Twentieth Century Women Philosophers

If this final chapter of this final volume of A History of Women Philosophers seems unduly long it is only because so many of the twenty-nine women about whom brief profiles are here presented indeed deserve a chapter of their own. It gives me some satisfaction to say what I could not have said with respect to the earlier volumes in this series, namely that there are simply too many women who made significant contributions to philosophy in this century to accord each a chapter of her own. And even in this chapter of “also rans” I have had to cull and choose, omitting some of the more recently-deceased such as Dorothy Emmet, Pepita Haezrahi, Susanne Langer, and my own teacher May Brodbeck, whose works are more accessible than the works of others. I have opted instead, for inclusion of a wide range of generally now-forgotten women philosophers who were well-known in their day, and whose interests in philosophy were varied, as well as a number who are well known, but not well known as philosophers. In addition, I have included a few who published only one or two articles in philosophy, and in some sense had a marginal role in its recent development. I have tried to give the reader what I think is the flavor of women’s presence in the professional field of academic philosophy, as well as in popular philosophical writing outside the academy.