A History of Women Philosophers Vol. IV - Mary Ellen Waithe
A History of Women Philosophers Vol. IV - Mary Ellen Waithe
PROFESSOR C. J. DE VOGEL
A History of
Women Philosophers
Volume 4
Contemporary Women Philosophers
1900-today
Edited by
Springer-Science+Business Media, B. V.
r.
ISBN 978-0-7923-2808-7
Contents
Acknowledgements
Introduction to Volume 4, by Mary Ellen Waithe
1.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
2.
I.
II.
III.
xv
xix
1
1
1
5
5
13
17
20
21
25
25
28
28
28
29
31
31
31
31
36
36
37
IV.
3.
I.
II.
4.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
5.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
Contents
3. Could Russell Not Have Read Frege?
4. Might Frege Have Relied on Jones?
Conclusion
43
45
46
51
51
55
56
57
58
63
64
65
69
69
71
72
73
103
103
104
104
75
76
77
79
106
107
110
111
111
112
117
119
Contents
xi
125
157
6.
I.
II.
7.
8.
I.
II.
III.
125
128
128
131
136
137
138
139
148
157
162
164
164
167
170
172
173
174
174
176
177
177
178
180
182
184
189
189
195
195
198
202
205
xii
Contents
9.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
IV.
V.
VI.
11.
I.
II.
III.
207
208
213
213
214
214
215
216
216
217
218
218
219
220
220
221
221
221
222
222
225
Sinnige
Background
Biography
Ancient Philosophy
Christian Philosophy
On Theological Orthodoxy and Women
Conclusions
225
226
228
234
237
240
243
243
244
245
248
257
Contents
12.
I.
II.
III.
IV.
13.
I.
II.
III.
14.
xiii
261
261
261
268
268
270
274
282
287
287
290
290
292
294
296
299
300
305
306
311
314
315
320
323
325
327
330
331
332
333
338
339
342
346
348
xiv
Contents
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
Appendix
Bibliography
Index
349
351
352
355
355
357
363
363
364
366
381
383
461
Acknowledgements
xvi
Acknowledgements
Acknowledgements
xvii
women whose names were not known. In order to identify those names,
we relied on information supplied to me by others, and especially on
the bibliography prepared by the former Nancy Weber, who now writes
under the name Morgan G. Willow. Morgan had generously permitted
me to use her bibliography for the last two volumes of this series. Many
of the names of women philosophers who are mentioned in the final
chapter or in the Appendix originated with the Weber bibliography. Still
other names were to be found in Kersey's Women Philosophers: A BioCritical Sourcebook.
My graduate Research Assistant, Ms. Jenny Heyl was part of the
team that worked so hard on the Bibliography for this volume. She has
two loves: the philosophy of Ayn Rand, and biomedical ethics. Although
she normally undertakes research in ethics on my behalf, she regularly
assisted with proofreading, finding missing citations, and diplomatically persuading our Interlibrary Loan Department to obtain for my
review literally hundreds of works by women philosophers. I want also
to thank that department for allowing me to substantially increase its
workload during 1991 and 1992.
I want also to thank Ms. Colleen Carmigiano Palko for her efforts
to standardize entries in the early drafts of the bibliography for this
volume. In addition to much typing, she drafted summaries of the contents
of some of archival materials for the profiles of many of the philosophers
who are considered in the final chapter.
Cindy Kunsman is a hardworking, perfectionist of a secretary. I have
no idea how many drafts of how many chapters she corrected and printed
out. I also have lost count of how many revisions there were to the
Bibliography and devoutly hope that she has not kept track of the number.
She has an eye, not only for detail, but an uncanny ability to persuade
a word processor to do things for her that it flatly refuses to do for me.
Her warmth and sense of humor shined like a beacon through hundreds
and hundreds of pages of second, third and fourth drafts. My thanks to
her for being so flexible and for saying that she actually enjoys reading
the material she is typing.
Finally, thanks to my daughter Allison. She will be ten years old by
the time this volume comes to press. Although her sense of time is now
more mature than it was when at age three she inquired whether Aesara
of Lucania lived with Mohamar Ghadaffi (both lived in Libya) she has
spent her entire life witnessing her mother writing about women philosophers. I thank her for not begrudging me the many, many times I have
brought home manuscripts and proofs to correct. She may not choose
xviii
Acknowledgements
to become a philosopher, but she will always know that the history books
may fail to tell us about the contributions to learning and to society
that women have always made.
MARY ELLEN WAITHE
Introduction to Volume 4
MARY ELLEN WAITHE
The twentieth century marks the time in which women at last began to
achieve full admission to the discipline of philosophy, as indicated by
the achievement of the rank of Professor in a department of Philosophy.
Although contemporary evidence of the persistence of discrimination
on the basis of sex can neither be overlooked nor understated, this,
nevertheless is the century that marks women's admittance to the profession. As I write this Introduction in 1992, I am aware that it is no
longer a mark of extraordinary dedication and fortitude to be a woman
philosopher. I recall with amazement a photograph I came upon twenty
years ago while rummaging through a box of photographs in the storage
room at the University of Minnesota Department of Philosophy where
I was a graduate student. The black and white photograph was taken
in the early 1950's. I'm not sure whether memory serves but D. Burnham
Terrell, Grover Maxwell and possibly Herbert Feigl and Wilfrid Sellars
were among those in the photograph, along with four women. The photo
was captioned "The Philosophy Department." I remember showing the
photograph to Professor Maxwell and Professor Terrell and possibly to
Feigl. One of the women I recognized as my own teacher, May Brodbeck.
Back then I had no idea that I would eventually be the one to reconstruct the history of women philosophers, and I admit that I failed to
ask who the other women were. As Professor Terrell has recently
informed me, one of the other women was Mary Shaw Kuypers.
Although discrimination in admissions to doctoral programs, in
securing professional positions and in obtaining equitable salaries and
equitable promotion through the ranks still faces women in philosophy,
(especially lesbian women and women of color) nevertheless, women are
in the profession in greater numbers than ever before. And we know
that for the most part, we are not special qua women philosophers.
Now, for the first time, with the important contributions made by Ethel
A History of Women PhilosopherslVolume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, xix-xlii.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
xx
Introduction to Volume 4
xxi
xxii
be. Hannah Arendt briefly was lovers with Martin Heidegger (her teacher)
and later, commemorated his work. But most women philosophers were
not romantically involved with male philosophers.
