Courses

This course will look at what often neglected female philosophers have had to say on freedom, including: Princess Elisabeth, whose correspondence with Descartes led to his producing his final treatise, The Passions of the Soul; Gabrielle Suchon, who anticipates existentialism; Emilie Du Chatelet, whose essay “On Happiness” is insightful and radical; Mary Wollstonecraft, who provides a colourful critique of the constricting effects of social norms and Simone de Beauvoir’s account of a “situated ethics”. Hannah Arendt’s understanding of our nature as fundamentally free and how we can resist totalitarianism will also be explored.