Women and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Germany

ISBN-13: 9780198843894 / Angielski / Twarda / 2021 / 272 str.

Corey W. Dyck (Professor of Philosophy a

Opis

Women and Philosophy in Eighteenth-Century Germany showcases the vibrant and diverse contributions on the part of women in eighteenth-century Germany and explores their under-appreciated influence upon philosophical debate in Germany in this period. Among the women profiled in this volume are Sophie of Hanover, Dorothea Christiane Erxleben, Johanna Charlotte Unzer, Wilhelmina of Bayreuth, Amalia Holst, Henriette Herz, Elise Reimarus, and Maria von Herbert. Their contributions span the range of philosophical topics in metaphysics, logic, and aesthetics, to moral and political philosophy, and pertain to the main philosophical movements in the period. They engage controversial issues of the day, such as atheism and materialism, but also women's struggle for access to education and for recognition of their civic entitlements, and they display a range of strategies for intellectual engagement in doing so. This collection vigorously contests the presumption that the history of German philosophy in the eighteenth century can be told without attending to the important roles that women played in the signature debates of the period.

Recenzje

This impressive volume, the first of its kind, debunks the common assumption that women had little or nothing to contribute to philosophical debates in 18th-century Germany. Even though society prevented them from having careers like their male peers, the enlightened women presented in the book engaged in existing debates, initiated new ones, challenged and inspired their interlocutors, made philosophical ideas accessible to a wider audience, and fought against prejudices and oppressing conditions by theoretical and practical means. The volume shows admirably how these female intellectuals invented ways of making philosophy relevant to the concerns of their time and, by so doing, challenged the traditional view of what it means to be a woman and what it means to do philosophy. All chapters are very well written and based on original research of texts and histories many of which so far remained in the shadows.

O autorze

Corey W. Dyck is Professor of Philosophy and Faculty Scholar for Arts and Humanities at Western University. He is the author of Kant and Rational Psychology (Oxford University Press, 2014) and is the translator and editor of the collection Early Modern German Philosophy: 1690-1750 (Oxford University Press, 2019). He has held visiting positions at Oxford University, Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, and at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg, where he was also recently an Alexander von Humboldt Research Fellow.