Women Philosophers Research Articles

Being-from-Birth

Women are underrepresented in philosophy. And pregnancy is under-researched in philosophy. Can a connection be made between the two? I will argue that whilst the counterfactual of ‘had women historically been better represented in philosophy then pregnancy would have been too’ may be true, it is not necessarily the case that we can now, in the present day, expect (or desire) a correlation. In order to understand the gap between these two areas of underrepresentation, one need only adopt a non- essentialist understanding of women so as to recognise that not all women experience pregnancy or are interested in pregnancy (philosophically or otherwise). Nevertheless, given the historical silence(ing) of women in philosophy on the topic of pregnancy, it is important now to redress that imbalance by tackling both issues of underrepresentation simultaneously. To demonstrate further I refer to the difference between representational diversity and substantive diversity (which is related to the more commonly known distinction between descriptive representation and substantive representation). This will be the topic of the first section of the paper. Then, in the second and third sections of the paper I will explore the underrepresentation and misrepresentation of women in philosophy, regarding not only the lack of women numerically speaking but also how women, as a general ‘kind’, are (misogynistically) described in philosophy historically. I will then apply the same treatment to pregnancy in the fourth and fifth sections of the paper, exploring both its underrepresentation as a topic of philosophical endeavour and misrepresentation within society at large. The analysis contains a review of the literature, and cites statistical quantitative data and qualitative grounded interviews, to provide evidence for my claims. I will end by hypothesising about the relationship between these under- and mis- representations, and will provide musings on the future for women and pregnancy in philosophy.

“Bad philosophy” and “derivative philosophy”: Labels that keep women out of the canon

AbstractEfforts to include women in the canon have long been beset by reactionary gatekeeping, typified by the charge “That's not philosophy.” That charge doesn't apply to early and mid‐analytic female philosophers—Welby, Ladd‐Franklin, Bryant, Jones, de Laguna, Stebbing, Ambrose, MacDonald—with job titles like lecturer in logic and professor of philosophy and publications in Mind, the Journal of Philosophy, and Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society. It's hopeless to dismiss their work as “not philosophy.” But comparable reactionary gatekeeping affects them, this paper argues, typified by the labels “bad philosophy” and “derivative philosophy.” Virtue and vice epistemology help explain why these women have been neglected and why their own approaches are epistemically virtuous. Their contemporaries and historians are deficient in scholarly virtues in labelling these women's work “bad” or derived from male mentors with no or specious justification. Their disparaged qualities—intellectual humility, modesty, critical self‐reflection, disclosing biases—are often epistemic virtues.

Some Philosophical Aspects of Elza Kučera

The focus of this work are two aspects of the philosophy of Elza Kučera (1883 — 1972). Kučera received her doctorate in philosophy from the University of Zurich in 1909, becoming the first Croatian woman born in Croatia to receive a PhD in philosophy. Her main interest was psychology, and later library science, and, apart from her PhD theses, almost all her published works are within these disciplines. However, among her handwritten and unpublished works that are preserved in the archives of the National and University Library in Zagreb a certain number of “purely” philosophical texts can be found. In order to present her philosophical approach, we analyze two particular questions she dealt with. The first is the problem of causality that she discussed in her overview of Thomas Brown’s epistemology in her dissertation entitled The Epistemology of Thomas Brown: A Historical Study (Die Erkenntnislehre von Thomas Brown: eine historische Studie, Zagreb, 1909). The second is the question of national philosophy, which she developed in a short unpublished text from 1918 or 1919. Given that Elza Kučera, as the first woman philosopher, experimental psychologist, and woman librarian in Croatia, has not received due attention to this day, we also present her biography.

