Studys the philosophy of Aristotle, Plato, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Hume, Locke, and Hegel and examines their underlying assumptions about women.

Interpreters of Theaetetus are prone to endorse the view that a god gave Socrates maieutic skill. This paper challenges that view. It provides a different account of the skill’s origins, and reconstructs a genealogy of Socratic philosophy that begins and has its end in human experience. Three distinct origins coordinate to bring forth a radically new conception of philosophy in the image of female midwifery: the state of wonder (1. efficient origin), the exercise of producing, examining and disavowing (...) beliefs in the gradual cultivation of human nature’s lack of skill (2. material origin), and Socrates’ understanding of god’s assistance as an endorsement of his mental infertility and the benefit of a particular form of dialectical training (3. formal origin). The paper concludes by arguing that Socrates transforms philosophy into a pursuit of wisdom that has its telos in becoming like a woman. (shrink)

In ____Womanizing Nietzsche,__ Kelly Oliver uses an analysis of the position of woman in Nietzsche's texts to open onto the larger question of philosophy's relation to the feminine and the maternal. Offering readings from Nietzsche, Derrida, Irigaray, Kristeva, Freud and Lacan, Oliver builds an innovative foundation for an ontology of intersubjective relationships that suggests a new approach to ethics.

Is a reconciliation possible between Chinese philosophy and woman when taking into account infamous gender-oppressive cultural practices such as foot-binding, concubinage, etc., in premodern Chinese societies? The article tackles the complexity of the subject by calling the readers' attention to texts from Confucian classics that indeed support intellectual equality of the sexes and classless access to education, while noting diverging historical cultural evidences of women's education and their social status in premodern, modern, and postmodern Chinese societies. The article (...) challenges the belief that Confucian philosophy is unequivocally a sexist ideology to be a foregone conclusion. While not intending to exonerate Confucian philosophy from its opponents' charges, the article questions the adequateness of Western liberal feminism as the means to reappropriate Confucian philosophy. It suggests that a more culturally sensitive approach coupling with better historical and contextual analysis would prove to be both helpful and necessary. (shrink)

An article publicising the philosophical contributions of German writer Karoline von Günderrode (1780–1806).

Aan de orde komen opvattingen over (de rol van) vrouwen in het werk van westerse filosofen, te weten Plato, Aristoteles, St. Thomas Aquinas, Christine de Pisan, Bacon, Descartes, Rousseau, Kant, Wollstonecraft, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Irigaray.

Irigaray demonstrates that metaphysics depends upon the specific negation and exclusion of the female body. Readings of Irigaray's Speculum of the Other Woman tend to highlight the status of this excluded materiality: is there an essential female body which precedes negation or is the feminine only an effect of exclusion? I approach Irigaray's work by way of another question: is it possible to move beyond a feminist critique of metaphysics and towards a feminist philosophy?

Today a “new” field of philosophy has emerged which can be called simply “The Philosophy of Man and Woman”. Paradoxically, it is a field of study with a long and impressive history which began when the pre-Socratic philosophers first questioned their own identity in the midst of the world. Their questions fall into four broad areas:1. How is the male “opposite” to the female?2. What roles do male and female play in the generation and identity of (...) offspring?3. Are women and men wise in the same or different ways?4. Are women and men good in the same or different ways? (shrink)

Thinking Woman examines the lives and ideas of women in the history of philosophy who wished to understand and advocate for themselves as women. The books is fitting both for undergraduate and graduate students in philosophy who are interested in the ontology and ethics of gender.

v. 1. The Aristotelian revolution, 750 BC-AD 1250 -- v. 2. The early humanist Reformation, 1250-1500.

