The Neglected Canon: Nine Women Philosophers

Book excerpt: When down from the moon stepped the goddess of the night, she bid Minerva/Athene come to her. "Minerva/Athene," she said, "you sprang fully formed from the head of your father. Now all the daughters of mankind think they, too, are as rootless as you. Tonight I bid you dance, join the circle round 1 that tree glistening with the clarity of wisdom. Mother Natura and Lady Philosophia, hands together, already have begun the promenade of myth and allegory. " Still in the garb of gold and white stone, Minerva/ Athene did as she was bid and danced till dawn. Then in new light, she found herself suddenly a budding flower on a tall branch, and even more swiftly a crystalline fruit, rivaling the morning sun, refracting the light. Behold, she had grown roots, difficult to discover down in the dark of history, deep in the solid knowledge of earth. And the daughters of humankind saw and reveled in their roots. This is the story of this book, a history, long and diverse, of women thinkers and their thought. It will become a legacy for all who study it, a legacy that Heloi"se, Marie de Gournay, Sor Juana Ines de Ia Cruz, and Judith Sargent Murray among many women philosophers assured by composing lists of the names of women little acknowledged century after century. While the Hannah Arendt's, Susanne K.