List of women philosophers

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is a list of women philosophers ordered alphabetically by surname. Although often overlooked in mainstream historiography, women have engaged in philosophy throughout the field's history.[1][2] Some notable philosophers include Maitreyi[3] (1000 BCE), Gargi Vachaknavi (900 BCE), Ghosha (800 BCE), Hypatia of Alexandria (ca. 370–415 CE), Anne Conway (1631–1679), Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), Harriet Martineau (1802-1876), Sarah Margaret Fuller (1810–1850), Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904), Vernon Lee (1856-1935), Edith Stein (1891–1942), Ayn Rand (1905–1982), Hannah Arendt (1906–1975), Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986), Iris Murdoch (1919–1999), Elizabeth Anscombe (1919–2001), Mary Midgley (1919–2018), Philippa Foot (1920–2010), Mary Warnock (1924–2019), Joyce Mitchell Cook (1933–2015, the first African American woman to receive a Ph.D. in philosophy), Cora Diamond (born 1937), and Susan Haack (born 1945).[4]

By period[]

Ancient philosophy[]

Medieval philosophy[]

From the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century C.E. to the Renaissance in the 16th century.

  • Ubhaya Bharati (8th century)
  • Héloïse d'Argenteuil (1090–1164), contributed to the ethical thought of Peter Abelard.
  • Akka Mahadevi (c.1130–1160)
  • Marguerite Porete (1250–1310)
  • Tullia d'Aragona (c. 1510–1556)
  • Lalleshwari (1320–1392)
  • Catherine of Siena (1347–1380)
  • Moderata Fonte (1555–1592)
  • Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), German abbess, composer, and philosopher.
  • Teresa of Ávila (1515-1582)

Modern philosophy[]

The seventeenth and early twentieth centuries roughly mark the beginning and the end of modern philosophy.

  • Mary Astell (1666–1731)A B C D1 D2 R
  • Damaris Cudworth Masham (1659–1708), philosopher and theologian
  • Laura Bassi (1711–1778), philosopher and physicist
  • Harriet Martineau (1802-1876)
  • Helena Blavatsky (1831–1891)
  • Frances Power Cobbe (1822-1904)
  • Antoinette Brown Blackwell (1825–1921)D2
  • Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673)A B C R
  • Émilie du Châtelet (1706–1749)R
  • Sister Nivedita (1867–1911)
  • Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679–1749)A B C R W
  • Anne Conway (1631–1679)A B C D1 O R W
  • George Eliot (Mary Ann Evans) (1819–1880)G R
  • Elisabeth of Bohemia (1618–1680)A B C R
  • Sor Juana (1648–1695)
  • Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
  • Gauri Ma (1857–1938)

Contemporary philosophy[]

Alphabetically[]

A[]

Portrait of Tullia d'Aragona

B

Antoinette Brown before she married

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

  • Adrian Piper (born 1948)
  • Christine de Pizan (c. 1365–c. 1430)G R
  • Olga Plümacher (1839–1895)

R

  • Ayn Rand (1905–1982)
  • Janet Radcliffe Richards (born 1944)O
  • Rosemary Radford Ruether (born 1936)
  • Yvanka B. Raynova (born 1959)
  • Helena Roerich (1879–1955)
  • Avital Ronell (born 1952)
  • Amélie Rorty (born 1932)

S

T

V

  • Gargi Vachaknavi, ancient Indian philosopher

W

Z

Notes[]

  • ^A  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in Margaret Atherton's Women Philosophers of the Early Modern Period. Hackett; 1994. ISBN 0-87220-259-3
  • ^B  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in Jacqueline Broad's Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century. Cambridge; 2003. ISBN 0-521-81295-X
  • ^C  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy. Cambridge University Press; 1999. ISBN 0-521-63722-8
  • ^D1  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in Jane Duran's Eight Women Philosophers: Theory Politics and Feminism. University of Illinois Press; 2006. ISBN 0-252-03022-2
  • ^D2  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in Therese Boos Dykeman's The Neglected Canon: Nine Women Philosophers – First to the Twentieth Century. Kluwer; 1999. ISBN 0-7923-5956-9
  • ^G  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in Catherine Villanueva Gardner's Women Philosophers. Westview; 2003. ISBN 0-8133-4133-7 (paperback); ISBN 0-8133-6610-0 (hardcover)
  • ^O  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Oxford University Press; 1995. ISBN 0-19-866132-0
  • ^R  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in the Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge; 2000. ISBN 0-415-22364-4
  • ^W  – For more information about this person's contribution to philosophy see her entry in Mary Warnock's Women Philosophers. J.M. Dent; 1996. ISBN 0-460-87721-6

References[]

  1. ^ Duran, Jane. Eight women philosophers: theory, politics, and feminism. University of Illinois Press, 2005.
  2. ^ "Why I Left Academia: Philosophy's Homogeneity Needs Rethinking | Hippo Reads".
  3. ^ "Maitreyi".
  4. ^ "Ten great female philosophers: The thinking woman's women | The Independent | The Independent".
  5. ^ Scott Firsing, Top Thirty-Five Young Foreigners Making an Impact in Africa, International Policy Digest, 1 October 2013
  6. ^ Scott Firsing, Top Thirty-Five Young Foreigners Making an Impact in Africa, International Policy Digest, 1 October 2013
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