Ancient Women Philosophers

Katharine R. O'Reilly is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Toronto Metropolitan University. Her research areas include moral psychology in the Ancient Greek and Roman traditions, and ancient women philosophers (particularly in the Hellenistic schools). Caterina Pellò is a Research Fellow at the University of Geneva (SNSF Ambizione). She has published Pythagorean Women (Cambridge 2022) in the series Cambridge Elements on Women in the History of Philosophy.

• Introduction: the value of women philosophers for the history of philosophy Caterina Pellò and Katharine R. O'Reilly; 1. Beyond gender: the voice of Diotima Frisbee C. C. Sheffield; 2. Sulabhā and Indian philosophy: rhetoric, gender, and philosophy in the Mahābhārata Brian Black; 3. Women's medical knowledge in antiquity: beyond midwifery Sophia M. Connell; 4. Ancient women epicureans and their anti-hedonist critics Kelly Arenson; 5. Arete of Cyrene and the role of women in philosophical lineage Katharine R. O'Reilly; 6. Women at the crossroads: life and death for the stoic wife Kate Meng Brassel; 7. Pythagorean women and the domestic as a philosophical topic Rosemary Twomey; 8. Perictione, mother of metaphysics: a new philosophical reading of on wisdom Giulia De Cesaris and Caterina Pellò; 9. Not veiled in silence: the case for macrina Anna B. Christensen; 10. Women philosophers and ideals of being a woman in Neoplatonic schools of late antiquity: the examples of Sosipatra of Ephesus and Hypatia of Alexandria Jana Schultz; 11. Reappraising Ban Zhao: the advent of Chinese women philosophers Ann A. Pang-White; 12. The reception of Plato on women: Proclus, Averroes, Marinella Peter Adamson; Bibliography; Index.

'Any reinterpretation of the history of philosophy that includes the voices of women must begin with the ancient women thinkers. Pellò and O'Reilly succeed in creating a new framework beyond the Christian Western tradition. Part of this new perspective is indebted to the ideas of women thinkers from the Indian, Chinese, and Arab worlds. The book offers a fresh approach that renovates our understanding of ancient women thinkers and their reception, and also renews the concept of ancient philosophy.' Ruth E. Hagengruber, University of Paderborn