164 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 3 7 : 1 JANUARY 1 9 9 9

admirable, and he does frequently liven u p the proceedings with expressive writing and
helpful, vivid examples.
ERIC BROWN
Washington University

Linda Lopez McAllister, editor. Hypatia's Daughters: Fifteen Hundred Years of Women Phi-
losophers. Bloomington and Indianapolis: I n d i a n a University Press, 1996. Pp. xiv
+ 345- Cloth, $49.95- Paper, $2e.5 o.

Hypatia: born in the fourth century A.D.: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer,

teacher; brutally m u r d e r e d in Alexandria in 415 A . D - - w h e t h e r for holding religious
views regarded as heretical or because she was a w o m a n who dared to be a scholar and
teacher remains a matter of speculation. Today, she gives her n a m e to the j o u r n a l for
feminist philosophy. She is a symbol for those w o m e n who, over the centuries, have
struggled to be part of the philosophical life of their time.
Until very recently, the centuries that separated Hypatia from the present were
assumed to have been a philosophical desert for women. But times have changed.
Hypatia's Daughters is a sign of this change. It contains eighteen articles on seventeen
philosophers: Hypatia; Hildegard of Bingen, Heloise, and Christine de Pisan from the
Middle Ages; Elizabeth of Bohemia, Sor J u a n a de la Cruz, A n n e Conway, Damaris
Masham, Catharine Trotter, Belle van Zuylen a n d Mary Wollstonecraft from the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries; A n n e Doyle Wheeler and Harriet Taylor Mill from
the n i n e t e e n t h ; Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Edith Stein, H a n n a h Arendt, and Angela
Davis from the late n i n e t e e n t h century into contemporary times. Few are known as well
as they deserve, but m a n y names are familiar even to non-specialists. T h e i r ideas,
however, are a n o t h e r matter.
T h e collection in no way constitutes a definitive selection of w o m e n philosophers;
those discussed are not presented as the most significant women philosophers in the
history of philosophy. (A different kind of study would be necessary for evaluations of
that kind.) T h e w o m e n here studied have little in c o m m o n as a group; they wrote on
m a n y topics of philosophical concern; their views and their supporting reasoning dif-
fer. Further, as the subjects of the articles differ in their ideas, so do the contributors'
approaches and their methods of studying those ideas differ. These differences are the
strengths of a collection that is stimulating, enlightening, provocative. The following
examples indicate their range.
A n d r e a Nye examines the correspondence of Heloise and Abelard and, in a second
article, of Elizabeth of Bohemia and Descartes. Heloise and Elizabeth are usually re-
garded as passive followers or, at best, no more than serious questioners seeking answers
of their correspondents. Nye's fresh look at the Heloise-Abelard correspondence finds
not only i m p o r t a n t differences between two ways of thinking, but also sees already u n d e r -
lying their disagreement what she calls the "macroquestion" of philosophy's future:
philosophy as "a professional discipline i n d e p e n d e n t of political or social concerns o r . . .
an ongoing critical and cultural discourse." (25) Elizabeth's persistent questions to Des-
cartes reveal ideas that challenge his views, especially on moral issues and physiological-
 BOOK REVIEWS 16 5
psychological p h e n o m e n a ; these are views that have a greater complexity than the basic
issue of mind-body interaction that is usually identified as central to their exchange.
Writing on Harriet Taylor Mill, Jo Ellen Jacobs examines changing attitudes to-
wards her subject, b e g i n n i n g with views of Taylor Mill's contemporaries a n d moving
through the decades into our time. She finds parallels between criticisms of Taylor Mill
and attitudes towards the so-called intellectual woman. I n times encouraging of
women, Taylor Mill is regarded as having made i m p o r t a n t contributions to the develop-
m e n t ofJ. S. Mill's thinking, in addition to writing and speaking about her own ideas
and positions that did not always follow those ofJ. S. Mill. In less e n c o u r a g i n g times,
her significance tends to be minimized.
H a n n a h A r e n d t is not usually t h o u g h t of as a feminist. J o a n n e Cutting-Gray,
through her discussion of Arendt's early book on Rahel Varnhagen, develops implica-
tions of that study for A r e n d t as a "feminist thinker," in particular through her focus on
"the politics of alterity." Cutting-Gray finds in the V a r n h a g e n biography "an analogy
between Jewish and female alterity [that] can stretch our u n d e r s t a n d i n g of w o m e n a n d
politics." (281)
A n d there is more, much more: Martha Brandt Bolton's scholarly examination of
the philosophical works of Catharine Trotter (known primarily as a supporter of Locke
and Clarke) shows that Trotter did n o t just defend the ideas of others. H e r a r g u m e n t s
developed her own positions on morality and religion, presenting an alternative to
voluntarism. Lois Frankel's article on Damaris Masham examines what feminism is a n d
who can appropriately be called a feminist in light of the ideas of those who wrote
about their situation in past times. Donald Beggs writes on S o r J u a n a , who submitted to
church authorities and gave up the books and studies that defined her l i f e - - a r g u i n g
that h u m a n nature is f u n d a m e n t a l l y identical in m e n a n d w o m e n while allowing for
certain differences in their natures. M a u r e e n Egan, examining the influence of reform
Darwinism on Charlotte Perkins Gilman, shows that s h e - - l i k e Sor J u a n a - - a c c e p t s a
single h u m a n nature combined with differences.
While we are becoming less d e p e n d e n t on summaries a n d analyses by the few who
have had access to primary sources, this volume is i m p o r t a n t because it introduces
readers to philosophers with whom they are unlikely to be familiar a n d thus turns them
to the primary sources that are increasingly available. For those familiar with primary
sources, the articles will suggest ways of thinking about the ideas of these women.
F u r t h e r m o r e , the volume should contribute to the critical examination of the philo-
sophical and historical significance of the ideas of w o m e n philosophers.
SVE M. WEINBERG
Hunter College, CUNY

Daniel Garber, Michael Ayers, editors. The Cambridge History of Seventeenth-Century Phi-
losophy, z vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, x998. Pp. xii + 1616.
Cloth, $a75.

Over a decade in preparation, this latest addition to the Cambridge History of Philosophy is
an e n o r m o u s a c h i e v e m e n t - - b o t h in its size a n d the c o n t r i b u t i o n it makes to redefining