Women philosophers about this web site.

The women philosophers web site is owned and operated by Kate Lindemann Ph.D., professor emerita at Mount Saint Mary College - Newburgh, New York.

Sometimes people ask why I started this site. There are 4several reasons:

1. When I was an undergraduate and took my first philosophy course I was was entranced by the subject. One day after class the professor asked me what my major was. I replied that it was English but that I was thinking of changing to philosophy. He said that I could not do that. Among his reasons was , There are NO women philosophers. Women can not do philosophy.

   Now that was in 1954. What did I, a student, know? I assumed that college professors were correct. One reason for this site is that I would not want any other woman interested in philosophy to think that "women can not do philosophy".

2. In the 1980's I had the privilege of meeting Sister Mary Christine Morkovsky, a scholar from Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas. She was introducing Latin American Philosophy of Liberation to North America. I was working in feminist philosophy. We saw some commonalities and wrote a paper, "Latin American Philosophy of Liberation and North American Feminist Philosophy: Possibilities for Dialogue" which we presented at an International Congress of Philosophy in Bogata.

   My Spanish was rudimentary (The night before I left New York for Bogata, Professor Karen McCarthy, who was helping me with my part of the paper in Spanish said, "Kate, you are either very brave or you are loco". ) She was probably right on both counts. I was the only person at the meeting who was not fluent in Spanish. But I learned so much at that meeting!

   People were very kind and I met a number of Latin American Women Philosophers. I heard a paper about some women philosophers who lived before the Conquest. I came home thinking that most of what is taught in North American philosophy classes is really quite narrow in scope. I thought we need a way to make it possible to learn about women philosophers from ALL cultures. A web site makes this possible.

3. I read Aegidius Menagius's work, Historia Mulierum Philosopharum translated by Beatrice Zeller. This work, originally published in 1690, gave me the names of many women philosohers and it showed me that there was a time when Europe, like Ancient Greece (Diogenes Laeritus in his Lives of the Eminent Philosophers ) acknowledged the work of women in philosophy. I want to make these women known to all.
4. The fourth impetus for this site came from Mary Ellen Waithe who in the 1980's posted to the SWIP discussion list seeking interest and contributions for the multi volume History of Women Philosophers . A massive and important work!

   I contacted Mary Ellen and did my small part in the project. After the work was published I taught courses in the History of Women Philosophers at Mount Saint Mary College.

   I began to dream of a web site about the History of Women Philosophers. No book can cover all the women in philosophy AND text books are really expensive - far too expensive for many students and scholars throughout the world. I wanted a web site that would be global in reach, that would include women of all cultures and times who were philosophers (lovers of wisdom).

In 2005 I realized that I would never be able to do all the research. I decided to put some of the material I had accumulated on line. This site is the result.

My hope is that it will attract other scholars and contributors. My hope is that this site will be a place for students and faculty to find new areas of thought.

The year I retired from full time teaching and I found SiteBuildITa company in Canada made it possible for me to start this web site in 2007.

My hope is that others will get interested in the work, will submit articles, information, do translations and/or ebooks manuscripts. If you are interested in researching a chronology or bibliography or writing an article or translating a passage from a woman philosopher who writes in a language you know, do contact me.

I do not have any funds to pay you but I would give you credit and would include a link to your resume or any web site you wanted. If you are a translator, I might even be able to create a CONTACT form that would go at the end of your translation....so that you might obtain some clients for your translation services. If you order your books or other products through the products page on this site, the stores will donate a small % of each sale ( eg. Amazon offers 4%) to the site and that helps pay the bills.

If you know of grants or organizations that might want to sponsor this site, please let me know.

Thank you for visiting the women philosophers web site. Go to List of Women Philosophers

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