This month is Women’s History Month. Each week of this month, we will introduce you to the Center’s work by focusing on a particular historical period in philosophy and science.

Female philosophers have been active from antiquity on and were present as philosophers throughout the centuries. They acted, responded, criticized, and improved the course of philosophy. They were neither unique nor isolated cases, their philosophical work withstood their oppression, and their influence has been greater than hitherto assumed and admitted. Female philosophers were inventors and developers of ideas, and they initiated lines of argument, of questioning, and of approach.

– Hagengruber, Ruth 2015. „Cutting through the Veil of Ignorance. Rewriting the History of Philosophy”. In: Hagengruber, Ruth / Green, Karen. 2015: The History of Women’s Ideas. The Monist 98. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 34-42.

Ruth Hagengruber has worked relentlessly on making the history of women philosophers visible. An important starting point is the antiquity. Finally we are hearing about Diotima, Hypatia, Aesara of Lucania, Sappho of Lesvos, Aspasia, Arete of Cyrene and many more. We dedicated a video format to Diotima called Conversations with Diotima. The project is a talk format that gives interesting and unconventional insights into the history of women philosophers. Its name refers to the instruction of Socrates by Diotima in Plato’s dialogue Symposium. Therefore, the videos are conducted like interviews between the team of the Center and experts for different women philosophers and their fields of expertise. The Conversations are published on the webpage and the public video platform YouTube to raise public awareness for the history of women philosophers.

In addition, Ruth Hagengruber created the book series: Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences with Springer to publish the research on women from all epoches.