Twentieth century women philosophers represent all schools and
fields of philosophy. There are phenomenologists, logical positivists,
pragmatists, feminists, objectivists, existentialists, socialists, marxists,
aestheticians, anarchists, and pacifists. There are logicians, ethicists and
philosophers of science, of religion, of history, of literature, of mathematics, of psychology, and of education. They write of Plato, Aristotle,
Plotinus, Augustine, Spinoza, Hume, Kant, Mill, Sidgwick, James,
Dewey, and other predecessors and contemporaries. They comment, in
oral presentations and in publications, on each others' work. Some have
undertaken the sad task of writing the obituary of a female colleague.
The great developments in science and in society frequently influenced
the subject matters that women philosophers wrote on. Toward the end
of the last century, the impact of Social Darwinism, the experimentations
in medicine (especially neurology) and in physics, and the suffrage
movement all influenced women philosophers to take up the pen.
Developments in neurology, coupled with the tremendous impact of
Freud's psychology and the growing interest in phenomenology, led turnof-the-century philosophers like Gerda Walther, Sophie Bryant, Lou
Salome, and Evelyn Underhill to investigate the ontological status of
psychic phenomena, and of mystical experience. It is not unusual to
find that the women who are included in this volume are professionally trained in, for example, physics and philosophy, mathematics and
philosophy, psychology or psychoanalysis and philosophy, etc. In the
early and middle parts of this century, the World Wars, the development of pragmatism, analytic philosophy, and Einstein's discoveries
prompted women philosophers to present their own views on everything from elasticity to the consequences of the theory of relativity for
ethics.
The suffrage movement, the social work movement and the pacifist
movement often had female leadership, and it was not uncommon for
women philosophers to take active roles in all three of these great
social movements. Often these women were gifted public speakers who
wrote philosophy for academic as well as for non-academic presses.
Philosophers including Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Simone de Beauvoir,
Jane Addams, Helen Dendy Bosanquet, Una Bernard Sait, and May
Sinclair are just a few who understood that suffrage was not the only
feminist issue, but that so also was the poverty, oppression, exploita-
Introduction to Volume 4
xxiii
tion and ignorance that social work theory combatted, and so was war.
Many women philosophers argued against the political philosophies
that created economic and social oppression, that resulted in class differences and impoverished large populations. By and large it was women
and their dependent children who suffered most from poverty, and women
philosophers like Jane Addams and Helen Dendy Bosanquet worked
actively to transform the charitable impulses of the wealthy into social
services for the poor. When women finally had the vote, the question
of divorce law reform, and the inherent ethical conflicts of duties to
self, duties to children and duties to keep promises became the subject
of writings by women philosophers. Some, like Charlotte Perkins Gilman
and Una Bernard Sait, argued on pragmatist grounds for liberalization
of educational and employment opportunities for women, and for government investment into labor-saving technologies research that would
liberate women from housework. Gilman argued for parental training and
later, Sait argued for the professionalization of housework, so that hired
homeworkers would be adequately compensated. May Sinclair took a
more radical view of feminist activism for suffrage, arguing that when
oppression was so great and so long-lived, duties of non-violent protest
may no longer hold.
In the twentieth century, the nature of philosophy was again changing. Pragmatists, phenomenologists, existentialists and many social and
political philosophers frequently eschewed the ivory tower as an appropriate environment for philosophizing, preferring to practice instead in
the "real world" of social and political activism. Many preferred to
write instead in forms that "ordinary" intelligent people could understand
and appreciate. May Sinclair, Ayn Rand, Jane Addams, and Simone de
Beauvoir represent only a few of the women whose philosophical works
are deliberately written for the average intelligent reader and presuppose no particular advance training in philosophy.
***
Victoria, Lady Welby (1837-1912) was self-educated and a correspondent with many leading philosophers of her day, including Spencer,
Peirce, Russell, Carus, James and others. Her primary interest was in
philosophy of language, and it is she who is credited with founding
significs: the philosophy of interpretation. Her early writings reflect
three central views. One, the simplest form of knowledge (and the least
informative) is the physical evidence needed to test scientific hypotheses.
xxiv
Introduction to Volume 4
xxv
what she called her "interesting little theory" there, not only did not
discover it independently of Frege, but may have relied both on Jones
and on Frege. Although Jones' publication preceded that of Frege by
two years, it appears that their discoveries were, in fact, mutually independent, and perhaps were stimulated by common interests in the
philosophy of Lotze. Like many English women philosophers, Jones was
active in the Aristotelian Society which often provided a forum for her
ideas. She was an active participant in its symposia along with other
leading philosophers including Bosanquet, Ward, McTaggart, Sidgwick
and Bradley. The Society's Proceedings as well as the Mind Association's
journal, Mind published many of her formal papers. She was considered to be among the senior faculty of the Cambridge University
Moral Sciences club. For more than a quarter of a century, "Miss E. E.
Constance Jones" as she is called played a leadership role in the
development of the British analytic tradition.
Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1860-1935) was an American philosopher whose writings explored the sexist nature of much of philosophy,
and much of society. Although she spent two years at Rhode Island
School of Design, she must be considered self-taught in philosophy.
She was a socialist and a Fabian Society member who advocated the
abolition of class differences and collective ownership of land and of
industry. Yet, she rejected marxist revolutionary methods and marxist
focus on class struggle. She was a radical feminist who not only supported suffrage but economic independence for women, communal
child-rearing, divorce reform, and the morality of suicide. She was a
staunch critic of what she identified as androcentric philosophy which
she saw as praising rationality to the exclusion of sensitivity, deductive
logic to the exclusion of induction and insight, dominance to the exclusion of cooperation, and the deprecation of all that is traditionally
identified with the feminine. She advocated instead a "human philosophy" committed to the social service of caring for the needs of others,
promoting for example educational reform over the expansion of institutions of punishment, nurturance over mere procedural justice. Gilman
believed in a deity that was an ungendered force for social good, a
force that could be tapped as a source of guidance and strength. She
advocated the social collective good over that of the individual and a
social consciousness rather than an individual soul that would survive
the deaths of individuals. She contrasted her religious views to those
of androcentric religions that privilege the afterlife over the life of society,
the power of the individual over the value of the group, that view life
xxvi
as a fight against death, and that fail, through disvaluing and subjugating women and the nurturing emotions, to advance human needs.
Gilman took issue with the social Darwinists and believed instead that
advancement of the human race required the liberation of women. She
defined anthropological progress in terms of the advancement of the
whole through collective, liberationist action. The oppression of women,
she believed, was the greatest obstacle to social progress. She called
for full reform of the social institutions of marriage, family and home,
called for the professionalization of homemaking, and for the understanding that the true role of motherhood is the progress of the
civilization, yet most women lack anything approaching professional,
scientific training in childbearing, nurturance and education. Yet for
all her apparent enlightenment, Gilman was a product of the most
insidious effects of social Darwinism: the belief that western culture
and therefore the white race represented the most anthropologically and
morally advanced. She advocated eugenics for the creation of a superior
society. With her bias in favor of not only white northern European,
but English culture, Gilman's social ethics was fundamentally utilitarian.
