Rachael Wiseman discusses the Golden Age of Female Philosophy on Panpsycast’s Golden Episode!
Dr Rachael Wiseman joined Panpsycast hosts Jack Symes and Greg Miller (Liverpool PhD researcher) to discuss ‘The Golden Age of Female Philosophy’. The discussion marks Panpsycast’s Golden Anniversary of 50 episodes!
Panpsycast is currently ranked third on the iTunes Higher Education Podcast Chart and has over 35,000 weekly listeners. Women in Parenthesis is a British Academy-funded project—co-directed with Dr Clare Mac Cumhaill (Durham University)—that explores the work and friendship of the philosophical wartime quartet: Mary Midgley, Elizabeth Anscombe, Philippa Foot, and Iris Murdoch. Do these four represent the Golden Age of Female Philosophy?
In the first of two episodes, Rachael talks about this remarkable quartet and argues that they constitute a school of philosophy, one which is regularly omitted from the orthodox canon of ‘great thinkers’ or ‘schools of thought’. In the words of Rachael and Clare:
The history of Analytic Philosophy we are familiar with is a story about men… [and] The male dominance is not just in the names of the ‘star’ players. Michael Beaney’s 2013 Oxford Handbook of the History of Analytic Philosophy begins by listing the 150 most important analytic philosophers. 146 of them are men. For women who wish to join in this conversation, the odds seem formidably against one.
A second instalment follows next week!