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Faculty of Philosophy

 

Photo of women philosophersBefore the end of the 19th century, Cambridge University, like all institutions of higher education, was closed to women. The few women who studied philosophy were usually from aristocratratic families and were privately or self-educated. They corresponded with, or met and discussed their ideas with well known male philosophers through their family connections. Some of these women contributed to philosophy through their correspondence, essays and books (often published anonymously).

At the turn of the 20th century, women were still largely excluded from a formal education in philosophy. Even those admitted to women's colleges such as Girton, and who completed the requirements for the BA were denied a Cambridge degree.

The first woman to study Moral Sciences at Cambridge was Constance Maynard (1849-1935) who completed her studies in 1875.  But it was not until 1948 that women students at Cambridge finally became eligible to receive their degrees.

Professional philosophical associations such as the Aristotelian Society and the Mind Association; as well as the Moral Sciences Club at Cambridge, also began to admit women as members in the early 20th century.

From the 1930s, women began to represent all fields of philosophy.  However there was a lack of opportunities and funding which excluded many from academia. The work of some of these early academic women philosophers has survived the test of time, but for a greater number, their work faded into obscurity. Even today, women are under-represented in philosophy.

Here is a selection of women who studied, taught or were active in philosophy in Cambridge over the years:

 
Lady Anne Finch, Viscountess Conway (1631-1679) unusually for a 17th century woman, studied French, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Mathematics and Philosophy. She became acquainted with Henry More and the other Cambridge Platonists through her brother, and More instructed her in philosophy by correspondence. She was an influence on Leibniz who studied her writings nearly 20 years after her death (he acknowledges her work in correspondence). Her only (anonymously and posthumously) published work was The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy (1690).
 
 
Lady Damaris Cudworth Masham (1659-1708) was the daughter of Cambridge Platonist, Ralph Cudworth. Through her father, and her friend, the philosopher John Locke, she developed an interest in philosophy. Her two books, A Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696) and Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (1705), were printed anonymously.

E.E. Constance Jones (1848–1922) was a prolific and prominent member of the English philosophical community. After publishing Elements of Logic as a Science of Propositions (1890) she was regarded by many as an authority on philosophical logic. In 1896, she was the first woman to present a paper at the Moral Sciences Club, in a discussion of James Ward’s Naturalism and Agnosticism. She was Mistress of Girton College from 1903 to 1916. Photo of Constane Jones

Helen Marion Wodehouse (1880-1964) was a Mathematics student at Girton College who then went on to study Moral Sciences. She taught philosophy at the University of Birmingham between 1903 and 1911.  She was the first woman professor at the University of Bristol, where she was Professor of Education from 1919 to 1931. She then returned to Cambridge to become Mistress of Girton College until her retirement in 1942. She wrote and published widely in philosophy, theology, and education.
 

Susan Stebbing (1885-1943) studied Moral Sciences at Girton College. She lectured at Bedford College, University of London and became the first British woman Professor of Philosophy in 1933.


Dorothy Wrinch (1894-1976) was a Girton Mathematics student who studied Moral Sciences under Bertrand Russell. She worked on logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, publishing many papers.

Helen Knight (1899-1984) studied Moral Sciences at Newnham College. She was one of few women active in the early days of analytic aesthetics and her work continues to be included in modern anthologies.

Alice Ambrose (1906-2001) came to England in 1932 to do post-doctoral research at Newnham College, Cambridge, studying under Ludwig Wittgenstein. She became his close associate. It is thanks to her and a few select others including Margaret MacDonald, Helen Knight and Margaret Masterman that his Blue Book (1933-1934) and Brown Book (1934-1935), were published.

Margaret MacDonald (1907-1956) was a Fellow at Girton College from 1934-37. She was very active in academic philosophy, publishing, lecturing, and participating in conferences. She was a founder of the philosophical journal Analysis and was its editor for a number of years. Photo of Margaret Macdonald
 
Dorothy Emmet (1904-2000) was a British philosopher and head of Manchester University's philosophy department for over twenty years. In 1966, having retired from her professorship, she moved to Cambridge. During these years she became a regular member of the Moral Sciences Club and was also elected an emeritus Fellow of Lucy Cavendish College. Photo of Dorothy Emmet
 

Margaret Masterman Braithwaite (1910-1986) was a student at Newnham College in the 1930s. In 1955 she founded and directed the Cambridge Language Research Unit (CLRU), which grew from an informal discussion group to a major research centre in computational linguistics in its time.

