways in which living material things are even more like the Christian God than even immaterial living beings:
02/23/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 528
An angel cannot produce another like itself.
02/26/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 550
Our claim is emphatically not that the forms of maleness and femaleness are substantial forms;
why not?
02/26/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 551
the forms unfold in time
delayed hominization?
03/03/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 580
It is, in fact, matter that renders generation of another like in kind possible (see Wippel, 2000, 353ff); for it is matter that permits the existence many individuals who are alike in definition.21
why angels can’t generate
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hermaphrodite chimera in which genitalia can be mixed due to the early fusion of two embryos. Fusion of and XX and XY embryo can result in truly ambiguous situations, such as the presence of one testicle and one ovary (see Fitzgerald et al., 2008
03/03/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 585
motion refers precisely to imperfect actuality (Aristotle, Physics, 201b 33)
03/04/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 610
Maleness and femaleness are what could be called essential accidents.
03/04/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 613
human nature intends and produces only one nutrating type
but male & female nutritional needs differ
03/04/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 615
androgens modulate different areas of the brain
did Magda Arnold mention androgens?
03/04/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 639
Ultimately, cultures are either adaptive or they are not; they either lead to the projection of genes into the future, or they do not
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 640
For Butler, the abjection of one group is necessary to establish the fragile, tenuous being of another group.
cf. 1 Corinthians 11:9 "For neither was the man created for the woman, but the woman for the man."
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 643
the lower powers of the soul are for the sake of the higher powers of the soul; the higher power is a kind of final cause for the lower. For example, the powers of sight and nutrition are for the sake of the power of reason.
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 643
maleness and femaleness are likewise for the sake of the whole of the human person; they are for the sake of that which is most perfect in the human person. Not surprisingly then, St Thomas, when considering the creation of woman, precisely notes that the separation of the power of generation among two distinct members of the species was done precisely for the sake of the higher powers—sentience in lower animals, and reason in humans (ST.I.92.1).
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 649
In a famous and powerful text of his Politics, Aristotle radically observes: “In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue” (Politics 1252a 27–28).48
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 650
Perhaps, we could even say that the power of generation is divided precisely so that it can be reunited.
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 651
Nichomachean Ethics
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 651
reproduction is more common to man than with the animals
?
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 652
this friendship may be based also on virtue, if the parties are good; for each has its own virtue and they will delight in the fact
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 652
children are a good common to both and what is common holds them together
He speaks on a natural level. Sacrametal marriages are stonger as unity over spiritual things is greater.
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 655
Human speech communicates justice.
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 656
the city must be ruled by justice and reason, not mere pleasure or pain
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 657
common stock
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 657
Human Sexual Difference and the Intellect
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 658
Sexuality is essentially bound to the power of generation. But in humans, this power is held in a manner different than in any other reproducing beings: As persons, man and woman are free. Human persons have dominion over their acts (Aquinas, ST.I.29.1). So, unlike any other biological being, the human person must decide whether or not to reproduce. And such a choice is pregnant with meaning.
virginity
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 661
why keep filling cemeteries?
Hamlet’s “breeders of sinners”
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 663
“Whence everything having an intellect desires to be always” (ST.I.75.6)
so suicide supremely anti-intellectual
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 663
the conscious choice to bring about new life in the face of the dust is a statement of hope not only in the possibility of a pleasant life, but in the possibility of eternity.
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 663
filling cemeteries
03/06/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 684
Interestingly, as just noted, the human person cannot freely choose to accept the gift of her existence; esse is joined to essence in the coming to be of a new human being independent of any act of the will of that new human being. Human persons cannot freely say “yes” to their existence in their coming to be. Ideally, however, the “yes” that confirms the act of existence of the new human substance arises from affirmation of being freely offered by the mother and father of the child. The dynamic of gift is made full in their free affirmation of the gift of being received in their child. And then, when the child grows into her own freedom, the gift of her being is ratified by her free affirmation of the gift she has received.
cf. infant baptism
02/23/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 690
Amerini, F. (2013). Aquinas on the beginning and end of human life (M. Henninger, Trans.). Harvard University Press. (Original work published 2009).
