Feminist History of Philosophy: The Recovery and Evaluation of Women's Philosophical Thought

Eileen O’Neill (1953- 2017) was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Her works included the first scholarly edition of Margaret Cavendish’s work, Observations Upon Experimental Philosophy (Cambridge, 2001), and an edited collection with Christia Mercer, Early Modern Philosophy: Mind, Matter, and Metaphysics (Oxford, 2005). Her most influential articles concerned the historiography of early modern philosophy and include “Disappearing Ink: Early Modern Women Philosophers and the History of Philosophy” in Janet Kourany, ed., Philosophy in a Feminist Voice (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), “Women Philosophers and the History of Philosophy” in Australasian Journal of French Studies (2003) 40 (3): 257-274), and “Justifying the Inclusion of Women in Our Histories of Philosophy: The Case of Marie de Gournay” in Linda Martín Alcoff and Eva Feder Kittay, eds.,The Blackwell Guide to Feminist Philosophy (Blackwell, 2007). She also published important work on issues in causation including “Mind-Body Interaction and Metaphysical Consistency: A Defense of Descartes” in Journal of the History of Philosophy 25 (2), (1987: 227-245), “Influxus Physicus” in Causation in Early Modern Philosophy, edited by Steven Nadler (Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993), “Margaret Cavendish, Stoic Antecedent Causes, and Early Modern Occasional Causes” in Revue Philosophique de la France et de l'Etranger 3 (July-September, 2013), and “Mary Astell and the Causation of Sensation” in Mary Astell: Reason, Gender, Faithedited by William Kolbrener and Michal Michelson (Ashgate, 2007).Marcy P. Lascano is Professor of philosophy at the University of Kansas. Her current research focuses on the works of women philosophers, including Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Damaris Masham, Mary Astell, and Emilie du Châtelet. She has published articles in British Journal for the History of Philosophy, Philosophy Compass, and The Modern Schoolman, along with book chapters in Feminist Interpretations of Mary Astell, The Routledge Companion to the Seventeenth Century, and Women on Liberty, 1600-1800.  She is co-editor, with Lisa Shapiro, of Early Modern Philosophy: An Anthology of Primary Sources. She is also working on a monograph on early modern women’s metaphysics.

“Anyone interested in teaching, writing about, or merely familiarizing themselves further with this area will find this collection invaluable.” (Margaret Atherton, Journal of the History of Philosophy, Vol. 58 (3), July, 2020)

• About the Contributors.- Introduction; Eileen O'Neill.- I. The History of Metaphysics, Epistemology and Natural Philosophy.- 1. The Methodological Principles Behind Anne Conway's Principles; Christia Mercer.- 2. Sensible and rational knowledge in the epistemological thought of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz; Laura Benítez Grobet.- 3. Emilie du Châtelet on the Use of Hypothesis and Metaphysics in Science; Karen Detlefsen.- 4. Lady Mary Shepherd on Causality and Causal Reasoning; Martha Brandt Bolton.- II. The History of Moral Philosophy and Moral Psychology, and Philosophy of Mind.- 5. Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia on the Cartesian Mind: Interaction, Happiness, Freedom; Tad M. Schmaltz.- 6. Amour, Ambition and Amitié: Marie Thiroux D’Arconville on Passion and Virtue; Lisa Shapiro.- 7. Simone de Beauvoir and Madeleine de Scudéry on the Self-Other Dialectic; Nancy Bauer.-8. Sophie de Grouchy, Marquise de Condorcet: Wisdom and Reform between Reason and Feeling; Eric Schliesser.- 9. George Eliot: Literature as Experimental Philosophy; Moira Gatens.- III: The History of Feminist Social and Political Philosophy.- 10. Virtue Ethics and the Origins of Feminism: the Case of Christine de Pizan; Karen Green.- 11. Marie de Gournay and Aristotle; Marguerite Deslauriers.- 12. Astell and the History of Political Philosophy; Patricia Springborg.- 13. Damaris Cudworth Masham: Toleration and Women’s Education in Occasional Thoughts; Jacqueline Broad.- 14. Taking Liberty: Politics and Feminism in Margaret Cavendish and Catharine Macaulay; Sarah Hutton.- 15. Mary Wollstonecraft’s Contributions to Modern Political Philosophy; Eileen Hunt Botting.- Bibliography.- Index.