Women Philosophers from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment

This collection of essays presents new work on women’s contribution to philosophy between the Renaissance and the mid-eighteenth century. They bring a new perspective to the history of philosophy, by highlighting women’s contributions to philosophy and testifying to the rich history of women’s thought in this period.

By showing that women were active in many branches of philosophy (metaphysics, science, political philosophy cosmology, ontology, epistemology) the book testifies to the rich history of women’s thought across Europe in this period. The scope of the collection is international, both in terms of the philosophers represented and the contributors themselves from Britain and North America, but also from continental Europe and from as far afield as Australia and Brazil. The philosophers discussed here include both figures who have recently come to be better known (Elisabeth of Bohemia, Anne Conway, Mary Astell, Catharine Trotter Cockburn, Emilie du Châtelet), and less familiar figures (Moderata Fonte, Lucrezia Marinella Arcangela Tarabotti, Tullia d’Aragona, Madame Deshoulières, Madame de Sablé, Angélique de Saint-Jean Arnauld d’Andilly, Oliva Sabuco, Susanna Newcome).

The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

Ruth Edith Hagengruber is Professor at Paderborn University, Germany, where she is Director of the Centre for the History of Women Philosophers. Her research is dedicated to uncovering the contributions of women in the history of philosophy and focusses among others on the work of Émilie Du Châtelet, with publications such as Émilie Du Châtelet between Leibniz and Newton.

Sarah Hutton is Honorary Visiting Professor at the University of York, UK. She has pioneered research on women in the history of science and philosophy. Her publications include Anne Conway. A Woman Philosopher; Women, Science and Medicine (co-editor Lynette Hunter); and British Philosophy in the Seventeenth-Century. She is President of the International Society for Intellectual History.