Crossref
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 692
Blancknenhorn, B. (2002). The good as self-diffusive in Thomas Aquinas. Angelicum, 79(4), 803–837.
03/04/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 692
Corey, T. (2014). Aquinas on human self-knowledge. Cambridge University Press.
03/03/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 693
Fitzgerald, P. B., Donald, R. A., & Kirk, R. L. (2008). A true hermaphrodite dispermic chimera with 46, XX and 46, XY karyotypes. Clinical Genetics, 15(1), 89–96. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1399-0004.1979.tb02032.x
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 693
Hadjadj, F. (2014a). Qu’est-ce qu’une famille?: Suivi de La Transcendance en culottes et autres propos ultra-sexistes. Salvator.
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 704
For a discussion of the ordering of ends, see ST.I-II.1.
Is this where natural vs. supernatural ends of man discussed?
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 704
Hadjadj, 2014a, 65–68 for commentary on this text.
of Aristotle
03/05/266. The Thomistic Account—A Causal Analysis : 705
For commentary, see Hadjadj, 2014a, 68–72. For a presentation of the majority of the French text in English, see: (2014b) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWO0PLsHYdM&t=3586s, 29:40–59:50.
7. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 707
maleness and femaleness refer to accidents existing within the human substance, and that they may be referred to as essential accidents
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 707
they fell into Aristotle’s first category of quality, disposition
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 714
standard dictionary definitions of “species” precisely use the capacity of one individual to mate successfully with another and produce fertile offspring as an indicator that the two are male and female members of the same species
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 714
mistaken notion of the mechanism of sexual differentiation
mistaken how?
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 715
specifically different things are not generated from one and the same kind of sperm
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 715
It follows, then, that male and female do not differ formally, and that they do not differ specifically (In Meta. , Bk. 10, Lec. 11).
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 716
Our knowledge, however, of how human sexual differentiation happens only makes Thomas’s argument stronger:
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 716
it is exactly the same power of generation that produces both the male and female child. As such, the male and female child must be of the same species.
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 720
such powers cannot be “…in the soul as in a subject as color or shape, or any other quality, or quantity, are in a body” (ST.I.77.1 Obj. 5
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 721
the “proper” does not belong to the essence of a thing, but is caused by the essential principles of the species
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 723
inseparable accidents
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 723
separable accidents
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 734
He even muses that, in the state of innocence, parents might be able to determine the sex of the child by freely willing the disposition of the body that would produce one sex or the other (ST.I.99.2 ad 2).
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 734
even though the substantial form of the human being does not intend both female and male, it could nevertheless still be considered as a kind of essential accident
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 734
all beings act for their perfection; and their perfection lies in possessing the active power of generation.
03/07/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 736
if something happens either always or for the most part, it cannot be attributed to chance (Physics, 196b 10–17
03/07/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 740
Neither material condition—XX or XY—is a defect of the other. Thus, we part ways from the traditional Aristotelian/Thomistic position.
but XY sperm stonger: Goodall, H., and A. M. Roberts. “Differences in Motility of Human X- and Y-Bearing Spermatozoa.” Reproduction. Reproduction 48, no. 2 (1976): 433–36. DOI: 10.1530/jrf.0.0480433.
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Thomas held that the individual instance of the nature always intended the production of the male and that female only arose due to some defect of the matter; but that defect was intended by “universal nature.” I am arguing that human nature has two possible ends towards which it can act regarding the power of generation.
but 1 agent can’t intend 2 ends
03/07/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 751
the category of quality. Thomas judges sexual difference to fall within this category (In Meta., Bk. 7, Lec. 4
03/07/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 751
perhaps it seems to contradict the claim I just made that maleness and femaleness arise not solely from the substantial form, but from a material principle. According to what we have just seen from Thomas, this would seem to place sex in the category of quantity, which he says is consequent to matter.
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Sex is thus consequent to matter in a different way than quantity is subsequent to matter.
