35 Brilliant Women from the History of Philosophy
Most people could name a few philosophers — Kant or Plato or old man Socrates. Very few people could name more than a few women philosophers, if any. It’s no surprise, then, that lists of philosophers tend to be very male (see some representative samples: here, here, here, or here). Sure enough, there are many famous men who do or did philosophy. Some of them might even be famous for good reasons. Some of them might even be right in their ideas (who knows?). But all that aside, the men get plenty of credit, while women’s contributions to the field tend to be forgotten, especially when it comes to the history of philosophy. To paraphrase what historian of philosophy Eileen O’Neill once wrote, it’s as if women’s ideas were written in disappearing ink.
International Women’s Day is the perfect occasion to try to undo some of this inequity, and to this end, here’s a different kind of list — these are 35 women whose contributions to the history of philosophy and ideas have been largely forgotten or otherwise downplayed, and who deserve to be known, read and studied today. Wherever possible I’ve tried to include links to available contemporary editions of their works, so hopefully you’ll discover some new favourites below!
As with all such endeavours, this list is much too short. By this I don’t mean to imply there are only this many women worth reading in the history of philosophy — there are many more. You’ll also notice that there aren’t very many women who don’t come from a European background in my list. This is more indicative of the limits of my own knowledge than of a lack of women in the history of philosophy — so I have a request: please comment with suggestions of other amazing women who should be included in the list.
Let’s do this!
- Anne Conway
Conway was an English philosopher related to the Cambridge Platonists. Her only surviving philosophical treatise is The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, which was published posthumously and anonymously in 1690. In the book, she criticises Morean, Spinozist, Hobbiesian and Cartesian philosophy and gives her own version of spiritualist monism, the idea that everything is made of spirit. She corresponded widely with the intellectual elites of her time, and, her concept of a Monad anticipates Leibniz’s famous Monadology.
Further reading:
The Conway Letters (ed. Marjorie Hope Nicholson and Sarah Hutton)
The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (ed. Allison P. Coudert and Taylor Corse)
2. Margaret Cavendish
Margaret Lucas Cavendish, the Duchess of Newcastle was a philosopher, poet, playwright, and essayist. Her philosophy was influenced by many of her contemporaries, such as René Descartes, Thomas Hobbes and Jan Baptista van Helmont, as well as by the ancients, especially the Stoics. The largest part of her work is occupied by natural philosophy. Her views can be broadly described at materialist (i.e. everything is matter), panpsychist (i.e. all matter is rational), and vitalist (i.e. all parts of nature have an “active” side). Today, Cavendish is rapidly being rediscovered and the literature on her philosophy and other writings is growing.
Further Reading:
The Blazing World and Other Writings (ed. Kate Lilley)
Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy (ed. Eileen O’Neill)
Political Writings (ed. Susan James)
Poems and Fancies with the Animal Parliament (ed. Brandie Sigfried)
3. Elisabeth of Bohemia
Princess Elisabeth of the Palatinate, also known as Elisabeth of Bohemia, is likely one of the best-known women on this list because of her long-term correspondence with Descartes which lasted from 1643 to 1649. Often, however, her contributions are dismissed as being merely a sounding board for the better-known Frenchman’s ideas. Yet, her criticisms of Descartes’ ideas pushed him to revise his position and to try to respond to her by writing his Passions of the Soul.
Further Reading:
The Correspondence Between Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes (ed. Lisa Shapiro)
4. Hildegard von Bingen
Hildegard von Bingen was a Benedictine nun, writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, and founder of scientific natural history in Germany. Hildegard’s talents led her to write works of theology, a musical play, two books of natural medicine as well as a number of other works. She also created a language, the ‘lingua ignota’, or ‘unknown language’.
Further reading:
Selected Writings (ed. Mark Atherton)
5. Teresa of Avila
Saint Teresa of Avila is another nun whose life challenges our assumption about a lack of great women in the history of philosophy. She’d published a number of works of philosophy and theology, the most influential of which is likely El Castillo Interior (“the Interior Castle”), which, as Christia Mercer shows is a possible source for some of Descartes’ ideas in his Meditations on First Philosophy.