This pioneering study by Sister Prudence Allen traces the concept of woman in relation to man in more than seventy philosophers from ancient and medieval traditions. The fruit of ten years' work, this study uncovers four general categories of questions asked by philosophers for two thousand years. These are the categories of opposites, of generation, of wisdom, and of virtue. Sister Prudence Allen traces several recurring strands of sexual and gender identity within this period. Ultimately, she shows the paradoxical (...) influence of Aristotle on the question of woman and on a philosophical understanding of sexual coomplemenarity. Supplemented throughout with helpful charts, diagrams, and illustrations, this volume will be an important resource for scholars and students in the fields of women's studies, philosophy, history, theology, literary studies, and political science. (shrink)

An important work by 20-century philosopher Hans Blumenberg, here translated into English for the first time, The Laughter of the Thracian Woman describes the reception history of an anecdote best known from Plato's Theaetetus dialogue: while focused on observing the stars, the early astronomer and proto-philosopher Thales of Miletus fails to see a well directly in his path and tumbles down. A Thracian servant girl laughs, amused that he sought to understand what was above him when he was (...) not mindful of what was right in front of him. Blumenberg sees the story as a highly sought substitute for our missing knowledge of the earliest historical events that would fit the label "theory." By retelling the anecdote, philosophers reveal their distinctive values regarding absorption in curiosity, philosophy's past, and the demand that theorists abide by sanctioned methods and procedures. In this work and others, Blumenberg demonstrates that philosophers' most beloved images and anecdotes have become indispensable to philosophy as metaphors; that is, as representations whose meanings remain indefinite and invite frequent reinterpretation. (shrink)

Hegel’s admiration for Sophocles’ Antigone is well-known. In the Philosophy of Religion he declares it to be “for me the absolute example of tragedy.” In the Aesthetics he calls it “one of the most sublime and in every respect most magnificent works of art of all time” - and adds : “Of all the splendors of the ancient or modern worlds - and I know nearly all, and one should and can know them - the Antigone seems to me (...) in this respect the most magnificent, most satisfying, work of art.” No less extravagant is Hegel’s praise of Antigone herself: “the heavenly Antigone, the most magnificent figure ever to have appeared on earth” as he puts it in his History of Philosophy. (shrink)

Hegel’s admiration for Sophocles’ Antigone is well-known. In the Philosophy of Religion he declares it to be “for me the absolute example of tragedy.” In the Aesthetics he calls it “one of the most sublime and in every respect most magnificent works of art of all time” - and adds : “Of all the splendors of the ancient or modern worlds - and I know nearly all, and one should and can know them - the Antigone seems to me (...) in this respect the most magnificent, most satisfying, work of art.” No less extravagant is Hegel’s praise of Antigone herself: “the heavenly Antigone, the most magnificent figure ever to have appeared on earth” as he puts it in his History of Philosophy. (shrink)

Traditional accounts of the feminist history of philosophy have viewed reason as associated with masculinity and subsequent debates have been framed by this assumption. Yet recent debates in deconstruction have shown that gender has never been a stable matter. In the history of philosophy 'female' and 'woman' are full of ambiguity. What does deconstruction have to offer feminist criticism of the history of philosophy? _Yielding Gender_ explores this question by examining three crucial areas; (...) the issue of gender as 'troubled'; deconstruction; and feminist criticism of the history of philosophy. The first part of the book discusses the work of Judith Butler, Jacques Derrida, and contemporary French feminist philosophy including key figures such as Luce Irigiray. Particular attention is given to the possibilities offered by deconstruction for understanding the history of philosophy. The second part considers and then challenges feminist interpretations of some key figures in the history of philosophy. Penelope Deutscher sketches how Rousseau, St. Augustine and Simone de Beauvoir have described gender and argues that their readings of gender are in fact empowered by gender's own contradiction and instability rather than limited by it. (shrink)

Nature, Woman, and the Art of Politics ambitiously undertakes an examination of the role of women in political life as perceived in the history of philosophic thought broadly construed. Having accepted the basic tenets of liberalism, most human beings believe that they are free. However, as Velásquez notes in his introductory remarks, although we believe ourselves to be entirely free, we impose limits on ourselves by making choices that we hope will be conducive to our good. Indeed, political (...) life necessitates such limits if only to ensure our own safety against the wills of others. Velásquez argues that to understand the good, to understand the limits we justly impose, is to understand nature or more concretely, human nature. The history of political philosophy might be understood as various attempts of determining the limits that nature places on us. (shrink)