Appropriateness of Combining Feminist and Anticolonial Approaches to Historiography of Philosophy

Feminist research on historiography of philosophy has been actively conducted in the anglophone academic space and primarily regarding Western philosophy for several decades. These inquiries led to fundamental rethinking of the canon of history of philosophy, the development of feminist methodological reflections by historians of philosophy, and discoveries (recoveries) of names of women philosophers of the past. Meanwhile, anticolonial research (including, but not limited to decolonial and postcolonial theory), aimed at combatting the problematic assumption that philosophy is a Western phenomenon, is being conducted. Meanwhile in Ukraine, the canon of history of philosophy remains almost exclusively male, and the anticolonial perspective is not applied to history of philosophy, even though for a major part of its history Ukraine was not independent and was under control of empires. To overcome the androcentric bias in historiography of Ukrainian philosophy, I believe we need to combine the feminist perspective with the anticolonial perspective since we are talking about women who are also representatives of a colonial nation, and this double status of being women and being colonial affected their experience. However, feminist and anticolonial approaches remain largely methodologically isolated, which is what prompts this article and the need to research the levels of their developments and the prospects of combining them for historiography of philosophy. This article fulfils this goal by reviewing both feminist and anticolonial approaches to historiography of philosophy separately, and then looking at cases of their successful combinations outside historiography of philosophy, reviewing challenges and similarities, and outlining methodological reasons for combining them when it comes to historiography of philosophy.

Uma conversa filosófica com Lorena Cabnal da Guatemala

Abstract: In this paper I want to focus on the feminist Lorena Cabnal from Guatemala. I want to do so through her words in various spaces: videos, conferences, conversations with her, and her writings. My final goal is to engage with Cabnal’s ideas/actions not only as feminist thought, but as philosophical formulations, even though they are not presented as they are usually presented in traditional academia, and they are not formulations involving universal categories. I want to talk with/from the concepts she develops in/with her experience in the same way as we usually engage with concepts formulated by an intellectual recognized as such by academia. My conversation with Cabnal will be grounded in my particular experience as a mestiza woman philosopher from Colombia (Diana Milena PATIÑO, 2021).

Why Do Women Philosophy Students Drop Out of Philosophy? Some Evidence from the Classroom at the Bachelor’s Level

It is well known that there has been a steady and significant underrepresentation of women in philosophy on different professional levels. Numerous hypotheses explaining this underrepresentation have been suggested, but empirical analyses are not yet extensive. In particular, studies of the phenomenon in different countries are nonexistent. In this paper, we present findings from an exploratory study in which we analyze the interests, abilities, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and goals of bachelor’s students in a semester-long philosophy of science course at a major German university. We furthermore make the first attempt to compare women-only learning environments with mixed-gender learning environments. Our results suggest that while there are generally some gender differences regarding interests, abilities, beliefs, attitudes, perceptions, and goals of students in the classroom, most of the hypotheses we explore to explain dropout rates by gender differences cannot be supported. We conclude that possible factors leading to the underrepresentation of women in philosophy in Germany might be found in the social and institutional environment within which philosophy is taught.

Philosophy of everyday life

At Oxford University, in the context of WW2, when men were largely obliged to abandon the university benches to take part in the war effort, four women philosophers, Iris Murdoch (1919-1999), Mary Midgley (1919-2018), Elizabeth Anscombe (1919-2001) and Philippa Foot (1920-2010), formed a group of philosophical reflections that would become a competitor, after the war, to John L. Austin’s famous ‘Saturday Mornings’. At the heart of the concerns of this ‘wartime quartet’: putting the importance of being human back at the centre of ethics. They opposed “modern moral philosophy” and its many presuppositions, including the claim that ethical questions are independent of the facts of human life or concern a purely rational subject abstracted from everyday issues and from its belonging to the human species. By putting the importance of being human back at the heart of their ethical reflections, these philosophers came to reflect on issues that directly concern human life, far from the philosophical abstractions that interested their men homologues. In this paper, I explore the extent to which this re-inscription of philosophy into everyday life and into ordinary human concerns, opens the way to a feminist philosophy and ethics.

