Women's Perspectives on Ancient and Medieval Philosophy

This book promotes the research of present-day women working in ancient and medieval philosophy, with more than 60 women having contributed in some way to the volume in a fruitful collaboration. It contains 22 papers organized into ten distinct parts spanning the sixth century BCE to the fifteenth century CE.

Each part has the same structure: it features, first, a paper which sets up the discussion, and then, one or two responses that open new perspectives and engage in further reflections. Our authors’ contributions address pivotal moments and players in the history of philosophy: women philosophers in antiquity, Cleobulina of Rhodes, Plato, Lucretius, Bardaisan of Edessa, Alexander of Aphrodisias, Plotinus, Porphyry, Peter Abelard, Robert Kilwardby, William Ockham, John Buridan, and Isotta Nogarola. 

The result is a thought-provoking collection of papers that will be of interest to historians of philosophy from all horizons. Far from being an isolated effort, thisbook is a contribution to the ever-growing number of initiatives which endeavour to showcase the work of women in philosophy.

• Women Philosophers in Antiquity
• Cleobulina of Rhodes
• Women in Plato
• Michèle Le Doeuff
• Lucretius
• Women's Sexuality
• Bardaisan of Edessa
• Alexander of Aphrodisias
• Fate, Nature, Freedom
• Plotinus
• Porphyry
• Women in Neoplatonism
• Peter Abelard on Nature
• Homo Intelligitur
• Robert Kilwardby
• John Buridan
• William Ockham
• Craft
• Isotta Nogarola
• Eve's Sin

• Philosophy Department, Université de Montréal, Montreal, Canada

  Isabelle Chouinard

• Université de Lille, UMR 8163 Savoirs Textes Langage, Lille, France

  Zoe McConaughey

• Philosophy Department, Université du Québec à Montréal, Montreal, Canada

  Aline Medeiros Ramos

• Faculty of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

  Roxane Noël

Isabelle Chouinard is a PhD candidate in philosophy at the Université de Montréal and the Centre Léon Robin (Sorbonne Université) under the joint supervision of Louis-André Dorion and Jean-Baptiste Gourinat. Her dissertation examines the Stoic reception of ancient Cynicism. Her main areas of research include Socratic and Hellenistic schools of philosophy, especially Cynicism, Cyrenaic hedonism and Stoicism. She teaches ancient Greek at the Université de Montréal. 

Zoe McConaughey is agrégée in philosophy; PhD student at the Université de Lille (France) and the Université du Québec à Montréal (Canada), she will defend in 2021 her dissertation entitled “Aristotle. Science and the dialectician's activity.” Her research deals with history and philosophy of logic, thus encompassing both historical issues, especially Aristotelian logic and epistemology, and logical issues, in particular dialogical logic. She is co-author of Immanent Reasoning or Equalityin Action (Springer, 2018), with Shahid Rahman, Ansten Klev and Nicolas Clerbout. 

Aline Medeiros Ramos is an instructor (chargée de cours) in philosophy at the Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, in Canada. She is also a PhD candidate in philosophy at the Université du Québec à Montréal, currently writing her dissertation under the supervision of Claude Panaccio on the intellectual virtues according to John Buridan. In addition to specializing in medieval philosophy focusing on the late Middle Ages, she is also generally interested in ethics and, in particular, virtue theory. 

Roxane Noël is a Gates scholar currently writing her PhD thesis at the University of Cambridge under the supervision of John Marenbon. She specializes in medieval philosophy, with a special focus on the twelfth century. Her M.A. thesis, titled “Understanding universals in Abelard’s Tractatus de intellectibus: The notion of ‘nature’”, was written under the supervision of Jack Zupko, at the University of Alberta, with support from SSHRC and FRQSC.

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