In this paper, implicitly starting from the neuralgic epistemological point caused by Kostas Axelos’ question to Gordana Bosanac: “Will a woman manage to think?”, we will analyse The Second Sex (Le Deuxième sexe, 1949) by Simone de Beauvoir, to deliberately dissolve the irony of Axelos’s question by reading and talking to the text of one of the most important woman philosophers in the history of philosophy. We will interpret The Second Sex as a report on the (...) phenomenology of the relationship between the gendered self and the gender-marked world, in which the social ideals of the feminine shape the experience of the female self and the processes of becoming a woman. The paper is structured into three sections. After the introductory notes, in the first section, entitled “Ad feminam criticism and controversies”, we will present only a few paradigmatic examples of controversies and negative reactions that followed the publication of The Second Sex. In the “Phenomenology of Gender”, the second and key section of the paper, we will pay attention to the original reading of The Second Sex, mapping the existentialist-phenomenological theses on gender in the book. Finally, in the concluding remarks, we will only sketch a few more recent readings of The Second Sex, to point out the current and very engaged affirmations and additions to the ideas that Simone de Beauvoir announced with that philosophical classic. (shrink)

This article explores the connection among woman, sex, and finitude. In stuying finitude, the argument follows the articulation of finitude with woman. In a first part, it discusses three “women” writers—Virginia Woolf, Simone De Beauvoir, and Hélène Cixous—to establish their thoughts on woman in terms of finitude. The three of them are identified as women and yet they problematized what to be a woman is. In tracing their thoughts on finitude and woman, sexual difference –the (...) body as enjoying emerges as an issue. Thus, in a second part, it discusses two seemingly opposed positions—Lacanian psychoanalysis, with Joan Copjec, and deconstruction, with Derrida—to think further about the question of woman, sexual difference, the “two,” and finitude. This study compares the Lacanian feminine side with the movement of deconstruction and establishes the necessity of thinking a “two” beyond the binary of phallogocentrism. My thesis is that thinking finitude with woman leads us to a non-oppositional two that correlates with sexual difference. The Lacanian feminine side, and Derrida’s deconstruction aim to think these two logics, delineating two sides: a male one (comparable with phallogocentrism) and a feminine side (comparable with the movement of deconstruction). If the male side considers finitude (death) as the limit of life, the feminine side opens to death and life, and the in-finitude of the undetermined and undecidable. In thinking finitude with woman, the knowledge of what to be a woman is, becomes undetermined and undecidable. (shrink)

Interpreters of Theaetetus are prone to endorse the view that a god gave Socrates maieutic skill. This paper challenges that view. It provides a different account of the skill’s origins, and reconstructs a genealogy of Socratic philosophy that begins and has its end in human experience. Three distinct origins coordinate to bring forth a radically new conception of philosophy in the image of female midwifery: the state of wonder (1. efficient origin), the exercise of producing, examining and disavowing (...) beliefs in the gradual cultivation of human nature’s lack of skill (2. material origin), and Socrates’ understanding of god’s assistance as an endorsement of his mental infertility and the benefit of a particular form of dialectical training (3. formal origin). The paper concludes by arguing that Socrates transforms philosophy into a pursuit of wisdom that has its telos in becoming like a woman. (shrink)

Interpreters of Theaetetus are prone to endorse the view that a god gave Socrates maieutic skill. This paper challenges that view. It provides a different account of the skill’s origins, and reconstructs a genealogy of Socratic philosophy that begins and has its end in human experience. Three distinct origins coordinate to bring forth a radically new conception of philosophy in the image of female midwifery: the state of wonder, the exercise of producing, examining and disavowing beliefs in the (...) gradual cultivation of human nature’s lack of skill, and Socrates’ understanding of god’s assistance as an endorsement of his mental infertility and the benefit of a particular form of dialectical training. The paper concludes by arguing that Socrates transforms philosophy into a pursuit of wisdom that has its telos in becoming like a woman. (shrink)