Further reading:
The Interior Castle (ed. Mirabai Starr)
6. Juana Inez de la Cruz
Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz is a thinker characterised by her unwavering desire to understand everything. She argued that women, as well as the native people of the new world have a right to education. Her philosophy is written in poems and essays. The most famous of her works are the Carta Atenagórica and the Respuesta a Sor Filotéa de la Cruz. The first is a critique of a sermon by the Portuguese Jesuit, Antonio de Vieyra which defends Augustine, Aquinas and Chrysostom’s theological positions on the kindness of Christ. The second is an argument for the intellectual freedom and rights of women.
Further reading:
Selected works (ed. Julia Alvarez; trans. Edith Grossman)
7. Mary Astell
Mary Astell is known largely as a feminist pioneer, a reputation she’d earned with her two best known texts, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies and Some Reflections Upon Marriage, as well as for her correspondence with the Malebranchean, John Norris, published as Letters Concerning the Love of God. She argued, among other things, for the establishment of an all-female college in England. She sought to challenge the idea that women were mentally inferior by arguing that women need to turn inward to see that they are capable of exercising their mental faculties.
Further reading:
A Serious Proposal to the Ladies (ed. Patricia Springborg)
Political Writings (ed. Patricia Springborg)
Letters Concerning the Love of God (ed. E. Derek Taylor and Melvyn New)
The Christian Religion, as Professed by a Daughter of the Church of England (ed. Jacqueline Broad)
8. Marie de Gournay
Marie de Gournay is best known today as the editor of Montaigne’s Essays. However, to suggest that she was merely Montaigne’s editor would be slander most foul. She wrote in many genres. She translated Cicero, Ovid, Tacitus, Virgil and others into French. She was an essayist, with her ideas focusing on education, the nature of virtue and vice, the moral defects of society, and the equality between the sexes. She had published her works in a collection titled The Shadow of the Damoiselle de Gournay. The final edition of this text was retitled as The Offerings of Presents of Demoiselle de Gournay.
Further reading:
Apology for the Woman Writing and Other Works (ed. Richard Hillman and Colette Quesnel)
9. Madame de Maintenon
Françoise d’Aubigné, marquise de Maitenon was the second wife of King Louis XIV of France. Prior to her marriage to the king, she was married to the poet, Paul Scarron. During her first marriage, she was a celebrated salonnière, debating libertinism and Cartesianism with her guests. After her marriage to Louis XIV, she established a school for the education of the daughters of the impoverished nobility. Her philosophical works focus on the philosophy of education and the equal right of women to be educated. Notably, she developed a theory of virtue attempting to redefine traditionally masculine virtues in terms of the female experience.
10. Damaris Masham
Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham, was one of the earliest women philosophers in England. She published several works of philosophy: A Discourse Concerning the Love of God, and Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life. The second printing of the latter of these texts was misattributed to Locke, with whom Masham corresponded. She also corresponded with Leibniz, possibly because the German philosopher wanted to contact Locke through her. She comes from a philosophical family, her father being the famous Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth.
11. Emilie du Châtelet
Émilie du Châtelet was a French noblewoman whose contributions to the intellectual climate of her day cannot be overstated. She focused on natural philosophy, reading works by Newton, Leibniz and Wolff. She produced the first French translation of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, as well as several important treatises of her own, the most famous of which is The Foundations of Physics, this deeply original work tackles issues in metaphysics, epistemology, and physics. My favourite text of hers, however, is her Discourse on Happiness which besides being a great meditation on what it is to be happy, is also just a stunningly beautiful bit of writing.
Further reading:
Selected Philosophical and Scientific Writings (ed. Judith P. Zinsser)
12. Anna Maria van Schurman
Anna Maria van Schurman was perhaps the most well-educated woman in Europe in her time. She was the first female university student in the Netherlands, having been allowed to attend classes University of Utrecht due to her distinction in Latin. She was extremely erudite, supposedly becoming proficient in as many as fourteen languages, as well as art and music. As many of the women on the list, Schurman argued for the equal opportunities for women to gain an education and saw it as a crucial component for their liberation and equal rights.
Further reading:
Whether a Christian Woman Should be Educated and Other Writings from her Intellectual Circle (ed. Joyce L. Irwin)
13. Queen Christina of Sweden
Christina Vasa, Queen of Sweden, was an interesting character in the history of philosophy. She never wrote a treatise, but her correspondence forms a significant body of work, with respondents including important thinkers such as Hugo Grotius, Anna Maria van Schurman, Madeleine de Scudèry, Pierre Gassendi, and René Descartes. She had also published several collections of maxims. Her thought primarily focused on moral issues such as the nature of virtue, gender equality, and criteria for religious truth. Fortunately many of her works are available to contemporary readers, and her ideas are increasingly studied for their own merits.
