Springer: Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy

What determines which philosophical works enter the canon—and which, despite their scholarly relevance, are forgotten? The chapter What Can Rose Rand Teach Us About Modern Canon Formation? by Katarina Mihaljević addresses this question by deliberately shifting the focus to the processes that precede the publication of philosophical texts.

About the Author:

Katarina Mihaljević is a PhD candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the Tilburg School of Humanities and Digital Sciences, Tilburg University. Her research focuses on the history of analytic philosophy, canon formation, and the role of mentorship, exile, and archival sources, with particular emphasis on figures connected to the Vienna Circle, including Rose Rand. [more]

Abstract:

This chapter proposes a novel way of understanding modern canon formation by looking at the processes that precede the publishing of philosophical work. These processes should be understood as a production line influenced by several external factors such as mentorship and peer review, working space and social networks. By using largely unexplored archival data available at the Archives of Scientific Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh, this chapter presents the case of Rose Rand. She was a philosopher who had close ties with the Vienna Circle and who spent her professional years in exile in the United Kingdom and later in the United States. Her philosophical work, although deemed relevant by the experts in her field, has never entered the philosophical canon or found a place in any handbook of the history of analytic philosophy. By using available biographical data, this chapter shows the crucial role that external factors played in her attempt to produce peer-reviewed philosophical work.

The contribution is part of the edited volume Women in the History of Analytic Philosophy, edited by Jeanne Peijnenburg and Sander Verhaegh. The volume brings together ten previously unpublished papers from the Tilburg–Groningen Conference 2019 and systematically addresses the historically marginalized contributions of women to analytic philosophy. If you would like to read the full chapter by Katarina Mihaljević as well as the other chapters in the volume, you can find the book here at Springer: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-031-08593-2