Vrouwen die denken zijn lastig

Where were the women? On exclusivity in ancient Greek democracy This article examines the position of women in Athenian democracy. First, we briefly explain what democracy in Athens looked like during its heyday. It is then explained that women were excluded from the active life in the polis and that at the same time there was an ambivalence in the classical Greek view on the status of women. Furthermore the role of women in fictional stories is elucidated as a possible explanation for her exclusion from real, active community life. It also discusses some key critics of democracy, with a particular focus on their views on the role of women in the state. Finally, the ideas of three female philosophers from ancient Greece are explained and it is argued that they possibly became known not on their own merits, but only because the female philosophers were seen as eccentric.

Harrison, Timothy M. Coming To: Consciousness and Natality in Early Modern England

Harrison, Timothy M. <i>Coming To: Consciousness and Natality in Early Modern England</i>

Philosophy and its Institutions: Politics at the Heart of the Canon

AbstractThis article highlights the importance of new research on women philosophers and addresses some methodological issues to be taken in consideration. The thesis presented here is that through this new line of research it is possible to analyse the close connection between philosophy, politics and institutions. The paper opens with a critique of the assumption that philosophy has until recently been the exclusive property of men, giving the example of some forgotten women philosophers who lived in Hegel's time. After considering the risk of ghettoization inherent in Women's Studies, the author closes by showing how the reconsideration of women philosophers can help to question the methodology and the status of philosophy in general, and in particular to question the philosophical canon. The text serves as an introduction to a special issue of theHegel Bulletindedicated to women philosophers in Hegel's time.

Oblique Paths to Truth – Myth and Bodily Elements in Simone Weil, Jeanne Hersch and María Zambrano

Abstract The aim of this paper is to analyze in which way Simone Weil, Jeanne Hersch and María Zambrano relaunch bodily elements both in the rational search for truth and in the language they use for expressing it. In particular, the focus is on these women philosophers’ reflection on well-known myths and mythical stories which show how bodily elements precede consciousness and reason. In these stories, it emerges the impossibility of knowing the Truth directly through the objects and the necessity of elaborating indirect paths to transcendent truth. This paper should shed light on the endeavour to reintegrate the human bind to the marginal world, which is peculiar to women philosophers in the History of Philosophy, thus indicating a path to the human search for meaning that is alternative to the mainstream Western male philosophical one.

Privacy, Feminism, and Moral Responsibility in the Work of Elizabeth Lane Beardsley

Abstract I consider why women philosophers, once recognized, too often seem to drop from the intellectual radar screen or, at least, to drop mainly to the land of footnotes and bibliographies. I consider one distinguished moral philosopher, Elizabeth Lane Beardsley, both to highlight her philosophical contributions and as a case study that suggests more widespread problems in recognizing the work of female philosophers and ensuring their rightful place in our professional dialogue. I consider sociological and professional factors which might partially explain why work by women philosophers has not always received the attention in the professional dialogue it seems to deserve. I conclude with some modest suggestions about the efforts that we can make to address these problems, including the organization of readings for our own courses, the sources consulted for our own research and writing, and the preservation of records of meetings and other public gatherings that recognize women philosophers.

Cocks on Dunghills – Wollstonecraft and Gouges on the Women’s Revolution

Abstract While many historians and philosophers have sought to understand the ‘failure’ of the French Revolution to thrive and to avoid senseless violence, very few have referred to the works of two women philosophers who diagnosed the problems as they were happening. This essay looks at how Mary Wollstonecraft and Olympe de Gouges theorised the new tyranny that grew out of the French Revolution, that of ‘petty tyrants’ who found themselves like ‘cocks on a dunghill’ able to wield a new power over those less fortunate than themselves. Both offer diagnoses and prognoses that revolve around education. Wollstonecraft argues that a revolution that is not backed by a previous education of the people is bound to result in chaos and violence. Such education, however, must be slow, and it necessitates the reform of the institutions that most shape the public’s character. A revolution, perforce, is fast, and it often takes several years, or even generations before the spirit of the reforms finds itself implemented into new institutions. Olympe de Gouges shares Wollstonecraft’s worry and she observes that the men who were once dominated quickly become tyrants themselves unless their moral character is already virtuous. But the state of being dominated leaves little room for virtue; hence, newly minted citizens need to be educated in order not to replicate the reign of tyranny onto other. Gouges suggests that the answer to the difficulty she and Wollstonecraft highlighted was to educate the people where they could be found: on the streets, or, where they could easily and willingly be gathered: in theatres. By helping organise revolutionary festivals, highlighting the ways in which citizens could be virtuous, and writing plays to awaken their virtue, and proposing a reform of the theatre, so that the production of such plays would be possible, Gouges offered a plan for the civic education of French citizens in the immediate aftermaths of the Revolution. Unfortunately, the chaos she and Wollstonecraft had sought to remedy, led by the cocks or petty tyrants, ensured that they were unable to see through their plans, with Wollstonecraft having to leave Paris and Gouges being sent to the guillotine.

