How is it that, in Western Philosophy, especially in the western classical tradition in linguistics, there appear to be no noticeable women scholars?
Actually, Women are more powerful and superior to men. In Nepal, sandwiched between India and China we are now having festival to worship women and women means power. Socially, Culturally, Women were and are being narrowed down to reach top, which is true in most developing countries of the world
Tasha - Ruth Barcan Marcus, Elizabeth Anscombe, Judith Jarvis Thompson (this is just in the pre-1980s)... as for today, Katherine Hawley or Sally Haslanger...
WAS there any philosophy before the twentieth century (I mean, apart from Frege)?
The thread is a valid examination of a part of the history of philosophy and some of the views that influenced formation of philosophical problems [and scientific solutions] today.
How can we postulate a ‘genderless’ philosophical approach to intellect, or any other human endeavor or problem, if our philosophical ideas today *are based/formed on* the dominant ideas of thinkers in the past that intentionally *omitted* feminine ideas or 'the feminine idea' (for example: Aristotle, Kant, Descartes and Hegel as well as Derrida's categorisation, and Heidegger's exclusion, of "woman")?
If, Tasha, you were to cite a few philosophers rather than all those literary types we might get somewhere..
Come on lads & lasses: out of the woodwork for a full_scale defence of predicate logic (first order, with suitable extensions to deal with counterfactuals, verbal tense, adverbial modification, part-whole relations and the like)!!!
..and my ideas about women are based on my empirical experience thereof. As a meticulous researcher, I of course made certain that my samplle pool was as large as feasible; my conclusion is that the main differences reside in attitudes towards shopping. Apart from that, there's no difference in intellectual capacities, when such capacities are evaluated with respect to reason, logic, and problem-solving. What differences there are in approach are largely due to cultural determination (and of course, the culturally-determined differences between men and women are real observables. However, one should never take one's culture at face value).
So, there you go, there's one ideal dominant male philosopher of the recent past who's looked most meticulously at women and who still promotes genderless philosophy... language is language, whoever speaks it; distinctions in sociolect are projected onto the domains determined by the language as a whole.
@Filippo, I fully agree your version, We cant forget Marie Curie whose contribution to mankind has not been superseded by anybody ,and never
DH: "...all the same, I'm still waiting for tips on persuading females!"
I'll second that!!
Maybe women, as a group, don't particularly like engineering... or philosophy?
I suppose few men go into 'home economics.'
My missus couldn't give a monkey's about philosophy - it's an essential quality of our relationship.
Dear Natasha
For Socrates, the woman was being a stupid and boring. Buddha did not allow his followers to look at women. In the pre-Christian world, women often were mere seedlings servants, whose lives only knew strenuous work.
The woman overcame cultural barriers
The modern woman is featured in science, art, politics (many are presidents), in large companies, etc..
The woman is the foundation of the world, without which life would not exist
Filippo, there must be some measure of answer in simple evolutionary pressures. Menfolk could probably afford to flit about, spend time on abstractions (whether legitimate or fanciful), even be totally irresponsible.
If womenfolk lacked material grounding, however, their children would quickly die. Idly philosophizing instead of focusing on the very real and immediate material needs of children would have soon spelt the end of the children, hence there might not be a very widespread inherited bent for philosophy amongst those who were the children's first guardians.
This being said, as exemplified many times over, women are every bit as capable as their counterparts whenever they choose to focus on whichever subject .
On a serious note, I think H.Chris hit the hammer on the head of the nail. On a light hearted note, women were so busy talking to analyze what they were saying, that is language (I am in trouble now) and men were left to figure out what she said, which morphed into linguistics. (Oh, boy! I am dead now!) :-)
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