Given the superiority of the English, right conduct is that which tends
toward the greatest development of morally and intellectually superior
humanity, and thus tends toward the good of most. In addition to advocating eugenics, Gilman also advocated euthanasia and assisted suicide,
to avoid needless suffering of persons who were terminally ill, and
needless draining of health care resources for the care of those who could
not be helped. She believed that when death was inevitable, pain was
unbearable and contributions to society were no longer possible, a Board
of Health should administer euthanasia. Gilman died by chloroform
inhalation three years following her diagnosis of breast cancer. Her
suicide note stressed her view that an advanced, civilized society extends
to its members the right to die with dignity.
Lou Andreas Salome (1861-1937) was a Russian-born philosopher
who studied philosophy, religion and theology in Ziirich, and travelled
extensively in Europe. Among the intellectuals in her circle were philosophers Paul Ree and Friederich Nietzsche, as well as the psychiatrist
Sigmund Freud, and the poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Her primary orientation to philosophy was phenomenological, and her primary interests were
religious experience, theological ethics, and what has in recent years
come to be called "philosophy of sex and love" but which she considered to be the philosophy of women. In the area of the epistemological
and ontological status of religious experience, Salome explored what
Introduction to Volume 4
xxvii
she considered the essence of religion: that like art and sex it served
the human need to merge with the world beyond ordinary experience.
While we feel inadequate when faced with the experience of the divine,
we also identify ourself with its powers. The creative tension that this
recognition gives rise to allows us to acknowledge the limits of human
abilities and to revere that which extends beyond our limits. This intuitive love of the divine is accompanied by a religious joy that is revealed
through narcissistic love of the divine in the knowing self. She views
women as more integrated than men, capable of knowing in erotic spirituality, truths which transcend mere logic. Only male artists approximate
this level of liberating, spiritual knowledge. It is in the experience of love
that true self-knowledge becomes possible, love offers the means of
transcending consciousness. Salome's views on the religious and erotic
context of self-knowledge explain in part her interests in psychoanalysis,
and accord nicely with Freud's own demythologizing of religion and
his emphasis on sexuality as the key to self-knowledge. But she differed
sharply from Freud in her views of narcissism. Where Freud considered narcissism to be regressive and pathological, Salome considers it
creative and unifying, not only with self as ego, but with nature.
Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930) was one of those truly exceptional women who rose to the highest leadership positions in philosophy
as well as in psychology. An American philosopher, Calkins studied under
William James and Josiah Royce. Her philosophical education began
in highschool and continued at Smith College where she majored in
classics and philosophy. Soon after graduation she began teaching Greek
at Wellesley while completing her Master's degree at Smith. She studied
psychology at Clark University and psychology and philosophy at
Harvard (under Royce). She completed all the requirements for the Ph.D.
in Philosophy at Harvard, and William James ranked her oral defense
higher than any he had previously heard. Nevertheless, Harvard refused
to grant the degree on grounds of sex. Years later Radcliffe offered to
grant her the Ph.D. based on the work completed at Harvard, but Calkins
declined. In 1905 she became the first woman president of the American
Psychological Association and in 1918 the first woman president of the
American Philosophical Association. In the interim, Columbia University
awarded her an honorary Doctor of Letters and Smith an honorary Doctor
of Laws. Upon her retirement from Wellesley in 1929, she was appointed
Research Professor. Psychology was Calkins' first love, and the opportunity for a tutorial with William James whose Principles of Psychology
had just been published provided her with a first-hand introduction to the
XXVlll
Introduction to Volume 4
xxix
xxx
Introduction to Volume 4
xxxi
the intelligible Logos in all that is, and the power of reason to attain
this intelligibility. Stein's final work, Finite and Eternal Being: Attempt
at an Ascent to the Meaning of Being was typeset in 1936 when Hitler's
ban on publication by non-Aryans was issued. In it Stein discusses the
nature of being, and distinguishes and explores the relationship of actual
and potential, act and potency. The angst of the finite "I" as it faces
the potentiality of its own non-being leads it to grasp the idea of Eternal
Being. Essence is constantly related to existence. A thing is according
to its universal essence as well as its individual essence; thus Being
is a unified whole resulting from the joining together of essential
attributes in a determinate structure.
A transfer to a convent in Holland was insufficient to assure her safety.
In July, 1942, Edith Stein was taken prisoner and murdered a month
later in the gas chambers of Auschwitz. Sr. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce
was declared a Saint by Pope John Paul II in 1987.
Gerda Walther (1897-1977) was born in a tuberculosis sanitorium
in Germany, where her mother was a patient and her father was the
Medical Director and owner. Her mother died when Gerda was five years
old and Gerda was raised by her father and stepmother who was also
her aunt. Her parents were active in the socialist movement in Germany
and it was there that Walther learned Marxist philosophy. An avowed
marxist/socialist political agitator, after four years of studies in Munich
she went, at age 20 to Breisgau to join Hussed's circle. Hussed relegated
her to Edith Stein's "kindergarten" but apparently on Stein's recommendation, also allowed her to enroll in his courses. Walther wanted to
write her doctoral dissertation on the essence of social communities,
and knew that Hussed would want to direct her elsewhere, so she returned
to Munich to study under Alexander Pfander, graduating summa cum
laude. Her dissertation Zur Ontologie der sozialen Gemeinschaften (On
the Ontology of Social Communities) was later published in Hussed's
lahrbuch fur Philosophie und Phiinomenologische Forschung. Kad
Jaspers sponsored her for habilitation (faculty status), but economic
changes in Germany left her destitute, and forced her to take a series
of unrewarding menial jobs. However, her interests in philosophy and
in psychology inspired her to study and write, and her interests expanded
to include phenomenological interests in mental and spiritual phenomena.
The Nazi disapproval of phenomenology and parapsychology resulted
in at least one of her publications appearing under a pseudonym, F.
Johansen. While forced into employment censoring foreign-language
mail, Walther committed acts of subversion: pencilling in warnings and
xxxii
news of relatives prior to forwarding the very mail that she was supposed
to censor.
In her doctoral dissertation, Walther argued that humans are by nature
socialized, political animals who desire to live in community. In this work
she analyzed the nature of living in community in terms of the epistemological question "how can we have knowledge of other minds?"
Husserl and Stein's view was that it is the individual body which is given
first and which then gives expression to the mental. Walther's view was
that there existed some direct inner connection between humans: knowledge of the phenomenal world is merely an expression of that inner
connection. A community consists of people who in at least some important part of their lives, know of each other and know that they are in
relationship to the same intentional object. As a result of this knowledge there is interaction among them motivated by that intentional
relation with a common intentional object, and a feeling of belonging
together.