Dalia Nassar and Kristin Gjesdal: Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition

Dalia Nassar and Kristin Gjesdal: <i>Women Philosophers in the Long Nineteenth Century: The German Tradition</i>

Fracture Feminism: The Politics of Impossible Time in British Romanticism by David Sigler

Reviewed by: Fracture Feminism: The Politics of Impossible Time in British Romanticism by David Sigler Harriet Kramer Linkin FRACTURE FEMINISM: THE POLITICS OF IMPOSSIBLE TIME IN BRITISH ROMANTICISM, by David Sigler. New York: State University of Albany Press, 2021. 320 pp. $95.00 hardback; $33.95 paperback. In Fracture Feminism: The Politics of Impossible Time in British Romanticism, David Sigler postulates the existence of a set of British Romantic women writers who envisioned the future in the present. Taking pains to differentiate these writers from those who prophesied or predicted the future, Sigler considers how they positioned themselves as if they already inhabited a future that enabled them to critique or comment upon the present. That complicated temporal or atemporal plane provided them with an opening—a fracture—that gave them the opportunity to move outside of the conventional expectations of what was perceived as culturally appropriate for women and women writers. He calls these writers "fracture feminists," a term I initially resisted because common usage makes us think of a fracture as something broken. Yet that is Sigler's point: not that they are broken but that they locate ruptures in their contemporary moments to present [End Page 345] the future, writing about what Sigler calls "the contemporary future" and later terms "contretempopia," which he acknowledges as a "deliberately silly term" that plays with Jacques Derrida's notion of "contretemporality" (pp. 4, 11). While he notes that the rich group of novelists, poets, essayists, and historians he examines—Mary Wollstonecraft, the anonymous author of "Ithuriel," Mary Robinson, Anna Barbauld, Helen Maria Williams, Mary Hays, Hannah Cowley, Charlotte Smith, Charlotte Caroline Richardson, Felicia Hemans, the anonymous author of Gulzara, Princess of Persia (1816), and Mary Shelley—would, at most, identify themselves as female philosophers, his steady recognition of them as "feminists" rather than the hedging term "proto-feminists" is a local instance of his provocative and compelling argument in action. They are fracture feminists, living through intense contemporary political events such as the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Wars, plantation slavery, the push for women's rights, and parliamentary reform, but, Sigler posits,"instead of commenting on these matters directly, these feminist writers were responding as historians to the contemporary moment, as if they themselves were not fully subject to the demands of chronology" (pp. 16-17). The two theorists who consistently inform Sigler's readings are Jacques Lacan and Derrida. Though he recognizes that their psychoanalytic and deconstructive approaches sometimes distrust one another, he invokes Hélène Cixous's conception of combining the two into a kind of philanalysis. He uses Lacan and Derrida to powerful effect, but it is somewhat surprising that twentieth-century philosophers such as Cixous, Julia Kristeva, Judith Butler, and Simone De Beauvoir make only occasional appearances in this otherwise enlightening discussion of late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century feminists. One of the greatest strengths of Fracture Feminism, beyond its innovative thesis, lies in the brilliant juxtaposition of texts Sigler selects to demonstrate how fracture feminists not only engage in "contretempopia" but also establish intellectual connections with one another. He begins with Wollstonecraft and observes that though she is usually seen as writing for the future, she voices the thesis that shapes his work when she memorializes the recently deceased fracture feminist Catherine Macauley in Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792). In Sigler's words, Wollstonecraft describes Macauley as "a woman from the future who must, in the future, be remembered" (p. 29) when she urges her readers to "remember that Catharine Macauley was an example of intellectual acquirements supposed to be incompatible with the weakness of her sex. In her style of writing, indeed, no sex appears, for it is like the sense it conveys, strong and clear" (qtd. p. 29). Here (and elsewhere) Sigler pays wonderful attention to the way verbs instantiate temporal shifts by pointing out how Wollstonecraft tells her readers to remember Macauley in the present through the eternal present of her writings as an example of the future in the past. When he [End Page 346] then turns to Wollstonecraft's legacy, he quickly dispenses with William Godwin's problematic Memoir of the Author of the "Vindication of the...

