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

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-x

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2. Introduction

   • Eileen O’Neill

   Pages 1-20

3. The History of Metaphysics, Epistemology and Natural Philosophy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 21-21

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   2. Women Philosophers and the Cosmological Argument: A Case Study in Feminist History of Philosophy

      • Marcy P. Lascano

      Pages 23-47

   3. Anne Conway’s Metaphysics of Sympathy

      • Christia Mercer

      Pages 49-73

   4. Sensibility and Understanding in the Epistemological Thought of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz

      • Laura Benítez

      Pages 75-96

   5. Du Châtelet and Descartes on the Roles of Hypothesis and Metaphysics in Natural Philosophy

      • Karen Detlefsen

      Pages 97-127

   6. Lady Mary Shepherd and David Hume on Cause and Effect

      • Martha Brandt Bolton

      Pages 129-152

4. The History of Moral Philosophy, Moral Psychology, and Philosophy of Mind

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 153-153

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   2. Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia on the Cartesian Mind: Interaction, Happiness, Freedom

      • Tad M. Schmaltz

      Pages 155-173

   3. L’Amour, L’Ambition and L’Amitié: Marie Thiroux D’Arconville on Passion, Agency and Virtue

      • Lisa Shapiro

      Pages 175-191

   4. Sophie de Grouchy, Adam Smith, and the Politics of Sympathy

      • Eric Schliesser

      Pages 193-219

   5. Imagination, Religion, and Morality: What Did George Eliot Learn from Spinoza and Feuerbach?

      • Moira Gatens

      Pages 221-239

   6. Surpassing Liberal Feminism: Beauvoir’s Legacy in Global Perspective

      • Karen Vintges

      Pages 241-257

5. The History of Social and Political Philosophy

   1. Front Matter

      Pages 259-259

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   2. Virtue Ethics and the Origins of Feminism: The Case of Christine de Pizan

      • Karen Green

      Pages 261-279

   3. Marie de Gournay and Aristotle on the Unity of the Sexes

      • Marguerite Deslauriers

      Pages 281-299

   4. The Radical Nature of Mary Astell’s Christian Feminism

      • Hilda L. Smith

      Pages 301-317

   5. Damaris Masham on Women and Liberty of Conscience

      • Jacqueline Broad

      Pages 319-336

   6. Taking Liberty: Politics and Feminism in Margaret Cavendish and Catharine Macaulay

      • Sarah Hutton

      Pages 337-354

Over the course of the past twenty-five years, feminist theory has had a forceful impact upon the history of Western philosophy. The present collection of essays has as its primary aim to evaluate past women’s published philosophical work, and to introduce readers to newly recovered female figures; the collection will also make contributions to the history of the philosophy of gender, and to the history of feminist social and political philosophy, insofar as the collection will discuss women’s views on these issues.

The volume contains contributions by an international group of leading historians of philosophy and political thought, whose scholarship represents some of the very best work being done in North and Central America, Canada, Europe and Australia.

• Methodology Behind Anne Conway's Principles
• epistemological thought of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz
• du Châtelet on Hypothesis and Metaphysics in Science
• Mary Shepherd on Causality and Causal Reasoning
• Elisabeth of Bohemia on the Cartesian Mind
• Marie Thiroux D’Arconville on Passion and Virtue
• Simone de Beauvoir on the Self-Other Dialectic
• Madeleine de Scudéry on the Self-Other Dialectic
• Sophie de Grouchy on Reason and Feeling
• George Eliot and Literature as Experimental Philosophy
• Christine de Pizan and the origin of feminism
• Marie de Gournay and Aristotle
• Astell and the History of Political Philosophy
• Jacqueline Broad and Occasional Thoughts
• Politics and Feminism in Margaret Cavendish
• Politics and Feminism in Catharine Macaulay
• Mary Wollstonecraft in Modern Political Philosophy

“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)

• Philosophy, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Amherst, USA

  Eileen O’Neill

• Department of Philosophy, University of Kansas, Lawrence, USA

  Marcy P. Lascano

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.

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