14. Madeleine de Scudéry
Madeleine de Scudéry wrote epic novels. Her book, Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus was published in 10 volumes between 1648 and 1653, contains 2.1 million words, and is the longest novel ever published. Her books were massive bestsellers in her lifetime. And, even though at first glance she wrote fiction, her books are deeply philosophical. Her books reflect on the dominant ideas of her time, and her characters can be seen as the prominent intellectuals she would be familiar with. Perhaps the most philosophical of these books is Clélié, in which Scudéry included a map focused around the theme of love, showing the way in which our feelings evolve via the metaphor of a river.
Further reading:
Selected Letters, Orations and Rhetorical Dialogues (ed. Jane Donawerth and Julie Strongson)
The Story of Sappho (ed. Karen Newman)
15. Mary Chudleigh
Mary, Lady Chudleigh was a poet and thinker. She’s currently best remembered for her poetry which deals with themes of relationships between people, our emotions, and our inner world more generally. Her essays often tended towards feminist topics, she argued that women shouldn’t pursue marriage so that they could pursue their own self-worth. She also urged women to not be concerned with wealth, status or certain follies — focusing on their inner life instead. In her life she was close to Mary Astell (no. 7, above), Judith Drake and John Norris.
Further reading:
The Poems and Prose of Mary, Lady Chudleigh (ed. Margaret J.M. Ezell)
16. Catharine Macaulay
Catharine Macaulay is perhaps best known as a historian. Her eight-volume History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line brought her immediate fame upon the publication of the first volume. However, she also published works on political and moral philosophy such as Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth (1783) and Letters on Education with Observations on Religions and Metaphysical Subjects (1790). Like Mary Wollstonecraft, she argued that the main cause of the weaker position in society of women was their lack of education.
Further reading:
The History of England from the Accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line
17. Mary Wollstonecraft
Honesty, Mary Wollstonecraft should be known to everyone already. She was prolific and her works such as Thoughts on the Education of Daughters (1787) and A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) are foundational to the establishment of modern feminism. Her arguments concerning women’s right to education and their equal rights are still relevant today, which explains the explosion of scholarship about her thoughts.
Further reading:
A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and a Vindication of the Rights of Man (ed. Janet Todd)
Mary and the Wrongs of Woman (ed. Gary Kelly)
Letters written in Sweden, Norway and Denmark (ed. Tone Brekke and Jon Mee)
18. Im Yunjidang
Im Yunjidang was a Korean Confucian scholar. She argued that women could become sages and argued that men and women don’t differ in their essential human nature. She is known as the first female Confucian scholar in Korea. Political theorist Sungmoon Kim refers to Yunjidang as a Confucian counterpoint to Mary Wollstonecraft, in that she used her own intellectual context to advance important (if, from our contemporary standpoint somewhat conservative) arguments about the equality of men and women.
Unfortunately, to the best of my knowledge, none of hew work is available in English translation, however this paper by Sungmoon Kim is a great primer:
Kim, Sungmoon, 2014, “The Way to Become a Female Sage: Im Yunjidang’s Confucian Feminism” in Journal of the History of Ideas, 75 (3), pp. 395–416; available to read for free. https://www.jstor.org/stable/43289674
19. Sophie de Grouchy
Sophie de Grouchy, perhaps better known as Sophie de Condorcet, was a salonniere and writer. Her salon was frequented by the likes of Adam Smith, Pierre Beaumarchais, and Thomas Jefferson. Notably, she would also always invite women writers to participate, the most notable of whom was likely Olympe de Gouges (see no.26, below). As a writer, her best-known text nowadays is her Letters on Sympathy, which engages with Smith’s analysis of sympathy and offers insight to the relationship between emotions and the law, politics and governance. Her letters in particular look to redeveloping social and political institutions after the French Revolution.
Further reading:
Letters on Sympathy (trans. Sandrine Bergès; ed. Sandrine Bergès and Eric Schliesser)
20. Bathsua Pell Makin
Makin was primarily a teacher, and as many of the other women on this list, she wrote critical texts about women’s position in the domestic and public spheres in seventeenth century England. She’s best known for her treatise, An Essay to Revive the Ancient Education of Gentlewomen. She corresponded with Anna Maria van Schurman, and like her correspondent, argued that the main obstacles to women’s education are lack of time and wealth, and not, as naysayers (read: misogynists) would claim, innate lack of ability.