Walther's best known philosophical work Die Phiinomenologie der
Mystik (Phenomenology of Mysticism) is an outgrowth of a mystical
experience. In it she gives a phenomenological account of mystical and
similar parapsychological experiences. In it, Walther postulates the
mystical experience as a basic, irreducible phenomenon. She offers an
ontology of mystical and spiritual phenomena, and argues that common
prejudices prevent most philosophers from objectively studying the
phenomenology of mystical experience. These prejudices include an often
unspoken assumption that human minds cannot experience the divine
directly, and an empiricist bias that favors dismissing non-sensory experiences. Non-empirical spiritual data she argues, are as varied as are
sensory data, and mystical, occult or other parapsychological experiences
cannot merely be dismissed out of hand on the grounds that they
are not empirically verifiable. She denies that mystical experience is
akin to the phenomena of mental illness and is therefore, evidence of
psychopathology.
Ayn Rand (1905-1982) was born in Russia and changed her name
from Alice Rosenbaum upon emigration to the United States. "Ayn"
was the name of a Finnish author, and "Rand" was chosen in honor of
the Remington-Rand typewriter she brought with her. Following an early
education at the University of Petrograd and a purge of undesirables
by the Communist Party, Rand settled in Chicago with devoutly Jewish
relatives. Rand's career was perhaps the most unconventional of any
women philosophers of this century. Her literary writing for the
Introduction to Volume 4
xxxiii
xxxiv
Introduction to Volume 4
xxxv
physical argument. And the Sophist provides the evidence that (especially
Plotinian) neoplatonism is actually founded in Plato's written doctrines.
De Vogel's earliest work anticipated much of the analysis in the later
twentieth century of Plato's unwritten metaphysical doctrines and the
evidence for those doctrines in the written dialogues, although she was
highly skeptical of the conclusions drawn by some Plato scholars that the
early dialogues also foreshadow the unwritten doctrines. De Vogel was
a meticulous, exacting scholar of ancient philosophy whose commitment to philological precision saved her from making some of the more
outlandish claims made by her contemporaries. She insisted that the body
of Plato's work be viewed as a metaphysical system, and not as separate
dialogues that were complete works in themselves. In them, rather, she
saw a complex and intricate metaphysical theory that prepared the way
for the later development of Plotinian Nous as a separate hypostasis.
Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was born in Germany of Jewish parents.
Her father died when she was only seven. She spent a year at the
University of Marburg, where she became lovers with Martin Heidegger.
Arendt attended the University of Freiburg for one year and came under
the influence of Edmund HusserI. Her doctoral work was completed at
Heidelberg, under the direction of Karl Jaspers. These three great German
philosophers, and her experience as a Jewish woman in academia profoundly impacted Arendt's intellectual development. Arendt emigrated
to the United States where she landed a position teaching History at
Brooklyn College of the City University of New York. She spent a decade
writing The Origins ojTotalitarianism, the first of several works dealing
with social and political philosophy. Her works brought her many
academic awards and prizes, as well as faculty positions at Princeton
University (where she became its first female full Professor) and at the
prestigious New School for Social Research where she was University
Professor of Political Philosophy. Two central concerns characterize her
original writings. One concern is to identify the nature of human freedom
and understand the nature of impediments to freedom. A second concern
is to determine how human social freedom can be exercised in what
she described as the "recovery" of social and political life.
The subject matters Arendt discussed in her writings covered a wide
range of material from more traditional subjects in philosophy, such as
her Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy to the examination of racism,
anti-semitism and imperialist domination in Origins oj Totalitarianism.
She examined at length the moral and political nature of violence in
On Violence and wrote a moral documentary of a contemporary exemplar
xxxvi
Introduction to Volume 4
xxxvii
xxxviii
sary to the artistic expression of the innate form of the work of art; it
requires honest expression.
Weil's writings often focus attention on the lived experience of those
who are oppressed, who are made by the social hierarchy to occupy a
less than fully human role in society. Oppressed peoples are treated
like objects, human objects, a concept that, while defying all logic, is
clearly a true depiction of social life. It is impossible for those who
have never been marginalized to truly understand the effects of dehumanization. Developing the artist's discipline of attention enables us to
see the world as it is. Only through such disciplined attention to the
marginalization of others can we learn how to meet the needs of the
oppressed. Those needs can begin to be met by viewing oppressed people
as individuals, not merely members of a class, by asking them to give
voice to that which they are suffering. This requires abandoning the dehumanizing detachment from the oppressed that the political life permits
and entering instead into personal relationships that inspire hope and
enable healing.
***
There are nearly one hundred women philosophers of this century named
in this volume. The lives and works of thirteen of them receive chapterlength treatment here. The final chapter provides brief profiles on an
additional twenty-nine. In the Appendix to this volume fifty-four others
are listed. Just over a decade ago, I came to the conclusion that there
were many more women philosophers throughout the course of our profession's history than could possibly be mentioned in the nice little article
I had in mind for perhaps The Journal of the History of Philosophy.
Lengthier treatment clearly was needed. I decided to proceed cautiously
and include in that treatment only women philosophers who, in a
colloquial sense "were history." I did not originally intend to prepare a
volume on twentieth century philosophers. However, so many of my
colleagues who have constituted the Project on the History of Women
Philosophers felt strongly that the discipline was as much in need
of this volume as it was of the first three volumes, that I was easily
persuaded to agree to prepare it. However, doing so has presented me
with challenges that did not arise with the earlier volumes.
I have always wanted this series to be a history. For the reason I
have wanted to include only those women philosophers who were
deceased, who productivity as philosophers had come to full closure.
Introduction to Volume 4
xxxix
Since a century is the longest lifetime that one usually gets, it was
easier, with volumes one through three to include in the history for that
period, any woman philosopher about whom sufficient information could
be unearthed. There was no problem in assuming, for example, that
someone who published in the sixteenth century was by now, well and
truly deceased. Unfortunately, that assumption cannot be made quite so
glibly with respect to someone who published in 1930, but for whom one
has been utterly unable to discover a date of birth or a date of death.
