The essays in this anthology explore the full spectrum of Plato's philosophy and are representative of the variety of perspectives within feminist criticism. The essays in the first section focus primarily on Plato's social and political theory, and in particular the place of women within the state. The second section concentrates on examining the role of the feminine within Plato's metaphysics and epistemology.

Tuana introduces both sections and a detailed bibliography is included.

For almost twenty years, feminist readings of Simone de Beauvoir's feminist classic The Second Sex have been dominated by dismissive interpretation of Beauvoir's philosophy as Sartrean and phallocentric. Beauvoir's angry refusal to acknowledge either her philosophical originality or her lesbian relationships led to an interpretive impasse on two issues: her relationship to existentialism and her relationship to feminism. It was not until Beauvoir's death in 1986 that this interpretive impasse would be broken. Feminist scholars reacted to news of Beauvoir's death in 1986 by...

Consisting almost entirely of new essays specially prepared for this volume, Feminist Interpretations of Hannah Arendt illuminates the diversity of contemporary feminisms while also generating new and suggestive readings of Hannah Arendt's political thought. The contributing authors' shared interest in Arendt provides a ground upon which to work out their disagreements regarding feminist theory and practice. At the same time, their shared commitment to some brand of feminism leads them to engage Arendt on an unusually wide array of issues, such as gender, sexuality, the body,...

A pivotal figure in critical theory and the modern/postmodern debates, G. W. F. Hegel is the subject of differing feminist critiques. Going beyond and behind Simone de Beauvoir's creative appropriation of Hegel in The Second Sex, the essays gathered together here think both with and against the grain of Hegel's dialectical theory through the lens of gender issues found in his philosophy. Some of the authors focus on prominent passages on woman and the feminine in Hegel's work, while others argue that it is interpretations of the margins of his text that are most telling. Hegel...

Much contemporary feminist theory continues to see itself as freeing women from patriarchal oppression so that they may realize their own inner truth. To be told by postmodern thinkers such as Jacques Derrida that the very possibility of such a truth must be submitted to the process of deconstruction thus seems to present a serious challenge to the feminist project. From a postmodern perspective, on the other hand, most feminist discourse remains deeply rooted, if not in essentialism, at least in the logocentrism of traditional philosophical and political thought. Stepping beyond the usual...

In contrast to many previous feminist interpretations of Aristotle, which found much to disparage and little to salvage in his philosophy, the contributors to this volume enter into new, creative, and subtle dimensions of inquiry about Aristotle. They look more deeply into his influence and question the possibility of escape from it.

Feminists recognize that they too philosophize within the tradition founded by Plato and Aristotle and owe the Greeks a debt. Aristotle still influences our abstract thinking, search for principles, meditations on virtue, and reflections on nature,...

Nietzsche has the reputation of being a virulent misogynist, so why are feminists interested in his philosophy? The essays in this volume provide answers to this question from a variety of feminist perspectives.

The organization of the volume into two sets of essays, "Nietzsche's Use of Woman" and "Feminists' Use of Nietzsche," reflects the two general approaches taken to the issue of Nietzsche and woman. First, many debates have focused on how to interpret Nietzsche's remarks about women and femininity. Are all of Nietzsche's comments to be read literally, or is he being ironic,...

This landmark anthology is the first to engage critically the writings of Ayn Rand from feminist perspectives. The interdisciplinary feminist strategies of re-reading Rand range from the lightness of camp to the darkness of de Sade, from postandrogyny to poststructuralism. A highly charged dialogue on Rand's legacy provides the forum for a reexamination of feminism and its relationship to egoism, individualism, and capitalism. Rand's place in contemporary feminism is assessed through comparisons with other twentieth-century feminists, such as de Beauvoir, Wolf, Paglia, Eisler, and...

Contributors are Susan Bordo, Stanley Clarke, Erica Harth, Leslie Heywood, Luce Irigaray, Genevieve Lloyd, Mario Moussa, Eileen O'Neill, Adrianna Paliyenko, Ruth Perry, Mario Saenz, Karl Stern, Thomas Wartenberg, and James Winders.

This book is the first collection of feminist essays on one of the central figures in the history of English-speaking philosophy. Besides providing a rich variety of feminist viewpoints on a wide range of Hume's writings, the contributors introduce new themes into the scholarship on Hume, including gendered metaphors in his metaphysical texts, the role of society in the conception of the human mind, and his conception of human nature in relation to recent rejections of essentialism.

Hume scholarship as a whole still reflects the relative neglect in mainstream analytic philosophy of...