Despite the common misconception that ancient philosophy was the domain of male thinkers, sources confirm that ancient women engaged in philosophical activity. Bringing together a collection of essays on ancient women thinkers, with special focus on their ideas and contributions to the history of philosophy, this volume is about the earliest women philosophers, their breakthroughs, and the methods we can use to excavate them. The essays survey the methodological strategies we can use to approach the surviving evidence, retrieve the largely unresearched thought and the original ideas of ancient women philosophers, and carve out a space for them in the canon. The broad focus includes women thinkers in ancient Indian, Chinese, and Arabic philosophy as well as in the Greek and Roman philosophical traditions. The volume will be valuable for a wide range of researchers, teachers, and students of ancient philosophy.

Argues that the available evidence conveys the idea of the Pythagorean woman as both an expert on the female sphere and a well-rounded thinker philosophising about the principles of the cosmos, human society, the immortality of the soul, numbers, and harmonics.

Huizenga examines the Greco-Roman moral-philosophical "curriculum" for women by comparing two pseudepigraphic epistolary collections. The analysis is organized around four elements: textual resources, teachers and learners, instructional strategies, and subject matter.

This book provides English translations of all the earliest extant examples of literary Greek prose by Neopythagorean women, shedding light on their attitudes about marriage, the home, music, and the cosmos. Pomeroy sets the Pythagorean and Neopythagorean women vividly in their historical, ecological, and intellectual contexts, illustrated with original photographs of sites and artifacts known to these women.

This is a unique, groundbreaking study in the history of philosophy, combining leading men and women philosophers across 2600 years of Western philosophy, covering key foundational topics, including epistemology, metaphysics, and ethics.

Also available online. A philosopher, mathematician, and martyr, Hypatia is one of antiquity's best known female intellectuals. This book rediscovers the life Hypatia led, the unique challenges she faced as a woman who succeeded spectacularly in a man's world, and the tragic story of the events that led to her murder.

Through a series of focused articles, this volume takes a fresh look at the most well-known ancient female philosopher under three aspects: first, through the evidence provided by her most famous pupil, Synesius of Cyrene; next, by placing her in her late antique cultural context, and, finally, through analysis of her reception both ancient and modern.

Also available online. Henry combines traditional philological and historical methods of analysis with feminist critical perspectives, in order to trace the construction of Aspasia's biographical tradition from ancient times to the present.

This book is a deep examination of the literary tradition surrounding female Pythagoreans; it envisions the tradition as a network of texts that does not represent female philosophers but enacts their role in Greek culture. Dutsch examines Plato's dialogues, fragmentary historians, and little-known testimonies to women's contributions to Pythagorean thought.

Also available online. Brule's brilliant evocation of how women lived in ancient Greece describes every aspect of their lives, including their religious, familial and domestic duties, their economic importance, and their social, moral and legal status as wives, cohabitees or slaves.

This book offers the first history of women in ancient Greece and Rome to be written from a legal perspective. Cantarella demonstrates how literary, anecdotal. and judicial sources can and cannot be used to discover that Greek and Roman men thought about women.

A comprehensive anthology of the surviving literary texts of women writers from the Graeco-Roman world that offers new English translations from the works of more than fifty women. A general introduction looks into the problem of the authenticity of some texts attributed to women and places their literature into the wider literary and social contexts of the ancient Graeco-Roman world.

Provides an even-handed assessment of the ancient philosophers' discussions of women and explains which ancient views can be fruitful for feminist theorizing today.