History Of Women In Philosophy

There are no women philosophers. Women cannot do philosophy.” This has been conventional wisdom till the beginning of the last century. But braving social restrictions, prejudices and all other odds, women had been engaging in philosophy from the beginning of civilization. If we have not heard much of them, it is because the standard historians of philosophy have ignored them due to various reasons. It is true that their contributions had not been as attention-grabbing as those of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Hume, Kant, Hegel, Marx, and other luminaries. Yet, without including the life and activities of these brave and innovative women, who fought prejudices and courageously broke social conventions to pursue wisdom, no history of philosophy can claim to be complete. This book selects 101 such women and attempts to place them in the history of philosophy, so that readers will have a cursory knowledge of each of them and of each one’s most noteworthy contribution.