Photo courtesy of Lucy Cavendish College Archive, The Papers of Margaret Braithwaite, LP1

 

Photo Margaret Braithwaite
 
G. E. M. Anscombe (1919 – 2001) Elizabeth Anscombe made significant contributions to many areas of philosophy, though most importantly in ethics, mind and action theory. She was greatly influenced by Wittgenstein, whose student she was, and was an important translator and interpreter of his work. She produced the definitive (and still unrevised) translation of his Philosophical Investigations in 1953, as well as the Introduction to Wittgenstein's Tractatus in 1959. She was Professor of Philosophy in the Faculty from 1970-1986. Photo of Elizabeth Anscombe

 

Mary Hesse (1924-2016) was a philosopher of science. She had a long and distinguished career at Cambridge becoming Professor in 1975 until her retirement in 1985. She was Vice-President of the British Society for the History of Science and the editor of the British Journal for Phiosophy of Science.

A memoir of Mary Hesse, one of the founders of HPS in Cambridge, has been published in the Biographical Memoirs of the British Academy, XVII, 2018: https://www.thebritishacademy.ac.uk/biographical-memoirs-fellows-british-academy

 

 
Margaret Boden (born 1936) was a student at Newnham in the 1950s. She studied philosophy at the Cambridge Language Research Unit run by Margaret Braithwaite.

She was the founding-Dean of Sussex University's School of Cognitive and Computing Sciences. Boden was awarded an OBE in 2001 for services to cognitive science.

Photo of Maggie Boden

Onora O’Neill (born 1941) is an emeritus Professor of Philosophy at Cambridge. She writes on ethics and bioethics, the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, political philosophy and international justice.  She is also a crossbench peer who addresses issues including freedom of speech, euthanasia and stem-cell research.

She was appointed a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour (CH) in the 2014 New Year Honours for her services to philosophy and public policy.

Onora has won the 2017 Holberg Prize for her distinguished and influential role in ethical and political philosophy. This Norwegian prize is one of the largest international prizes awarded to an outstanding scholar in the arts and humanities, the social sciences, law or theology.

In the same year she was awarded the Berggruen prize for a lifetime's achievement in the fields of philosophy and public service.

Photo of Onora O'Neill taken by Martin Dijkstra
 
Jane Heal (born 1946) is an emeritus Professor having worked for over 25 years in the Faculty. She has written extensively on the philosophy of mind and language. Her pioneering work in the philosophy of mind became known as “Simulation Theory”. She was also the first woman president of St John’s College (from 1999 to 2003). Photo of Jane Heal
 
Current women philosophers who are permanent members of staff in the Faculty include: Rae Langton, Clare Chambers, Angela Breitenbach, Jessie Munton, Julia Borcherding, Sarah Fine and Sophia Dandelet.  For a complete list of women philosophers in the Faculty see the Teaching & Research Staff page.
 
 

 

Further information

Broad, Jacqueline, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002).

Connell, Sophia, 'Cambridge Women Philosophers 1920-1950: The Struggle to be a Woman in Philosophy'. Podcast, Women in Philosophy Conference, 8 June 2017. Available from: http://sms.csx.cam.ac.uk/media/2499080 [Accessed: 16 June 2017].

Hutchinson, Katrina, and Fiona Jenkins, Women In Philosophy: What Needs To Change? (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).

O'Neill, Eileen, 'Disappearing Ink: Early Modern Women Philosophers and Their Fate in History', in J. Kourany, ed., Philosophy in a Feminist Voice: Critiques and Reconstructions (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), pp. 17-62.

Waithe, Mary Ellen, A History of Women Philosophers. 4 Vol.,(Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic, 1991).

Warnock, Mary,ed.,  Women Philosophers (London: Dent, 1996).