I’m not an expert on philosophy or philosophers and am not one myself (they think too much in my opinion, over-complicating things for the sake of it and ending up half-nutty), but as a matter of interest are there - or have there ever been - any “famous” women philosophers, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of any?
I suppose they’re too occupied with getting the families dinner ready, darning hubs socks, painting their nails and reading their horoscopes to do much philosophising, bless 'em… 
half -nutty…ohh miiick 
for you’re information yes.
Ruth Millikan
Marilyn Adams
Janet Rad(something) Richards
Seyla Benhabib
Sabina Lovibond
Iris Young
Lorraine Code
Miranda Fricker
Naomi Scheman
just to name a few off the top of my head…
please tell me that was some sick joke. And once again mick, for the third time, a “;)” does not justify an ignorant statement
Trollish.
Mick quote - I suppose they’re too occupied with getting the families dinner ready, darning hubs socks, painting their nails and reading their horoscopes to do much philosophising, bless 'em.
yromem quote - please tell me that was some sick joke
Oops are you a member of the fairer sex? Sorry if I upset you honeybun,please don’t burst into tears and run out of the room
Hey I feel a bit of philosophy of my own coming on! -
“Never give a woman a loaded gun”
A trivial persuit? Not at all. History abounds with women philosophers; but remember it is his story, not hers. I’m a male who continues to be abashed by the horrors continued in the name of paternal and patriarchal ideologies. Truth must have all imputs possible and cannot consider some sources as more valuable than others when all contribute to its meaning.
Simone de Beavoir, Ayn Rand
i ask this question a long time ago, before you were born into this forum. In the form of is there any famous women philosophers.
And the most popular one was simone de beauvior
Don’t read Rand.
Diotima?
condor.depaul.edu/~dsimpson/tlove/symposium.html
You see, this one comes up about once every 2-3 months here and it pleases me every time to see lists of names being fired back at the questioner. The truth is that women haven’t made the same impact (as men) on most academic subjects because until the last couple of centuries the only people who got involved in such things were upper class and male.
One might as well ask ‘are there any working class male philosophers?’, but of course that would require a brain on the part of the questioner to realise that opression and marginalisation aren’t just gender issues…
SIATD wrote
Good Morning, SIATD,
Eric Hofer, the “longshoreman philosopher,” and to a lesser extent, Spinoza, the “lens grinder”, come to mind. Diogenes would have been working class if the poor bugger had only gotten a job. But Epictetus, the feed slave, and Marcus Aurelius, the emperor of Rome, are both equally remembered for their philosophy.
A wonderful thing about philosophy is that it costs nothing to do. It’s cheaper than mathematics in that one doesn’t even need a pencil and paper to do philosophy. And one needn’t be published nor gain academic accreditation to do it.
What’s more, nobody can do philosophy for you. Kant and Wittgenstein contributed greatly to the world of ideas, but their philosophy was theirs, not yours. A philosopher isn’t someone that’s sufficiently acquainted with the history of philosophy, a philosopher is someone that actually does philosophy. And it doesn’t matter in the least that the ideas that you maintain have passed through a mind before. Your philosophy doesn’t have to be original, it just has to be yours. As a system, your philosophy will doubtless be flawed and riddled with contradiction. Weeding these contradictions is a daily chore for any philosopher.
I have a large and wonderful garden outside my kitchen window at home. And yet it pales in comparison with the Jardin botanique de Montréal or the New York Botanical Garden. And while I love to visit such fine places, the gardening that most matters to me involves spades and forks; dirt up to my elbows; aches and pains come the next morning. The gardening that matters to me has me lying on my back between my irregular garden beds, eating raw peas. What matters to me is making pasta sauce from my own Roma tomatos, basil, onions, carrots and garlic, while looking out my kitchen window at a patch of simple chamomile or royal lavender. My garden suffers from weeds, chipmunks, deer, Japanese beetles, aphids, and on and on. What of it? It’s my garden. It’s the place that I wept when I learned that my brother would not die of pulmonary hypertension. I was lifting potatoes there on the morning of 9/11. It’s where I go for solace, for pleasure and poesy.
It’s a poor philosopher’s garden.
Regards,
Michael
Come on…Rand is actually a pretty good writer. I think better advice would be:
“Read Rand, but with great heaps of salt.”
After all, the premise of her books hold quite a lot of merit…she just pounds it home with as much force as any finatic for any cause.
Oh, as for other woman philosophers…I’m a personal fan of Barbara Kingsolver…not a philosopher by trade, but if you read her works carefully, you can pick out some rather interesting insights on the nature of beauty, the humanity of nature, and the inhumanity of humanity.
Rand–enilghtened selfishness? Come on!
Actually, enlightened selfishness makes a lot of sense, when you think about it…and is practiced de facto, whether we like it or not. All Rand’s arguments come down to is to hold up a set of values in your actions:
-Be honest
-Work hard
-Avoid Subtractive Competition
-Survive, and flourish
The problem with rand, and the reason for the salt, is that as the birth-mother of the objectivist movement, she’s rather obsessed with her child, ignoring its flaws…just like every other person who’s spawned a philosophical movement. And, like most philosophical movements, you can’t just follow one blindlessly…
And, seeing as this is all being posted on a set of forums that talk about love of philosophy and critical thinking, I think there’s little danger of creating a Rand clone out of someone on here. Drones and clones, by base definition, have little to no thought of their own.
It might take a truly spiritual master to make the proper distinctions between selfishness and enlightenment. I realize that only the strong are able to help, while those that are weaker require the help; and that to be strong one must preserve him/herself. Yet these realizations do not alter the fact that self-centeredness can result in hedonism, narcissim, solipsism! I often find that tough love is simply inability to love.
had to study something about rabbits (in response to hume and causation) by a woman named elizabeth anscombe at school…
Lots of good female poets as well.
Wow…thats onesided. On the other hand, I could just as easily say that an overabundance of altruism can just as easily lead to self-destruction on the microcosmic level, and mob rule and chaos on a more macroscopic one.
The problem with Rand is that she does indeed stress egotism and narcissism as proper qualities, which does obscure some of the less screamed points left in her works.
As for the strong being the only ones able to help, well, even darwin’s principles rely on the fact that the strong will survive…and those weaker beings that prey upon the strong ones will die off. Its a matter of where the greater good lies in the eye of the beholder: Survival of personal genetics, or survival of multitudes (and, with the overpopulation of certain areas being what it is, I think the multitudes are fine).
Daybreak quote - Lots of good female poets as well
Yes Christina Rossetti is very good, but generally speaking she’s about the only “household name” poetess I know of…
When I am Dead, My Dearest
by Christina Georgina Rossetti
(1830-1894)
When I am dead, my dearest,
Sing no sad songs for me;
Plant thou no roses at my head,
Nor shady cypress tree:
Be the green grass above me
With showers and dewdrops wet;
And if thou wilt, remember,
And if thou wilt, forget.
I shall not see the shadows,
I shall not feel the rain;
I shall not hear the nightingale
Sing on, as if in pain:
And dreaming through the twilight
That doth not rise nor set,
Haply I may remember,
And haply may forget.
a bit two faced arnt we mick?