03/07/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 758
Among all accidents (in material beings), quantity is nearest to substantial form,
03/08/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 762
speaking of habits of the soul and of the body, that they are “dispositions of the perfect to the best; and by perfect I mean that which is disposed in accordance with its nature.” [quod sunt dispositiones quaedam perfecti ad optimum; dico autem perfecti, quod est dispositum secundum naturam
how accidents relate to substance
Are eucharistic accidents dispositions?
03/08/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 765
Maleness and femaleness are indeed orderings of parts.
03/08/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 766
They order the individual towards the operation of the power of generation. Beyond that, they are ordered both to that which precedes generation and that which proceeds from generation. And yet further, they are ordered to the founding and fullness of the city in which the human being thrives. And further still they are ordered to the very destiny of the human person in contemplation and communion.
03/08/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 767
As in our discussion of maleness and femaleness as essential accidents, so also in reference to their nature as qualities we will find that sexual difference occupies a kind of space in-between that of supervening quality and a natural quality.
03/08/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 773
the expansiveness of these accidental forms. The ordering of the parts of the human being that constitute human sexual difference is not limited to only the act of generation: it expands both to that which precedes generation and that which proceeds from generation. Beyond that, its ordering reaches beyond the generation of new human persons to the generation and flourishing of the polis and even to the perfection of the human mind
03/06/267. The Thomistic Account—Ontological Analysis : 778
Deslauriers, M. (2022). Aristotle on sexual difference: Metaphysics, biology, politics. Oxford University Press.
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Kahm, N. (2016). Aquinas on quality. British Journal for the History of Philosophy , 24(1), 23–44. https://doi.org/10.1080/09608788.2015.1036395
8. Resolutions
03/08/268. Resolutions : 792
The senselessness of the given follows from the impossibility of God.
or from His free creativity?
03/08/268. Resolutions : 792
being is ab-surdo, existence is ex-libertate
Beauvoir opposed to De ente & essentia
03/08/268. Resolutions : 799
De Veritate:
Note, however, that a thing is referred differently to the practical intellect than it is to the speculative intellect
03/08/268. Resolutions : 800
(De ver., q. 1, a. 2).
03/08/268. Resolutions : 801
truth: adaequatio intellectus et rei (De ver., q. 1, a.1). The “equalization” of the intellect and thing, however, comes to be through the sameness of form in the intellect and the thing
03/08/268. Resolutions : 801
“But truth predicated of things because of their relation to the human intellect is, as it were, accidental to those things; for, supposing that the human intellect did not or could not exist, things would still remain essentially the same” (De ver. q.1, a.4).
his resolution of the "if a tree falls..."
03/08/268. Resolutions : 803
a thing is said to be true principally because of its order to the truth of the divine intellect rather than because of its relation to the truth of a human intellect” (De ver., q. 1, a. 4).
03/08/268. Resolutions : 810
a moral sense is part of the standard equipment of the human mind
thus Pinker seems to believe in natural law
03/08/268. Resolutions : 850
the work of the generation of new life—is emphatically not a project, not a projection of freedom that opens new worlds. It is a sirens call leading the ship’s captain from the potential discovery of new worlds instead into drowning in the endless drone of meaningless being.
sounds Albigensian
03/08/268. Resolutions : 853
The apparent strength of maternal desire “conceals the institution of motherhood as compulsory for women. Indeed, when the desires that maintain the institution of motherhood are transvalued as pre-paternal and pre-cultural drives, then the institution gains a permanent legitimation in the invariant structures of the female body” (1990, 126).
What’s woman’s reproductive system mean for Butler?
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The reproductive meaning of the body is a ruse power.
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Schumacher, M. (2023). Metaphysics and gender: The normative art of nature and its human imitations. Emmaus Academic.
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(ST.I.29.2). “Alio modo dicitur substantia subiectum vel suppositum quod subsistit in genere substantiae. Et hoc quidem, communiter accipiendo, nominari potest et nomine significante intentionem.”
03/08/268. Resolutions : 857
subsistit in
Is this where Lumen Gentium got it?
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It is senseless in that all that evolution produces proceeds from an order itself that, while intelligible, does not arise from intelligence; it rather arises from the surdo, from deaf, mute, senseless nature.
why not from God’s creative freedom?