This chapter contains section titled: Introduction Methodological Challenges to Justifying the Inclusion of Specific Women in Our Histories of Philosophy: The Case of Marie de Gournay Gournay's Text and the Querelle des Femmes Gournay's Method The Skeptical Challenge of Nurture to the Argument from Nature The Skeptical Challenge to the “Might Makes Right” Argument The Skeptical Challenge to the Argument from Woman's Creation The Skeptical Challenge from God's Privileges against the Vanity of Man Concluding Remarks Notes.

In a thought-provoking article – or how she herself named it, ‘a thought experiment’ – the philosopher-medical ethicist Anna Smajdor analyzed in this journal the idea of whole-body gestational donation (WBGD) in brain-dead female patients, as an alternative means of gestation for prospective women who cannot or prefer not to become pregnant themselves. We have serious legal, economical, medical and ethical concerns about this proposal. First, consent for eight months of ICU treatment can never be assumed to be derived from (...) consent for post-mortem organ donation; these two are of an incomparable and entirely different medical and ethical order. Moreover, the brain-dead woman is very likely to be medically unfit for high-tech surrogacy and the brain-dead state poses a high risk for deficient embryo/fetal development. Second, from a scarcity perspective, occupying an ICU bed for eight months appears to be unjust. The costs for eight months of ICU treatment are far too high compared to the costs of surrogacy for a living, selected, and healthy woman. Neither insurance companies nor prospective parents will want to pay these exceptionally high costs for a dead woman if a living surrogate mother can be hired for a considerably lower amount. Third, there is an increased risk for harm of the child to be in WBGD. And finally, WBGD risks violating the brain-dead woman’s dignity and harming the interests of her loved ones. In short, there is simply no need for brain-dead women as surrogates. (shrink)

Eileen O'Neill - Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher - Journal of the History of Philosophy 44:1 Journal of the History of Philosophy 44.1 122-124 Sarah Hutton. Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004. Pp. viii + 271. Cloth, $75.00. In 1690 a Latin translation of a philosophical treatise, originally written in English by Anne Conway , was published anonymously. The English manuscript did not survive, but in 1692 the Latin version (...) of Conway's text was translated into English as The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy. Conway was widely known by seventeenth-century philosophers and religious writers, including the Cambridge Platonist, Henry More; Descartes's correspondent, Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia; Robert Boyle; physician and vitalist philosopher, Francis Mercury van Helmont; as well as numerous Quaker leaders. And her Principles were read with critical approbation by such figures as Leibniz. Further, Conway's text is probably the most anthologized of the writings of seventeenth-century women philosophers. It is curious, then, to discover a dearth of critical literature on the Principles. When Peter Loptson produced the first modern edition of the Principles , he attempted to interest contemporary philosophers in Conway's essentialist metaphysics. He did a superb job of elucidating Conway's position that: there are individual essences.. (shrink)

Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the greatest philosophers and writers of the Eighteenth century. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book. Her most celebrated and widely-read work is _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_. This Guidebook introduces: Wollstonecraft’s life and the background to _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ The ideas and text of _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ (...) Wollstonecraft’s enduring influence in philosophy and our contemporary intellectual life It is ideal for anyone coming to Wollstonecraft’s classic text for the first time and anyone interested in the origins of feminist thought. (shrink)

This article examines the use of dialogues in two texts which functioned superficially as scientific handbooks for women: Aphra Behn's translation of Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle's Entretien sur la pluralité des Mondes and Elizabeth Carter's Sir Isaac Newton's Philosophy Explained for the Use of Ladies (1739) translated from Francesco Algarotti's Il Newtoniasnismo Per le Dame (1737). Original texts exploit the female figure for the scientific cause, but at first glance, both of the original texts appeared generous to the (...) ‘fair sex’. However, neither text is as sympathetic as it initially appears. The confused gender messages emitted by these texts are further complicated by the fact that they were translated by women. (shrink)