So much more than research: Learning from women leaders in philosophy of education

This special issue includes a series of interviews with the past women presidents of the Philosophy of Education Society of Australasia (PESA), including Felicity Haynes, Nesta Devine, Tina Besley, and Liz Jackson. This article sets the stage for reading the interviews, though an extended dialogue between the two authors of this project. In what follows, the authors reflect on insights gleaned from the interviews, and the past and future of women leadership in philosophy of education. Using a dialogical format, it highlights different experiences and similar challenges across generations, questions what has changed versus what has stayed the same over decades, and elaborates on the value of the interviews for readers coming from different academic generations and subject positions. It reflects on the state of the field and its future directions from the perspectives of two women philosophers working and thinking across generations.

Pandemic Scholars Circle: Deepening Community during Isolation

Pandemic Scholars Circle: Deepening Community during Isolation

Philosophy’s gender gap and argumentative arena: an empirical study

While the empirical evidence pointing to a gender gap in professional, academic philosophy in the English-speaking world is widely accepted, explanations of this gap are less so. In this paper, we aim to make a modest contribution to the literature on the gender gap in academic philosophy by taking a quantitative, corpus-based empirical approach. Since some philosophers have suggested that it may be the argumentative, “logic-chopping,” and “paradox-mongering” nature of academic philosophy that explains the underrepresentation of women in the discipline, our research questions are the following: Do men and women philosophers make different types of arguments in their published works? If so, which ones and with what frequency? Using data mining and text analysis methods, we study a large corpus of philosophical texts mined from the JSTOR database in order to answer these questions empirically. Using indicator words to classify arguments by type (namely, deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments), we search through our corpus to find patterns of argumentation. Overall, the results of our empirical study suggest that women philosophers make deductive, inductive, and abductive arguments in their published works just as much as male philosophers do, with no statistically significant differences in the proportions of those arguments relative to each philosopher’s body of work.

Preface: Women and Men Philosophers as Equal Partners

For the purpose of celebrating the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Journal of the Chinese Philosophy, we have organized a series of projects and their articles on special topics related to development of Chinese Philosophy. The topic of women in philosophy commands special interest and Professor Ann Pang-White has organized this excellent collection accordingly.Among many issues, one fascinating issue is why in history, West and East, there has been few women philosophers prior to the 20th century. The 20th century feminist movement in America has come to strongly assert the rights of women as equal

Introduction: Asian Traditions, Global Contexts: Philosophy, Women, and Gender in the 21st Century

For too long, writings by women philosophers, philosophical works that advance gender equity, and non-Western traditions have been brushed aside by the mainstream philosophy for various reasons. The Journal of Chinese Philosophy will mark its 50th anniversary in 2023 and I am delighted and very honored to be invited to organize a special issue on the theme of women and gender in Asian philosophy.We know that numerous thinkers from antiquity to the 19th century, from both the East and the West, have made offensive remarks about women, their bodies, their sensibilities, and their so-called lack of reason.