Women and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Germany

Abstract

Abstract This volume showcases the vibrant and diverse contributions on the part of women in eighteenth-century Germany and explores their under-appreciated influence upon philosophical debate in this period. The women profiled in this volume include Sophie of Hanover, Dorothea Christiane Erxleben, Johanna Charlotte Unzer, Wilhelmina of Bayreuth, Amalia Holst, Henriette Herz, Elise Reimarus, and Maria von Herbert. Notably, their contributions span the range of philosophical topics in metaphysics, logic, and aesthetics, to moral and political philosophy, and pertain to the main philosophical movements in the period (the Leibnizian-Wolffian philosophy, the Thomasian philosophy, the ‘popular’ philosophical movement, and the Kantian and early post-Kantian idealist tradition). Moreover, they engage controversial issues of the day, such as atheism and materialism, but also women’s struggle for access to education and for recognition of their civic entitlements, and they display a range of strategies in doing so. In the end, this volume vigorously contests the presumption that the history of German philosophy in the eighteenth century can be told without attending to the important roles that women played in conceiving, refining, and propagating its ideas, and in provoking, conducting, and engaging the signature debates of the period.