1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy
The Routledge Handbook of Women and Early Modern European Philosophy is an outstanding reference source for the wide range of philosophical contributions made by women writing in Europe from about 1560 to 1780. It shows the range of genres and methods used by women writing in these centuries in Europe, thus encouraging an expanded understanding of our historical canon. Comprising 46 chapters by a team of contributors from all over the globe, including early career researchers, the Handbook is divided into the following sections:
I. Context
II. Themes
A. Metaphysics and Epistemology
B. Natural Philosophy
C. Moral Philosophy
D. Social-Political Philosophy
III. Figures
IV. State of the Field
The volume is essential reading for students and researchers in philosophy who are interested in expanding their understanding of the richness of our philosophical past, including in order to offer expanded, more inclusive syllabi for their students. It is also a valuable resource for those in related fields like gender and women’s studies; history; literature; sociology; history and philosophy of science; and political science.
1 Introduction
Karen Detlefsen and Lisa Shapiro
PART I
Context
2 Women and Institutions in Early Modern Europe: Making Space for Female Scholarship
Carol Pal
3 Canon, Gender, and Historiography
Lisa Shapiro
4 Method, Genre, and the Scope of Philosophy
Karen Detlefsen
PART II
Themes
Section A: Metaphysics and Epistemology
5 God, Freedom, and Perfection in Conway, Astell, and du Châtelet
Marcy P. Lascano
6 Vitalistic Causation: More, Conway, Cavendish
Tad M. Schmaltz
7 It’s All Alive! Cavendish and Conway against Dualism
Marleen Rozemond and Alison Simmons
8 Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, and Catharine Cockburn on Matter
Emily Thomas
9 Skepticism
Martina Reuter
10 Ways of Knowing
David Cunning
PART II
Section B: Natural Philosophy
11 Space and Time
Geoffrey Gorham
12 Method and Explanation
Anne-Lise Rey
13 Physics and Optics: Agnesi, Bassi, Du Châtelet
Bryce Gessell and Andrew Janiak
14 Women, Medicine, and the Life Sciences
Gideon Manning
15 Theories of Perception
Louise Daoust
PART II
Section C: Moral Philosophy
16 Early Modern Women and the Metaphysics of Free Will
Deborah Boyle
17 Friendship as a Means to Freedom
Allauren Samantha Forbes
18 Managing Mockery: Reason, Passions and the Good Life among Early Modern Women Philosophers
Amy M. Schmitter
19 Virtue and Moral Obligation
Sandrine Bergès
20 Men, Women, Equality, and Difference
Marguerite Deslauriers
PART II
Section D: Social-Political Philosophy
21 Autonomy and Marriage
Kelin Emmett
22 Slavery and Servitude in Seventeenth-Century Feminism: Arcangela Tarabotti and Gabrielle Suchon
Hasana Sharp
23 Race and Gender in Early Modern Philosophy: How Amo and Astell Wrote behind the Veil
Margaret Watkins
24 Early Modern European Women and the Philosophy of Education: Van Schurman, Pascal, Maintenon and Astell
Michaela Manson
25 Critical Perspectives on Religion
Charlotte Sabourin
26 Beauty, Gender, and Power from Marinelli to Wollstonecraft
Patrick Ball
27 Theories of the State
Alan M. S. J. Coffee
PART III
Figures
28 Italian Women Philosophers in the Sixteenth Century: From a Critique of the Aristotelian Gender Paradigm to an Affirmation of the Excellence of Women
Sandra Plastina
29 Teresa de Ávila on Self-Knowledge
Jorge Secada
30 (Self-)Portraits between Two Gowns: Marie de Gournay
Marie-Frédérique Pellegrin
31 Madeleine de Scudéry: Moral Philosophy in a Gendered Key
John J. Conley, S.J.
32 The Unorthodox Margaret Cavendish
Tom Stoneham and Peter West
33 Anne Conway
Christia Mercer and Olivia Branscum
34 Gabrielle Suchon on Women’s Freedom
Julie Walsh
35 The Socratic Pedagogy of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
Adriana Clavel-Vázquez and Sergio Armando Gallegos-Ordorica
36 Mary Astell (1666–1731)
Jacqueline Broad
37 Damaris Masham and Catharine Trotter Cockburn: Agency, Virtue, and Fitness in their Moral Philosophies
Patricia Sheridan
38 Du Châtelet and the Philosophy of Physics
Katherine Brading
39 The Real Consequences of Imaginary Things: Louise Dupin’s Critique of Sexist Historiography
Sonja Ruud and Rebecca Wilkin
40 Catharine Macaulay’s Philosophy and Her Influence on Mary Wollstonecraft
Karen Green
41 Phillis Wheatley and the Limits of the History of Philosophy
Aaron Garrett
42 Mary Wollstonecraft
Lena Halldenius
43 Remorse and Moral Progress in Sophie de Grouchy’s Letters on Sympathy
Getty L. Lustila
44 Mary Shepherd (1777–1847)
Antonia LoLordo
45 Women and Philosophy in the German Context
Corey W. Dyck
PART IV
State of the Field
46 What Difference? The Renaissance of Women Philosophers
Sarah Hutton
Biography
Karen Detlefsen is Vice Provost for Education and Professor of Philosophy and Education at the University of Pennsylvania. She is editor of Descartes' Meditations: A Critical Guide (2013) and co-editor with Jacqueline Broad of Women and Liberty, 1600-1800: Philosophical Essays (2017).
Lisa Shapiro is Professor of Philosophy and Dean of Arts at McGill University. From 2002 to 2022, she was professor in the Department of Philosophy at Simon Fraser University. She is translator and editor of The Correspondence of Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia and René Descartes (2007), co-editor of Emotions and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy (2013), editor of Pleasure: A History (2018), and co-editor of Modern Philosophy: An Anthology (2022).