21. Helena Lucretia Cornaro Piscopia
Piscopia was a Venetian philosopher and she was the first woman in the world to receive a Ph.D. Unfortunately, she had not left us any written works. However, she is nonetheless important for her achievement of the first doctorate by a woman. Mary Ellen Waithe reports that for her examination, Piscopia had to choose a classical philosopher, and the examiners then picked passages at random. The job of the doctoral candidate was to identify and resolve the difficulties within these passages. The exam is said to have lasted one hour. After her studies, Piscopia is reputed to have spent the rest of her adult life in a religious order.
22. Nana Asma’u
Nana Asma’u was a poet and teacher. She’s seen as an example of the kind of education and independence for women possible under Islam and as a precursor to modern feminism in Africa. She was well educated in the classics of both the Arab and Classical worlds, and in her life she held a reputation of a great scholar. Today, over sixty of her works survive, touching on historical narratives, elegies, and the rights of women within Islamic law.
Further reading:
The Collected Works of Nana Asma’u, Daughter of Usman dan Fodiyo 1793–1864 (ed. Jean Boyd and Beverly Mack)
23. Julie Velten Favre
Favre was an educator and moral philosopher. In her works she emphasised the practice of the virtuous life, freedom of the mind and the cultivation of individual conscience. She wrote texts on the moral philosophy of the Stoics, Socrates, Montaigne, Aristotle, Cicero and Plutarch. Beyond commenting on the works of these thinkers, Favre used their works as an occasion for their own reflections on the moral life.
24. Olympe de Gouges
Gouges was a radical. Though she first came to prominence as a playwright, today scholars are most interested in her political pamphlets. She published on the political and legal equality of women, tax reform, the redistribution of wealth, and race. She attempted to organise women’s societies that were part-salons and part-political activist groups. Her most famous work is her 1791 treatise, The Rights of Woman.
25. Clarisse Coignet
Clarisse Coignet was a French moral philosopher, and one of the leaders of La Morale indépendante, a socio-political movement to separate morality from science and religion. Her works trace morality from the origins of humanity to the institutions of the 19th century. In doing this, she anticipates Foucault’s work on institutional power. Her overarching goal in her philosophy was to establish a science of morality to become “the true philosophy”.
26. George Eliot
Wait, what? What’s a George doing in this list?? Okay, well, her name was Mary Anne Evans, and she’s most famous for her novels published under the name George Eliot. And you probably already knew that, but it was a cheap joke, so let me have it. Her books, such as Middlemarch, show most acutely that philosophy need not be written formally, but can be done in other genres. Her views on moral, religious and metaphysical problems are presented throughout her characters’ struggles and lives. Variously, her views can be identified as fitting with those of Feuerbach, Mill, Spinoza or Comte.
Further reading:
Middlemarch (ed. Rosemary Ashton)
Daniel Deronda (ed. Graham Handley and K.M. Newton)
Adam Bede (ed. Margaret Reynolds)
Silas Marner (ed. David Carroll)
Felix Holt, the Radical (ed. Lynda Mugglestone)
27. ’A’ishah bint Yusuf al-Ba’uniyyah
’A’ishah bint Yusuf al-Ba’uniyyah was a medieval Islamic mystic, and possibly the only pre-modern Muslim woman to have recorded her thought in writing. Her work focused largely on religious themes and mysticism. To my knowledge, only one of her works is available in English, and that is her The Principles of Sufism (ed. and trans. Th. Emil Homerin), however, according to the editor of this text, al-Ba’uniyyah had written more works in Arabic than any other woman prior to the twentieth century.
Further reading:
The Principles of Sufism (ed. and trans. Th. Emil Homerin)
28. Catharine Trotter Cockburn
Cockburn was a child prodigy. Though she was raised in tough circumstances, her father, a sea captain, died when she was young, she had nonetheless excelled in French, Latin, Greek and logic. She studied literature and philosophy, and though she was mostly self-taught, she managed to support herself by her own writing, and early became well known as a playwright. Her first play, Agnes de Castro, was produced when she was only seventeen. Her philosophical works include The Defence of Mr. Locke’s Essay of Human Understanding, and the Remarks upon some Writers in the Controversy concerning the Foundation of moral Duty and moral Obligation.