Not all women philosophers whose biographies appear in Who's Who
with dates of birth in the late nineteenth century subsequently appear
in Who Was Who. Deaths are often not recorded in the same types of
source materials that record active productivity. Attempts to receive
permission to cull through the records of the American Philosophical
Association for obituary notices were received with the unpromising
explanation that the Association itself is attempting to collect its records
from the archival repositories of the universities that were homes to
the former presidents of its three divisions. The records of the Association
are not centrally held, but remain with those of its past presidents. My
quest to eliminate from consideration in this volume women who were
still living but for whom dates of death were not to be found in the
usual sources was further complicated by the interesting statistic that
many of us have tended to live and to be productive to an extremely
ripe old age. There are several centenarians and near-centenarians
amongst us. On the other hand, some women philosophers died much too
young: some of our foremothers died in childbirth, or committed suicide
in middle age, or were put to death in a concentration camp. In retrospect I realize that I needed the services of a private detective to conduct
searches through public records of birth and death. I also needed the
services of a full-time secretary to engage in correspondence with the
many philosophical societies of which women philosophers were
members, and the many academic institutions at which women philosophers had studied or taught. Unfortunately, I have not had these services
available to m:e.
When dates of death have not been forthcoming, I have sometimes
resorted to making two ad hoc assumptions (which in some cases will
be wrong). The first assumption is that a date of birth precedes the first
published record of professional activity (award of the doctorate, membership in a professional society, publication, or appointment to an
academic post) at age twenty-five. The second assumption is that no
philosopher lived more than a century. Therefore, if afloruit date would
xl
Introduction to Volume 4
xli
xlii
II. BIOGRAPHY
Victoria Alexandria Maria Louisa Stuart-Wortley was born April 27, 1837
into an aristocratic family both sides of which could claim generations
of minor nobility behind them. 2 Her early life was marked by the fact
that one of her godmothers became Queen Victoria five days after her
baptismal ceremony. Her father died when Victoria was seven years
A History o/Women PhilosopherslVolume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, 1-24.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
old, and so the most important influence on her childhood was her mother,
Lady Emmeline Stuart-Wortley. 3 Lady Emmeline was a writer of poems,
plays, and travel narratives. Her prodigious output ("29 books of poetry,
travel, and drama between 1833 and her death at the age of 49 in 1855")4
is all the more remarkable for her having spent many of those years in
arduous travel.
Victoria suffered from ill health in childhood, including a bout of
scarlet fever, and her "weakened constitution" was deemed an appropriate
reason to educate her privately at home. But, curiously, it was also
deemed an appropriate reason for Victoria to accompany her mother
on her travels, which after the death of Victoria's father had become Lady
Emmeline's obsession. 5
Thus at age 12, Victoria accompanied her mother on a long journey
to North and South America, and produced her first book from the
experience. A Young Traveller's Journal of a Tour in North and South
America During the Year 1850 was written for other twelve-year-olds
and illustrated with engravings made from Victoria's sketches of such
scenes as Niagara Falls and a southern cotton plantation. Appearing in
1852, the book is enthusiastic, charming, and naive, praising, for example,
the cleanliness and evident happiness of the plantation slaves and their
children. Yet in this can be seen seeds of what became Victoria's habitual
independence of mind, for on the issue of slavery she was willing to
set her own observations against prevailing establishment opinion in
England. In fact, Paul Chipchase calls the book "a little masterpiece of
fresh observation,,6 - but his examples are of natural phenomena.
They were indefatigable tourists, gathering sights and sounds voraciously. In the northeast alone Victoria records visits to Albany, Niagara
Falls, the Navy Yard, Cambridge Observatory, Faneuil Hall, the
Atheneum, the Custom House, the State House, notes seeing Chantrey's
"Washington" and Hiram Powers' "The Greek Slave," the latter sculpture one of the most famous artworks of its time. She also was treated
to audiences with numbers of illustrious Americans, including Prof.
Agassiz, Daniel Webster, and President Zachary Taylor (it was his plantation the pair visited after their meeting with him in Washington). Thus
it went from New York to New Orleans, Vera Cruz to Havana, Panama
to Peru. 7
Within a year of their return to England, Emmeline and Victoria
made a tour of the Iberian peninsula, taking in Morocco in the process;
1853 found them travelling through northern Europe. From January to
October, 1855, they toured the Middle East, the journey ending with
the death of Lady Emmeline - of dysentery and the effects of a leg broken
earlier on the trip - in the desert. She died after the pair were abandoned by their escorts, and Victoria, also suffering fever, had to wait
for help from Beirut. 8
Thus orphaned, Victoria lived with various relatives and was also
taken in by the Queen, becoming, in 1861, Maid of Honor to the court.
While she later wrote disparagingly of the aridity of intellectual life in
London,9 she did in the two years before her marriage encounter many
of the great political figures of the time, who, according to her daughter
and biographer, would "devote a thoughtful attention to her unorthodox
views on foreign - above all American - policy."IO
In 1863, Victoria married Sir William Earle Welby, who after his
father's death in 1875 took the additional surname Gregory. Victoria
published under the name Hon. Lady Victoria Welby-Gregory unti11890,
then as Hon. Lady Welby, and from 1893 on as Victoria Welby, sometimes V. Welby.ll Sir William died in 1898. Of their three children, two
survived to adulthood: Sir Charles Glynn Earle Welby (1865-1938), from
whom present members of the Welby family are descended, and
Emmeline Mary Elizabeth ("Nina") (1867-1955), who published two
collections of her mother's letters as well as poetry, history, and translation under the name Mrs. Henry Cust. 12
Upon her son's marriage in 1887, Victoria lost the use of the title,
Lady, with her first name, that right passing to her new daughter-inlaw, and became Victoria, Lady Welby. She frequently corrected
correspondents' understandable confusion over her proper title, explaining to Peirce in 1903:
. . . May I confess that in signing my book "V. Welby" I hoped to
get rid as far as possible of the irrelevant associations of my unlucky
title? I am called "v. Lady Welby" merely to distinguish me from
my son's wife, now Lady Welby; which is a custom of ours. Thus I
have no right to be called Lady Victoria Welby.... You will understand my desire to be known as simply as possible though I cannot
altogether ignore the "Hon." conferred upon me as Maid of Honour
to the late Queen. But the only honour I value is that of being treated
by workers as a serious worker. 13
Victoria Welby's first book published in adulthood was Links and
Clues (1881), a collection of 104 meditations and interpretive essays
on religious ideas and language. The book was not well received,
into the interpretation of metaphors for thought and meaning, was apparently aimed at a literate general audience, the latter two essays appeared
in journals more directed at professional scholars and present somewhat
more systematically Welby's case for developing a science of interpretation.
During this decade Welby also produced, in addition to her numerous
brief papers privately circulated, two collections of quotations from
scientific and philosophic publications with her commentary illustrating carelessness and incoherence in language usage and the need for
reform. The fist of these compendia, titled A Selection of Passages from
"Mind" (January, 1876, to July, 1892), "Nature" (1870, and 1888 to
1892), "Natural Science" (1892), Bearing on Changes and Defects in
the Significance of Terms and in the Theory and Practice of Logic,
appeared in 1893, marked "For Private Circulation Only." The second
collection was The Witness of Science to Linguistic Anarchy (1898),
and here again the writing of professional scientists is held up to detailed
and disapproving scrutiny.
