The Arrival of Women Philosophers from the Margin to the Center; a Reflection on Feminist Strategies for Re-reading the History of Western Philosophy

Until the modern era, all the great philosophers were men, and they did not mention women except in their misogynist philosophical speeches. In contemporary times, women’s critical approach to various areas of knowledge, led to rethinking and reconsideration of philosophy and history of philosophy. Women philosopher began to write the histories of the philosophy of women in order to prove the falsehood of the philosophical claims of philosophers, and they referred to the thoughts and opinions of woman philosophers, history of philosophy had ignored. Also challenging the basic dichotomies of Western philosophy, they tried to provide alternative theories. Thus, at the same time as the theoretical study of the history of philosophy began to emerge in the late 20th and early 20th centuries, new strategies were used to study the history of Western philosophy. The present paper reviews these strategies in the works of three groups of philosophers. First group are those philosophers, such as Lloyd and Ludov, who have evaluated history and philosophical concepts through reviewing philosophers’ metaphors and depictions. Second group are philosophers like Erigari, Bordo and Kaufman, who have studied the philosophical and psychoanalytic structure of history. And the third group are philosophers such as Nussbaum and Bayer, who have used philosophy as a source of their feminist concerns. Finally, we have mentioned the historical studies of women and the history of women in Iran.