Further reading:
Catharine Trotter Cockburn: Philosophical Writings (ed. Patricia Sheridan)
29. Laura Bassi Verati
Laura Verati is another woman viewed as a child prodigy. In her case, it was the ecclesiastical authorities in her home-city of Bologna that persuaded her parents to allow her to get an education. She studied a curriculum of philosophy, logic, metaphysics, physics, astronomy, maths, medicine, surgery, law and theology at the Accademia Instituti Scientiarum Socia. To my knowledge, none of her works survive today, if she’d ever written any of her ideas down. She did however teach natural philosophy at her alma mater. Voltaire corresponded with her in 1744 and 1745, and refers to her and Émilie du Châtelet as “tabernacles of philosophy”.
30. Christine de Pizan
According to Mary Ellen Waithe, Pizan is the first ever person to support themselves through writing alone. Her most famous work is The Book of the City of Ladies, which presents a model for a city of women. There, three virtues: Ladies Reason, Justice and Duty, guide women. Pizan saw this book as a response to the misogynist literature popular among aristocrats and academics of Europe in her time. She offers deontological arguments against the oppression of women, as well as arguments that the oppression of women is contrary to the goal of improving society.
Further reading:
Treasure of the City of Ladies (ed. Sarah Lawson)
The Selected Writings of de Pizan (ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski)
The Book of the Body Politic (ed. Kate Langdon Forhan)
31. Sophia, a Person of Quality
Sophia is perhaps the only person on this list that it’s not embarrassing to know nothing about, she was anonymous after all. She’s known for the 1739 publication of a treatise titled, Woman Not Inferior to Man or, A Short and Modest Vindication of the Natural Rights of the Fair Sex to a Perfect Equality of Power, Dignity, and Esteem, with the Men. The work addresses two common arguments for male supremacy. She claims that men are not only not superior to women, but that the arguments they use to “prove” their superiority aren’t arguments at all, but just the consequence of their own passions and prejudices.
32. Mary Shepherd
Mary Shepherd was a Scottish philosopher whose work focused mainly on causation. In her works such as An Essay upon the Relation of Cause and Effect and Essays on the Perception of an External Universe and other Subjects Connected with the Doctrine of Causation she engages with the ideas of famous thinkers like Hume, Berkeley or Reid. She advocated for a systematic metaphysics and theory of knowledge.
Further reading:
Lady Mary Shepherd: Selected Writings (ed. Deborah Boyle)
33. Murasaki Shikibu
Murasaki Shikibu is primarily known as a novelist and poet, famous as the author of The Tale of Genji, an 11th century epic novel recounting the life of the son of the Japanese emperor. The text is rooted in Buddhist philosophy, emphasising the impermanence of things, as well as exploring the political intrigues of the court, women’s role in society, and the role of tradition in political life.
Further reading:
The Tale of Genji (ed. & trans. Royall Tyler)
34. Sophia, Electress of Hanover
Sophia was another noblewoman who had a serious and sustained interest in philosophy. As with the other women in her position, she was unable (or perhaps uninterested?) to write a treatise. However, she had read Descartes and Spinoza, and most importantly, Leibniz. She had befriended the latter in Hanover, while he was the court librarian. Their friendship resulted in an extended correspondence between 1676 and 1714. Her letters are an invaluable resource for the study of Leibniz’ thought, but also show that her own intellectual ability made her a formidable philosopher in her own right.
Further reading:
Leibniz and the Two Sophies (ed. Lloyd Strickland)
35. Sophia Charlotte of Hanover
Sophia Charlotte was the daughter of Sophia, Electress of Hanover, and like her mother, she was a sharp and insightful thinker. Like her mother, she corresponded with Leibniz, for which she is now best remembered. In her life she sought the company of philosophers and was a great supporter of the development of science, inspiring the foundation of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. She was so charismatic that when the Russian Tsar, Peter the Great, first met her, he was so overwhelmed as to become unable to speak.
Further reading:
Leibniz and the Two Sophies (ed. Lloyd Strickland)
We got here! But wait.. there’s moreeeee!!!