In 1903 appeared What is Meaning?, the work on interpretation which
brought her to the attention of C. S. Peirce and certainly her most important work philosophically. Her final book was Signifies and Language
(1911). Victoria Welby died March 19, 1912.
III. PHILOSOPHY
1. Beginnings of a Philosophy of Interpretation
Welby's writings during the 1880s and '90s repeat three themes: first,
that the physical evidence sufficient to test scientific hypotheses is only
the lowest kind of knowledge human beings require for an adequate
understanding of reality; second, that all knowledge whatsoever is based
upon acts of interpretation; and third, that interpretation happens at
distinct levels, with the highest revealing the ultimate significance of
ideas in their widest possible context. Coupled with these themes is the
linguistic principle that metaphor is unavoidable in the adequate expression of meaning, but the use of any metaphor must be closely connected
to the literal import of its words if it is not to be misleading, ambiguous,
or just silly. Welby developed these themes and the principle of metaphor
through hundreds of letters, numerous one - to two - page papers interpreting scriptural texts or religious ideas, and several essays specifically
passage or test is "attainable by man" without any special divine illumination, i.e., if it is really an expression of some merely human insight,
not necessarily dependent on any higher truth. The higher, she says, is
that which is "beyond and above any natural religion or standard.,,23
Second, the interpreter uses the higher thus identified "as a test and interpretation for all the rest." Too slavish a fixation upon the literal errs
by letting "the written letter of the Word interpret for us the living glory
of the Logos.,,24
In other contexts, though, Welby is quite interested in the literal level
of language. In Grains of Sense she argues against the claim (of Huxley
and others) that the meanings of words can be quite arbitrarily assigned,
so long as a writer is consistent in ensuring that meanings are "rigidly
attached" to their words. " ... [A]s if it was possible to secure such
rigid attachment, especially in the very cases where perfect fitness is most
needed," Welby sniffed.25 On the same ground she attacked Lewis Carroll,
"a prince of humourists," for failing "to see that such a practice [of
arbitrary stipulations], become common, would strike at the heart of
humour itself: and should also overlook the tremendous part that associations called up by terms and phrases play in the effect of his
Wonderland books.,,26 Right use of language depends, Welby holds, on
expanding our awareness of associative possibilities of language, dependent though they may be on a range of literal meanings. Unlike many
linguistic reformers, Welby wants more expressiveness, more thoughtful
metaphor in language, not more literalness and arbitrary stipulation
definition. "[W]e want a much larger proportion of meaning to expression," she says: "Then we may hope for a larger proportion of sense to
meaning, and of significance to sense, bringing out untold treasures
now buried in dumbness and, as we are, unspeakable.,,27
Welby proposes - over and over in different forums - that the study
of sense, meaning, and significance should be systematized, built into
a discipline, and taught to the young. "The Thinker was once called
the Seer, or the Magician and the Wizard, then the Prophet, then the
Philosopher, then the Mystic; whereas now he is proud to be called the
Critic. Let us hope that in the future he will be called the Interpreter
or the Translator, and that there will be 'chairs of interpretation.' ,>28
She comments that while experts have claimed that human eyes and
ears could be trained to much higher acuity than is common, "that
would be useless without a corresponding rise in the power to interpret, to express clearly and fully what we perceived and inferred.,,29
The name she proposes in Grains of Sense for this new science is
10
of this period. On the one hand, she insists that we have lost control of
our language and must regain it if we are to progress scientifically and
philosophically; on the other hand she treats language almost as an
organism with its own history and rules of natural selection. It may be,
she says, the "the ordinary modern metaphor like the ordinary modern
analogy is a mere rhetorical device," yet some figurative usage are ancient
and "hail from an altogether deeper and more authentic source." The
tension is resolved by recognizing that the needed control of language
is not through an arbitrary power over expression, but thoughtful awareness of the expressive powers inherent in language itself.
Some of her own flights of metaphor are aimed at correcting the
overuse of earthbound foundation and basis metaphors and raising the
awareness of Copernican imagery of solar focus and orbit:
... it is conceivable that some [images] may be found to belong to
that as yet mysterious energy on which natural selection plays and
of which variation is the outcome or the sign. What we find in
language may thus be, as it were, not merely the "scarred and weatherworn" remnant of geologic strata but sometimes the meteorite, the
calcined fragment of earlier worlds of correspondence, ultra-earthly,
cosmical. 34
She proposes that we must try the experiment of investigating the
"grades of validity in metaphor and analogy in modern science" in an
effort to "have recognized clearly the powerful though hidden effects
upon us of organized mental picture brought in surreptitiously with verbal
imagery, or by comparison; ..."35
Thus it will not do to treat figurative language as the free creation
of the writer who can invent without scruple or limit any terminology
desired. We will not know until we have tried the experiment of investigating hidden sources of metaphor in our language whether it will be
worth the effort, but we are at the mercy of language if we do not try.
"For after all, whether we like it or no, we are heliocentric; the world
and all that is in it is cosmically generated.,,36 Finally, she argues, the
great aim of linguistic study is enhanced significance, both in the sense
that language will be richer, more significant as a result of such study,
and in the sense that life itself will be more valuable, more significant
to us:
... meaning - in the widest sense of the word - is the only value
of whatever "fact" presents itself to us. Without this, to observe and
11
12
deepest facing humanity, and she did not see solutions in any of the
commonly recommended remedies. For example, we gain little by carefully setting out fixed definitions of terms, as all the logic textbooks
recommended:
But surely we forget that in the first place, this is often precisely the
most impossible thing to do; as a fixed meaning, the same for all, unaffected by context of any kind, applies only, if at all, to a small
proportion of ordinary words: and secondly, that to define every word
which needs it would at once render all important works simply
unreadable. 4O
Definition is no panacea, she goes on, because thus exalted it would
hinder the evolution of language and thus its ability to express "changes
in the psychological atmosphere." Moreover, the problems of significance
are prior to those of definition.41
In the essay just quoted, Welby proposes a classification of different
meaning-terms: "Signification" refers to "the value of language itself";
"import" to the "intellectual character of the logical process." The former
is the purview of philology, the latter of logic. Next comes "sense," which
she connects to physical science.
[T]hree main current senses of the word should be borne in mind.
