Introduces the wide range of feminist approaches to the interpretation of philosophical texts within a chronological framework
Selected essays span philosophy from ancient to modern times, considering such philosophers as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Spinoza, Hume, Hegel, and Nietzsche
Genevieve Lloyd`s general introduction puts each reading in context and highlights the key areas of debate
Debates wider methodological issues in history of philosophy

This new collection of essays highlights the positive contributions that feminism can make to the history of philosophy. Drawn together within a chronological framework, pieces by leading feminist critics, such as Luce Irigaray and Martha Nussbaum, reveal the fresh perspectives that feminism can offer to the discussion of past philosophers, such as Plato, Spinoza, and Nietzsche. Rather than defining itself through opposition to a `male` philosophical tradition, feminist philosophy emerges not only as an exciting new contribution to the history of philosophy, but also as a source of cultural self-understanding in the present.

Readership: Students of the history of philosophy or feminist theory, and students and general readers interested in feminist perspectives on the history of philosophy.

Contents
Introduction , Genevieve Lloyd
I. Reading Texts

1. Le Doeuff and History of Philosophy , Genevieve Lloyd
II. Re-reading Ancient Philosophers: Ideals of Reason

2. Socrates and his Twins (The Socrates(es) of Plato`s `Symposium`) , Sarah Kofman
3. Sorcerer Love: A Reading of Plato`s `Symposium`: Diotima`s Speech , Luce Irigaray
4. Feminism and Aristotle`s Rational Ideal , Marcia L. Homiak
5. Therapeutic Arguments and the Structures of Desire , Martha Nussbaum
III. Re-reading Seventeenth-Century Philosophers: Minds, Bodies, and Passions

6. The Passions and Philosophy , Susan James
7. Selections from `The Flight to Objectivity` , Susan Bordo
8. Princess Elisabeth and Descartes: The Union of Soul and Body and the Practice of Philosophy , Lisa Shapiro
9. Spinoza on the Pathos of Idolatrous Love and the Hilarity of True Love , Amélie Oskenberg Rorty
IV. Re-reading Eighteenth-Century Philosophers: Reason, Emotion, and Ethics

10. Hume, the Woman`s Moral Theorist , Annette Baier
11. Agency, Attachment, and Difference , Barbara Herman
V Re-reading Nineteenth-Century Philosophers: Resentment, Irony, and the Sublime

12. On Hegel, Women, and Irony , Seyla Benhabib
13. `We are not Sublime`, Love and Sacrifice, Abraham and Ourselves , Sylvia Agacinski
14. `Is it not remarkable that Nietzsche . . . should have hated Rousseau?` Woman, Femininity: Distancing Nietzsche from Rousseau , Penelope Deutscher
Further Reading
Index