Diversity Reading List

Abstract: Recent research on women philosophers has led to more discussion of the merits of many previously forgotten women in the past several years. Yet due to the fact that a thinker’s significance and influence are historical phenomena, women remain relatively absent in 'mainstream' discussions of philosophy. This paper focuses on several successful academic women in American philosophy and takes notice of how they succeeded in their own era. Special attention is given to three important academic women philosophers: Mary Whiton Calkins, Ellen Bliss Talbot, and Marietta Kies.

Abstract:

Methodology has to do with systematic reflections on the methods adopted in a certain kind of activity, including that of intellectual inquiry. But we cannot talk intelligibly about the method of a certain kind of activity without knowing more about the nature of the activity as well as the goals and interests behind it. For example, we cannot talk intelligibly about the method of writing without knowing what it is that we write and for what purpose and audience, nor about the method of building a house without knowing what kind of house and for what purpose. This is no less true of intellectual inquiry, and in our case, the study of Chinese thought. We cannot talk intelligibly about the method of studying Chinese thought without knowing more about the goals and interests behind such study.

Publisher's Note: Few philosophers or theologians exerted as much influence on the shape of Medieval thought as Thomas Aquinas. He ranks amongst the most famous of the Western philosophers and was responsible for almost single-handedly bringing the philosophy of Aristotle into harmony with Christianity. He was also one of the first philosophers to argue that philosophy and theology could support each other. The shape of metaphysics, theology, and Aristotelian thought today still bears the imprint of Aquinas work. In this extensive and deeply researched study, Eleonore Stump engages Aquinas across the full range of his philosophical writings. She examines Aquinas' major works, Summa Theologiae and Summa Contra Gentiles and clearly assesses the vast range of Aquinas' thought from his metaphysics, theology, philosophy of mind and epistemology to his views on free will, action, the soul and ethics, law and politics. She considers the influence of Aquinas' thought on contemporary philosophy and why he should be still read today.

Publisher’s Note:
Philosophy has not just excluded women. It has also been shaped by the exclusion of women. As the field grapples with the reality that sexism is a central problem not just for the demographics of the field but also for how philosophy is practiced, many philosophers have begun to rethink the canon. Yet attempts to broaden European and Anglophone philosophy to include more women in the discipline’s history or to acknowledge alternative traditions will not suffice as long as exclusionary norms remain in place. In Where Are the Women?, Sarah Tyson makes a powerful case for how redressing women’s exclusion can make philosophy better. She argues that engagements with historical thinkers typically afforded little authority can transform the field, outlining strategies based on the work of three influential theorists: Genevieve Lloyd, Luce Irigaray, and Michèle Le Doeuff. Following from the possibilities they open up, at once literary, linguistic, psychological, and political, Tyson reclaims two passionate nineteenth-century texts―the Declaration of Sentiments from the 1848 Seneca Falls Convention and Sojourner Truth’s speech at the 1851 Akron, Ohio, Women’s Convention―showing how the demands for equality, rights, and recognition sought in the early women’s movement still pose quandaries for contemporary philosophy, feminism, and politics. Where Are the Women? challenges us to confront the reality that women’s exclusion from philosophy has been an ongoing project and to become more critical both of how we see existing injustices and of how we address them.

Abstract:
In “Sex, Lies, and Bigotry: The Canon of Philosophy” I explore several questions: What does it mean for our understanding of the history of philosophy that women philosophers have been left out and are now being retrieved? What kind of a methodology of the history of philosophy does the recovery of women philosophers imply? Whether and how excluded women philosophers have been included in philosophy? Whether and how feminist philosophy and the history of women philosophers are related? I also explore the questions “Are there any themes or arguments that are common to many women philosophers?” and “Does inclusion of women in the canon require a reconfiguration of philosophical inquiry?” I argue that it is either ineptness or simple bigotry that led most historians of philosophy to intentionally omit women’s contributions from their histories and that such failure replicated itself in the university curricula of recent centuries and can be remedied by suspending for the next two centuries the teaching of men’s contributions to the discipline and teaching works by women only. As an alternative to this drastic and undoubtedly unpopular solution, I propose expanding the length and number of courses in the philosophy curriculum to include discussion of women’s contributions.

Publisher’s Note:

Translating to 'an investigation', this is the second of two 17th century ethical and rational treatises from present-day Ethiopia. Walda Heywat (Wäldä Hewat) continued the work of his mentor, Zera Yacob (Zär'a Ya'eqob, Wärqe), and expanded on it, turning it into more of a practical guide. Hatata (II) is considered to be more in line with more traditional views in its approach to topics such as marriage and abortion. However, where as Zara Yacob's ideas were relatively individualistic, Walda Heywat was particularly known for his social ethics. In his writing, he states, "God did not create me only for myself, but placed me in the midst of other created [men] who are equal to me." He also adds, “Man cannot come to existence, grow and serve by himself without the help of other men."

Publisher’s Note:

Translating to 'an investigation', this is the first of two 17th century ethical and rational treatises from present-day Ethiopia. Zera Yacob (Zär'a Ya'eqob, Wärqe) is most noted for his philosophy surrounding the principle of harmony. He asserted that an action's morality is decided by whether it advances or degrades overall harmony in the world. While he did believe in a deity, whom he referred to as God, he criticised several sets of religious beliefs. Rather than deriving beliefs from any organized religion, Yacob sought the truth in observing the natural world. In Hatata, Zera Yacob applied the idea of a first cause to produce a proof for the existence of God, thus proposing a cosmological argument. "If I say that my father and my mother created me, then I must search for the creator of my parents and of the parents of my parents until they arrive at the first who were not created as we [are] but who came into this world in some other way without being generated." However, the knowability of God does not depend on human intellect, but "Our soul has the power of having the concept of God and of seeing him mentally. God did not give this power purposelessly; as he gave the power, so did he give the reality." Yacob's work was continued in a second Hatata by his pupil and patron's son, Walda Heywat (Wäldä Hewat).

Publisher’s Note:
Brook Ziporyn's carefully crafted, richly annotated translation of the complete writings of Zhuangzi—including a lucid Introduction, a Glossary of Essential Terms, and a Bibliography—provides readers with an engaging and provocative deep dive into this magical work.

Publisher’s Note:
A reliable translation and commentary of the core chapters of the Zhuangzi by a leading scholar.

Publisher’s Note:
This is one of the standard and often-cited translations of the full text of the Zhuangzi