There must certainly be some "sense" both as meaning and as
judgment in observation and experiment to give them any value
whatever ... But in another "sense" Sense is the inevitable startingpoint and ultimate test of scientific generalization . . .42
Asking whether these three senses of "sense" might be accidental or
revelatory of a deeper connection, she cites philological evidence for
the latter alternative and then comments that "the word seems to give
us the link between the sensory, the sensible and the significant: there
is apparently a real connection between the 'sense' - say of sight - in
which we react to stimulus, and the 'sense' in which we speak or act.,,43
Finally, "significance" carries connotations of importance or value.
Something has significance "because it demands serious attention and,
it may be, decisive action: or because it must modify more or less profoundly our mental attitude towards the nations or races affected by it,
and towards the problems called social.,,44 Significance is in the purview
of philosophy, poetry, and religion. All together, these make up the scope
13
of meaning (or intent, as she often parenthetically calls it). This outline
and terminology is connected to fields of study; when she later regularizes her terms, the final structure is a hierarchy of interpretive functions
(see below).
What she wants to argue in "Sense, Meaning and Interpretation" is her
familiar thesis that scientific and philosophical writers are paying too
little attention to the needs of interpretation, ignoring the conditions of
meaning, and that the great need is for systematic study of meaning i.e., signification, import, sense, and significance - and its incorporation in education. 45 Her most fully developed attempt to initiate this
new study, apart from her extensive correspondence, was her book, What
Is Meaning?
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
was not merely a talented and devoted disciple of Lady Welby but
he added to her line of thought an element which was foreign to her
work, namely, careful precision in the formulation of subtle distinctions and cautious deductions. 78
VI. CONCLUSION
Recent republication of Welby's two books on significs along with a
Festschrift celebrating the 150th anniversary of her birth79 have made
Welby's work on language accessible again after decades of neglect.
Her daughter's two collections of correspondence are long out of print,
and in any case are not well suited to the demands of scholars, since
the chronologies are blurred and there is considerable elision. This is
unfortunate because one chief aspect of Welby's value as a "serious
worker," as she told Peirce she wanted to be known, transcends her intellectual work itself: her letters reveal an enthusiastic, questing personality
devoted to bringing like minds together. In this she is the model of a
life spent in the collaborative pursuit of the mind's best access to the true
and the real.
NOTES
1. I am deeply grateful to James Newsome and Constance Holt of the College
of St. Catherine Library, who with great dedication sought out and obtained
copies of many of Welby's nearly inaccessible minor publications for this
project. The staff at York University Archives and Special Collections,
where Welby's correspondence and other papers are kept, also rendered
valuable long distance assistance.
2. David Hughes, "Geneology of Victoria, Lady Welby," in H. Walter Schmitz
(ed.), Essays on Signifies. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Publishing Co., 1990, pp. 3-13.
3. The most complete account of Welby's life and thought is the invaluable
200-page introduction to the reprint edition of her Signifies and Language:
H. Walter Schmitz, "Victoria Lady Weby's Significs: The Origin of the
Signific Movement," Signifies and Language. Amsterdam and Philadelphia:
John Benjamins Publ. Co., 1985, pp. ix-ccvii. Schmitz also provides the
most exhaustive bibliography of Welby's work available.
4. Paul Chipchase, "Some Account of the Literary Production of Lady Welby
and her Family," in H. Walter Schmitz (ed.), Essays on Signifies.
Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Co., 1990, pp.
17-59.
22
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
23
24
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
79.
I. BIOGRAPHY
Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones was born in Wales in 1848. She was
the oldest of ten children of a family of landed gentry. Her father was
squire of the parish of Llangarron, in Herefordshire England. She grew
up in a large house filled with maids and governesses. Jones' family lived,
during her early teenage years (from 1861-1864) near a town about thirty
miles outside Capetown South Africa. There she learned German and
read Schiller and Goethe, learned French and read Voltaire, Moliere,
Racine, and Corneille. She developed a taste for languages, literature,
music, and mathematics. She says in her autobiography, As I Remember,
that when she returned from South Africa:
I had the use of my mind. I knew how to learn, though not what to
learn. It was partly at school, and from an Essay Society to which I
belonged afterwards, and a Moral Science undergraduate acquaintance,
but principally at College, that I learnt what to learn, or rather, what
there was to learn.l
Upon the family's return to England Constance was enrolled for about
a year in a ladies' boarding school in Cheltenham. There her language
studies and arithmetic were continued and supplemented with Italian.
Constance was about 19 years of age when her schooling was considered
to be completed. Years at home followed. A young man who was a friend
or her brother and an undergraduate at Cambridge introduced her
to Fawcett's Manual of Political Economy, stimulating her interest in
moral philosophy. Constance later borrowed Mill's Logic from the boy's
mother. 2
It is to this early introduction to "Moral Science" that Jones attribA History o/Women PhilosopherslVolume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, 25-49.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
26
E. E. Constance Jones
utes her eventual decision to pursue the Moral Science Tripos at Girton
College, Cambridge. That course of study included moral and political
philosophy, "mental philosophy" (psychology, metaphysics and epistemology) logic, and political economics. 3 She studied under Henry
Sidgwick, James Ward and John Neville Keynes. Jones' university education was financed with some difficulty by her paternal aunt, "Mrs.
Collins" who had long supported the idea of her niece receiving a higher
education. Girton College was selected because it "was the only Woman's
College that we knew of at that time.,,4 Jones began at Cambridge
in October, 1875, however, despite her family's rather advantageous
circumstances, theirs was a large family, and apparently the educations
of her younger brothers had priority over Constance's own. The result
was that she missed several terms, at significant detriment to her professional advancement.
Nevertheless, her reputation was substantial so that on Ward's and
Sidgwick's recommendation she was given the opportunity to complete
the half-finished translation by Elizabeth Hamilton of Hermann Lotze's
Mikrokosmus. 5 The work saw four editions in Jones' lifetime, and its
first publication was given advance notice by Bernard Bosanquet in the
preface to his translation of Lotze's Metaphysics and Logic. Jones
completed her studies at Girton in 1880 with a Class 1 pass in her
examinations.