Bo-bo-bo-booooooonuuuuuuuuussssssss:
To compose the above list I drew on a number of excellent sources. I think it’d be a disservice to the women I included if I were to leave the list without giving you some further resources to learn about these and other women philosophers. So here’s a SECOND LIST of useful resources if you want to learn much, much more about women in the history of philosophy:
- Eileen O’Neill — Disappearing Ink, in Philosophy in a Feminist Voice (ed. Janet A. Kourany)
This essay started it all for me. I once heard that the reason O’Neill wrote this paper is that while she was in Princeton, they had a seminar called “The Great Man” where students were to examine the great works in the history of philosophy. When she’d inquired about the great women, the response was, “do you know any?”. This paper reads as if she’d heard that statement one time too many, because it is packed with information about women philosophers and their achievements — listed one after another, after another, proving conclusively that the issue with our awareness of women philosophers isn’t caused by there not being any, but by an effort to erase them from history. - The Philosopher Queens (ed. Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting)
This book isn’t out yet — and I’ve not read it. However, the editors, Rebecca Buxton and Lisa Whiting, share the frustration felt by O’Neill. If you watch the teaser video for the book on their Unbound page you’ll see exactly what the problem is — in a series of interviews on the street everyone can name a man philosopher, but none of the respondents could name a woman philosopher (two young lads went with Margaret Thatcher, and uh, no.). The list of contributors to this volume is formidable, and I think it’s a great project — you can still pre-order a copy here (and watch the video). - Project Vox
Project Vox is an initiative based at Duke University and led by Professor Andrew Janiak trying to provide an institutional backing to the study of women philosophers in the early modern period. Their website contains a great deal of useful resources for teachers of philosophy, to assist them with including women in syllabi, thus making sure that the next generation of scholars is better prepared to do justice to their discipline. - New Narratives in the History of Philosophy
This project, like Project Vox above, gives institutional backing to the study of women philosophers. The main aim here is to reconfigure the way in which we think of the history of philosophy, and to shift away from a canon of several male figures, to a more accurate image of the discipline. - Mary Ellen Waithe (ed.) — A History of Women Philosophers (4 volumes)
Waithe’s four volume collection of texts on women philosophers is staggering. It was one of the main sources I used to build the list above, and though they are pricey, they are incomparably thorough and accessible. With contributions from leading scholars of women philosophers, I think these are an invaluable resource for anyone wanting to acquaint themselves better with the ideas of the women in the history of philosophy. These books are really expensive, so I won’t include a link — but if you ever see any of the four volumes at a secondhand bookstore — get them! - Jacqueline Broad and Karen Green — A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe: 1400–1700
This book, along with Green’s book below, set out a comprehensive history of women’s political ideas from medieval to late Enlightenment Europe. They show that women have always participated in the most serious debates of their times, and that their contributions can help us understand ourselves in an increasingly tumultuous world. - Karen Green — A History of Women’s Political Thought in Europe: 1700–1800
- Jacqueline Broad — Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century
In this book, Broad presents the intellectual achievements of several of the women on my list above: Elisabeth of Bohemia, Margaret Cavendish, Mary Astell, Anne Conway, Damaris Masham and Catharine Cockburn. Broad’s writing is clear, her research exhaustive, and the scope of this work is impressive. - Margaret Atherton (ed) — Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period
Atherton’s book contains selections from Elisabeth of Bohemia, Anne Conway, Damaris Masham, Margaret Cavendish, Cathatine Cockburn, Mary Shepherd and Mary Astell, and is a great entry point if you don’t know where to start. Besides texts by these seven women, this book also contains some biographical information that can help provide a useful context to understanding their ideas. (edit: with apologies to prof. Atherton — I’d mistakenly reported previously that it was just four women featuring in this invaluable text) - The Other Voices in Early Modern Europe book series
These are all amazing, scholarly editions of understudied works in early modern thought. They’re not limited to philosophy, and they’re not limited to women, but they are an amazing place to find great texts that haven’t been studied as much as they deserve.
Some might ask what exactly is at stake in recovering the work of these women philosophers. I think Wellesley College philosopher, Julie Walsh, formulates the answer to this question best. She says that it’s about “presenting [our] students with an accurate picture of the philosophical world.” Women have always participated in philosophy and in culture more generally, to erase their work isn’t just to do an injustice to them, but it is to do an injustice to the culture we’re all participating in.
All images via wikimedia commons unless otherwise noted. This article contains some affiliate links.
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