Wait a minute. Strictly speaking only Angela Davis would be considered a philosopher.

A philosopher is not a smart ass, a folk singer, a poet or a novelist.

She can however be a political theorist.

QED.

Simone de Beauvoir are as far as I can go without cheating right now, even though I'm missing some important ones

While she was at the University of Pittsburgh, where I taught part-time, while a full time teacher at Carnegie Mellon. I have great respect for her writings on political philosophy and public policy matters. It was a cruelty that she died so early in her career.

Here are a couple more -- mostly contemporary -- women philosophers (without cheating):

Phillipa Foote
Judith Jarvis Thompson
Iris Murdoch
Deborah Johnson
Val Plumwood
Patricia Werhane
Ayn Rand
Diotima (Greek "teacher" of Socrates)

best,

NoRWNJ

Probably Judith Butler too, although I don't think of her as a philosopher for some reason, lets see Hypatia, although little is known about her,-- there's a bunch of names I've read essays from but don't know well

I've read Ayn Rand, I suppose she has to count.

On the first or second page, Rand has a "definition" of altruism that no actual altruist would accept -- that which benefits others is good, that which benefits the altruist is bad. The first part of this definition is so simplistic as to be laughable. As for the second part, an actual altruist would say that an act which benefits the altruist and does not harm others is at worst morally neutral and is probably good.

Since she began her argument with the Straw Man fallacy, I saw no reason to continue.

Someone said about her, "I had a hard time with Ayn Rand because I found myself enthusiastically agreeing with the first 90% of every sentence, but getting lost at 'therefore, be a huge asshole to everyone.'"

Someone else wrote, "There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs."

Yes, I suppose she is a philosopher. But her philosophy is crap.

No she doesn't. One does not do philosophy to pamper ones prejudice but to challenge prejudice.
Sweeney

It isn't always, or even most of the time, just a matter of whether someone has an idea and the ability to see it through to completion. It's almost invariably the case that sufficient patronage is the deciding factor. Darwin, for example, had sufficient patronage, in a field where less favored upstarts were also developing the ideas of natural evolution. In that case, in those days, the advantage didn't just lie with the male gender, but also with social station and patrons within political/academic society.

Marilyn McCord Adams
Christine Korsgaard
Judith Butler
G.E.M. Anscombe

Yeah that was tough. Anscombe was a reach, considering she's been dead for over a decade.

EDIT: Susan Neiman!

Elizabeth Anscombe, Ruth Barcan Marcus, Christina Hoff Sommers, Hazel Barnes.

1.) Hannah Arendt
2.) Mary Wollstonecraft
3.) Simone du Beauvoir
4.) Simone Weil
5.) Emma Goldman

If I didn't think intelligent women blessed by the bloom of beauty no matter how hard they might some times be to look at, I might never have opened my first philosophy book.
Aristippus had a daughter who taught after he died, and she was called- the light. Knowing little of the man I still recognize a kindred spirit. His girlfriend, the mother of his daughter, told him she was pregnant, and he said you could no more say it was me than tell which thorn had caught you when running through a thorn bush. Can you imagine what an ass he felt like when he came to accept rather than deny?

I see you just joined DU. Welcome. If this is something you've thought about, check out these Groups:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1136

They can be pretty rough but they get more traffic than this Group.

and J.J. Thomson

Although this is an old thread, and many names have been mentioned here, I'd like to add to this list.

Hannah Arendt, Veena Das, Sara Ahmed, de Beauvoir, Ayn Rand, Simone Weil, Martha Nussbaum

I don't think "women's 'minds are not adapted to the higher sciences, philosophy, or certain of the arts.' Perhaps women are turned off by philosophy's confrontational style. Perhaps women are more inclined toward careers with practical applications." That is essentialism of the crassest order. That this was said by the great old Hegel does not in any way lend credibility to this.

A Room of One's Own by Woolf is particularly relevant in this context. Women have been under-represented everywhere. And women are never "not working." Their domestic chores keep the political economy running.

I'd actually encourage it. There are a lot of good reads down in the archives and some like this one that need updating. Thanks for the additions!

D7