Women Philosophers from Non-Western Traditions: The First Four Thousand Years

This book presents the views of 22 women philosophers from outside the Greco-Roman and Judeo-Christian worlds. These eminent thinkers are from Mesopotamia, India, Tibet, China, Korea, Japan,Australia, America, the Philippines and Nigeria. Six philosophers, the earliest of whom predates the Greek pre-Socratics by two thousand years, lived at “the dawn of philosophy”; another six from late Antiquity through the Classical period; five more taught and wrote during the Middle Ages up to the Age of Exploration, and yet five others were active during the modern period to the mid-twentieth century. Most belonged to major philosophical traditions: Hinduism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Zen, or Sufism. The chapters of the book describe the life and views of the philosophers, outline the fundamental features of their respective schools, and contain translations of their writings. The book is intended for scholars of philosophy and women’s studies who wish to expand their knowledge of non-Western philosophical traditions and is ideally suited for undergraduate education.  Comprehensive multilingual bibliographies of carefully documented sources offer scholars many promising resources for further research.

​Mary Ellen Waithe is Professor Emerita at Cleveland State University, past Chair of its Philosophy Department and past Director of its Women’s Studies program. She is the 2019 recipient of the Elizabeth of Bohemia prize. Dr. Waithe is well known for her 4-volume series A History of Women Philosophers and translation of the 1587 philosophy of medicine by Oliva Sabuco. In retirement she serves on the Boards of the Society for the Study of Women Philosophers and the International Association of Women Philosophers and is co-Editor-in-Chief of this series.Therese Boos Dykeman, independent scholar and retired adjunct professor, has published several texts on American and Western women philosophers from the 17th to the 20th centuries. Her most recent publication, Rhetoric at the Non-Substantialistic Turn: The East-West Coin (2018), provides a theory based on Field-Being philosophy for understanding rhetoric from both Eastern and Western philosophical perspectives.  She served as president of the Center for Independent Study and serves on the board of the Society for the Study of Women Philosophers.