Judith Butler

4,207 words

Introduction

Why do Mary Wollstonecraft, Simone de Beauvoir, and Hannah Arendt appear alongside Aristotle, Leibnitz, and Wittgenstein in a list of the 50 greatest philosophers of all time, which omits Spinoza, Frege, and Popper?[1] Why does a list of 90 supposedly famous philosophers include people like St. Teresa of Avila and Anna Comnena, whoever they were?[2] It is done to be politically correct. The lack of great female philosophers is so complete that it is felt that one or two women must be put on such lists so as to suggest that it is not beyond a woman to think deeply.