This collection considers one of the most important figures of the modern canon of political philosophy, John Locke. A physician by training and profession, Locke not only wrote one of the most important and well-known treatises of the modern canon, but also made important contributions in the areas of seventeenth-century law and public policy, epistemology, philosophy of language, religion, and economics.

There has been a long-standing debate in feminist scholarship on Locke as to whether this early founder of modern liberal thought was a strong feminist or whether he ushered in a...

Within the popular consciousness, Emma Goldman has become something of an icon, a symbol for rebellion and women's rights. But there has been surprisingly little substantive analysis of her influence on social, political, and feminist theory. In Feminist Interpretations of Emma Goldman, Weiss and Kensinger present essays that resist a simplistic understanding of Goldman and instead attempt to examine her thinking in its proper social, historical, and philosophical context. Only by considering the sources, influences, and specific significance of Goldman's ideas can her proper...

Since the establishment of Christianity in the West as a major religious tradition, Augustine (354-430 CE) has been considered a principal architect of the ways philosophy can be used for reasoning about faith. In particular, Augustine effected the joining of Platonism with Christian belief for the Middle Ages and beyond. The results of his enterprise continue to be felt, especially with regard to the contested topics of human embodiment, sexuality, and the nature and roles of women. As a result, few thinkers have been as problematic for feminists as he has been. He is the thinker that a...

Historians often ignore, treat cursorily, or relegate to footnotes specific incidents in international relations in order to facilitate the construction of a larger narrative. The contributors to this volume argue that researchers do so to their peril, as individual or seemingly isolated incidents can play significant roles in the overall course of history. Incidents are crucial in determining the mental maps that decision makers form regarding the countries and individuals with whom they interact. Incidents can either initiate or block new policies with consequences that are both...

In Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls, Ruth Abbey collects eight essays responding to the work of John Rawls from a feminist perspective. An impressive introduction by the editor provides a chronological overview of English-language feminist engagements with Rawls from his Theory of Justice onward. Abbey surveys the range of issues canvassed by feminist readers of Rawls, as well as critics' wide disagreement about the value of Rawls's corpus for feminist purposes. The eight essays that follow testify to the continuing ambivalence among feminist readers of Rawls. From...

Unlike many of the major figures in Western philosophy, Kierkegaard explores many issues of interest to feminist theorists today. Moreover, he does so in a style labyrinthine, many-voiced, multilayered, adverse to authority that adumbrates ecriture feminine.

A major question probed in the volume is whether Kierkegaard's writings are misogynist, ambivalent, or essentialist in their views of women and the feminine or whether, in some important and vital ways, they are liberatory and empowering for feminists and women trying to free themselves from the maze of patriarchal constructs.

The...

When Richard Rorty died on June 8, 2007, obituaries lionized him as one of the "world's most influential cultural philosophers" and as a thinker whose work covered a wide and varied terrain of literature, philosophy, politics, aesthetics, and cultural critique. Most famous for his rejection of the analytic tradition, Rorty had a relationship to the philosophical canon, and the discipline of philosophy, that was as fraught and full of tensions as it is for most feminist philosophers. Rorty chose to use his 1990 Tanner Lecture on Human Values (the text of which is the first chapter in this...

When Richard Rorty died on June 8, 2007, obituaries lionized him as one of the "world's most influential cultural philosophers" and as a thinker whose work covered a wide and varied terrain of literature, philosophy, politics, aesthetics, and cultural critique. Most famous for his rejection of the analytic tradition, Rorty had a relationship to the philosophical canon, and the discipline of philosophy, that was as fraught and full of tensions as it is for most feminist philosophers. Rorty chose to use his 1990 Tanner Lecture on Human Values (the text of which is the first chapter in this...

This collection considers one of the most important figures of the modern canon of political philosophy, John Locke. A physician by training and profession, Locke not only wrote one of the most important and well-known treatises of the modern canon, but also made important contributions in the areas of seventeenth-century law and public policy, epistemology, philosophy of language, religion, and economics.

There has been a long-standing debate in feminist scholarship on Locke as to whether this early founder of modern liberal thought was a strong feminist or whether he ushered in a...

In Feminist Interpretations of John Rawls, Ruth Abbey collects eight essays responding to the work of John Rawls from a feminist perspective. An impressive introduction by the editor provides a chronological overview of English-language feminist engagements with Rawls from his Theory of Justice onward. Abbey surveys the range of issues canvassed by feminist readers of Rawls, as well as critics' wide disagreement about the value of Rawls's corpus for feminist purposes. The eight essays that follow testify to the continuing ambivalence among feminist readers of Rawls. From...