The works of Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) ranged from the early _Thoughts on the Education of Daughters_ to _The Female Reader_, a selection of texts for girls, and included two novels. But her reputation is founded on _A Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ of 1792. This treatise is the first great document of feminism—and is now accepted as a core text in western tradition. It is not widely known that the germ of Wollstonecraft’s great work came out of an earlier (...) and much shorter vindication—A Vindication of the Rights of Men (1790), written in the context of the issues raised by the French Revolution. This edition, which follows the model of other Broadview Editions in including a range of materials that help the reader to see the work in the context of its era out of which it emerged, is arranged chronologically, opening with Wollstonecraft’s “other vindication.” It also includes a wide range of other documents in appendices, as well as a comprehensive and authoritative introduction, chronology, and full index. (shrink)

Sati as a trope for the general status of women within certain portions of the Hindu cultures of India is examined, with a view toward clarification of its history and current context. The work of Sangari and Vaid, Banerjee and Mala Sen is cited, and the notion that sati is a misappropriated concept is analyzed.

‘Woman questions’ were emphasized in common speech during the time of the party-state in Hungary. In the 1950s this was symbolized by women tractor drivers, Stakhanovites in construction industry, or women who were present in public life and in politics. Mrs Mihály Berki, née Magdolna Szakács was one of the first emblematic female politicians who was appointed the first peasant woman főispán [honorary prefect] from a village at the end of 1948. The central elements of her life story (...) were the social and geographical mobility: how could she adapt to the new roles and environments? What kind of competences did she need? How did she acquire them? Did the image of a peasant woman politician with a kerchief change during her career? I intend to outline a wider social context in connection with the determining features of her career such as her being a female, her peasant background and her institutional socialization. (shrink)

The article draws on critiques in political theory and morality to argue that womanism, a worldview rooted in Black women's lives and history, provides an alternative conceptual framework to prevailing Eurocentric thinking, for promoting socially just institutions of higher education. Presupposing a positioned, encultured, and embodied account of identity, womanism’s social change perspective holds transformative promise. It foregrounds Black women’s penchant for reaching solutions that promote communal balance, affirm one’s humanity and attend to the spiritual dimension (Phillips, 2006 Phillips, (...) L. (Ed.). (2006). The womanist reader. Routledge.[Crossref], [Google Scholar]). Directed first towards scholars of color, fostering inclusivity, communalist values and acknowledged intersectionality offers an ethic of the embodied self. As a corollary, it argues for a universal that recommends at least two guiding principles for a pedagogical philosophy. It is, first oriented towards a love of self and second towards placing all disciplines within a cultural-historical context. In the first claim, there is potential for nothing less than suspending the symbolic and ontological violence to one’s sense of belonging in academia. In the second claim, such an understanding can position scholars of color to actively re-narrate their fields. As illustrations, we focus on three academic fields of education, theology in higher education, and criminal justice. (shrink)

What is beauty? What is art? What is taste and fashion? Is beauty something to be observed coolly and rationally or is it something dangerously involving? So begins Umberto Eco's intriguing journey into the aesthetics of beauty, in which he explores the ever-changing concept of the beautiful from the ancient Greeks to today. While closely examining the development of the visual arts and drawing on works of literature from each era, Eco broadens his enquiries to consider a range of concepts, (...) including the idea of love, the unattainable woman, natural inspiration versus numeric formulas, and the continuing importance of ugliness, cruelty, and even the demonic. Professor Eco takes us from classical antiquity to the present day, dispelling many preconceptions along the way and concluding that the relevance of his research is urgent because we live in an age of great reverence for beauty, "an orgy of tolerance, the total syncretism and the absolute and unstoppable polytheism of Beauty." In this, his first illustrated book, Professor Eco offers a layered approach that includes a running narrative, abundant examples of painting and sculpture, and excerpts from writers and philosophers of each age, plus comparative tables. A true road map to the idea of beauty for any reader who wishes to journey into this wonderful realm with Eco's nimble mind as guide. (shrink)