GreenerEU 2050

Course Description     ​

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Women philosophers have long shaped philosophical thought. The history of philosophy is not a book storage where the books are stocked on top of one an-other and the book on top contains all underlying ones. 

 

We cannot reduce history to a quarry, where, in case of need, the interested can mine data based on topics of daily relevance. The history of philosophy provides exactly the contrary to that: A kingdom of ideas and a realm of freedom to pursue insights alternative to our own, some we possibly never have heard of, worlds we possibly never have stepped into and never would otherwise have been able to approach. Such a wealth of new ideas is offered through the study of history of women philosophers.  

 

We are facing today a huge amount of valuable resources from women philosophers, many from antiquity and some in the Middle Ages, a tradition without cease from Humanism and Renaissance till today. Edith Stein, Hannah Arendt, and Simone de Beauvoir, the famous representatives of the 20th century did not appear from nowhere, they are standing, so to speak, on the shoulders of female titans before them. 

 

The history of women thinkers is as long as the history of ideas known today, but the established history of philosophy and ideas has focused only on male authors. Selected examples, which take up 2600 years of European cultural tradition, show which ideas were developed by women thinkers and which became part of established history, but also those that have not yet been integrated into it.

 

The course consists of three parts. An introductory overview of the history of women’s ideas is provided to open insight into  focal points from antiquity to the 20th century, analytic and systematic topics that will help us to categorize the overwhelming amount of material. The first part introduces the ideas of ancient gender-equitable philosophy and leads us to the female scholars from Humanism and Renaissance paying special tribute to the women philosophers from the Venice area.  

 

The second part will focus on the contributions of female scholars on science and give you an idea of how medicine, physics and mathematics was inspired by women philosophers and scientists, moving on to the 18th century. From there we start with women thinkers in the French Revolution and those thinkers who extensively contributed to the political economy in the 19th century.  

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Syllabus     

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The course provides an understanding of historical developments and setbacks, as well as an alternative historical framework. It presents philosophical figures from various European countries, such as Greece, Italy, France, Germany, England, Spain and Croatia, and addresses different topics relating to their cultural and systematic issues.

 

This includes communicating names and the associated systematic content, such as questions about the relationship between family and state, the definition of knowledge, religion, the theory of science, equality, and political economy. 

 

The aim is to provide participants with an overview of this lesser-known history of Europe. At the same time, exemplary topics will be developed and explored to demonstrate that female philosophers and gender-just thinkers proposed alternative ways of shaping science and social reality.   

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Literature       ​

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• (2024) Teaching Women Philosophers. Ideas and Concepts from Women Philosophers' Writings from more than 2000 Years, ed. R.E. Hagengruber Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences. Springer International Publishing. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-031-59298-0_

 

• (2023) Women Philosophers on Economics, Technology, Environment, and Gender History: Shaping the Future, Rethinking the Past, Ed. R.E. Hagengruber. Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter. DOI: 10.1515/9783111051802

 

• (2020) Hagengruber, Ruth Edith. “The Stolen History — Retrieving the History of Women Philosophers and its Methodical Implications.” In: Methodological Reflections on Women’s Contribution and Influence in the History of Philosophy. Springer, 43-64. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-44421-1_4

 

• (2015) Hagengruber, Ruth Edith. “Cutting through the Veil of Ignorance. Rewriting the History of Philosophy.” The Monist 98: 34–42. DOI: 10.1093/monist/onu005

 

• (2015) Hagengruber, Ruth Edith. “Measuring the Value of Women. A Feminist Analysis of Economic Categories and Thought.” In Meta-Philosophical Reflection on Feminist Philosophies of Science,:171–83. Boston Stud. Philosophy. Springer International Publishing. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-26348-9_10 

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