Four years later, in 1884, Jones was invited to return to Cambridge
as Lecturer in logic at Girton College. During this period, her interests
turned toward what would come to be known an analytic philosophy. She
compiled her lecture notes that would much later become her Primer
of Logic, an elementary logic text, published in 1905. 6 Her development of her view of categorical propositions however, had begun during
the late 1880's, was completed in 1889, and published the following year
as Elements of Logic as a Science of Propositions. In it, she develops
the idea that if the law of identity is a significant assertion it must be
an assertion of, as she calls it, "Denomination in Diversity of Determination." Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones appears to have been very
modest about the important idea she originated. Jones' discovery drew
powerful praise from her colleagues Stout and Schiller for its importance
to the field of logic and for its originality. It would influence Bradley
to modify his own view of identity, and be adopted by Keynes. However,
once her theory was presented as his own by a recently graduated
Cambridge student, Bertrand Russell, it was some time until anyone
pointed out that his views had not only been anticipated by Frege (whom
E. E. Constance Jones
27
he acknowledged), but by originally by Jones (whom he did not acknowledge). The remainder of Jones' professional life was spent refining her
idea, and re-issuing gentle reminders that her development of the law
of identity as the law of significant assertion historically preceded and
is logically prior to the sense-reference distinction of Frege and the
nearly analogous distinction that Russell makes between the meaning
of a term and its extension. Referring in 1910 to her 1890 and subsequent works:
I reached what I think are interesting and enlightening results (in
apparent accordance with Frege, whose view seems to be endorsed
by Mr. Bertrand Russell), and Professor G. F. Stout, by whom this
logical adventure of mine was approved and befriended, has now, I
think, reached a true solution and with a clearness of statement which
leaves nothing to be desired, has steered the labouring barque of the
proposition into smooth waters. (See his lecture on The Nature of
Universals and Propositions, December, 1921.)7
The modest Miss Jones, who had formulated what others including
giants in philosophy like Schiller and Stout recognized as an axiom
of logic, volunteered for the difficult-to-fill position of Librarian at
Girton from 1890 to 1893, and attended McTaggart's Hegel lectures at
Cambridge. Vacations were spent travelling to Bologna and Heidelberg
for philosophy conferences. Her appointment as Vice-Mistress of Girton
came in 1896, and upon the retirement of Miss Welsh in 1903, Jones
became Mistress of Girton College.
"Miss E. E. C. Jones" as she is often listed, was active in professional associations. At a time when philosophers had strong interests
in "mental philosophy" including psychology, she was one of the earliest
members the Society for Psychical Research founded by Sidgwick. She
was a very active member of the Aristotelian Society and participated
in symposia with such philosophers as F. C. S. Schiller, Bernard
Bosanquet, G. F. Stout, and J. S. Mann. For more than twenty years
she was a regular presenter of papers at Society meetings, and many
of those papers were published in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society. For two years (1914-1916) she served on the Executive
Committee of the Society. She was also a regular presenter at Mind
Association meetings, and that association's journal Mind became a forum
for many of Jones' writings. In addition, she presented her work at the
Cambridge University Moral Sciences Club.
28
E. E. Constance Jones
II. WORKS
Jones was a prolific writer in philosophy, and almost all of her work
was in analytic philosophy; however, she also published some work in
ethics. We will first survey her ethical writings before turning to an exploration of her analytic philosophy.
1. Ethics
E. E. Constance Jones
29
In the third chapter, Jones looks at moral psychology: the relationship between desire and pleasure; the nature and role of moral conscience,
practical reason and the moral emotions, and an overview of the question
of free will and determinism. The fourth chapter, "Greek Common-Sense
Morality" begins with an overview of Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics
focussing on his method: following the experience of what acts are called
praiseworthy, rather than the experience of what people do, and leading
to an analysis of human virtue. The chapter concludes with an all-too
brief summary of Kant's criticism of Aristotelian method. Chapter five,
philosophical intuitionism, is primarily an account of Sidgwick's Methods
of Ethics and its criticism of the shortcomings of intuitionism. The chapter
closes with an analysis of how Bishop Butler's principle of rational
benevolence can be applied to resolve the antagonisms between moral
intuitionism and utilitarianism. The didactic part of the text concludes
with a chapter outlining the relationship of ethics to politics and an exploration of how the methods of ethics might assist in the development of
a just politic. There follows an eleven page glossary of terms, a lengthy
list of published questions from Cambridge University examinations, and
a list of suggested readings for students preparing for Ethics in the Moral
Sciences Tripos at Cambridge.
(b) Other Ethical Writings. Jones has two articles by the title "Character
and Circumstance." The first is a commentary on remarks by Bernard
Bosanquet made in a symposium of the Aristotelian Society. The second
article by that name is a discussion piece in International Journal of
Ethics where she expands on her earlier remarks. In the first "Character
and Circumstance" she takes issue with Bosanquet's position that character has more power to shape a person's circumstance than a person's
circumstances have to shape his or her character. In a brief rebuttal to
Bosanquet's position offered in a symposium, Jones argues that change
of environment that touches consciousness has the power to effect the
development of character. This, after all, she says, is what educational
theory is concerned with: " ... desperately disadvantageous circumstances, while they last, may make a case as hopeless as a desperately
disadvantageous character. And it must not be forgotten that for any
one of us 'Circumstance' includes the character of others, and that among
the disadvantages of circumstances may be their deteriorating effect on
the character with which they are in interaction."10
The second article by the name "Character and Circumstance" focuses
on the effect that circumstance, custom, surroundings, etc. can have on
30
E. E. Constance Jones
rejected;
(2) that pleasure is an ambiguous, impossible, irrational and undesirable end to attain, and is not intrinsically valuable;
(3) that pleasure is what the hedonist seeks and that individual pleasures are not the same as pleasure, they differ qualitatively and
therefore cannot be added and enjoyed simultaneously. Even if pleasures could be summed, the preference for a large quantity of some
pleasure to smaller quantities of others is morally base;
(4) Ethical Hedonism cannot account for individual variations in the
capacity and preference of pleasure, therefore it cannot promote
the general happiness, and the desire to do so is inconsistent with
individual ethical hedonism.
Jones rejects psychological hedonism, and defends the role of reason
in approving moral ends. 13 Reason, she says
... declares that Happiness is intrinsically worth having, and conduciveness to happiness, the test of right action - it is because of
this, that [the rational hedonist or utilitarian] adopts the so-called
E. E. Constance Jones
31
"hedonistic" End. And if Reason tells us that it is Happiness - excellence of Feeling - that makes any portion of consciousness intrinsically
desirable, then the Volition that promotes Happiness is good; and since
we cannot have good conduct without a good will (for conduct
involves Volition) it appears that the promotion of the Hedonistic
End involves both the supremacy of Reason and, the conscious direction of the Will to right. We have thus, it would seem, not a mere
one-sided Good, but a Good which takes into account, and gives due
place to, all the elements of man's complex nature. 14
Jones was a champion of Sidgwick's ethical hedonism, defending him
in three articles, "Mr. Hayward's Evaluation of Professor Sidgwick's
Ethics,,,IS "Professor Sidgwick's Ethics,,,16 and "Mr. Moore on Hedonism."17 She was also selected by Sidgwick's widow to edit his lecture
notes on the ethics of Green, Spencer and Martineau. 18
2. Analytic Philosophy
Is there reason to believe, that just as Newton and Leibniz independently discovered the differential calculus, Jones and Frege independently
developed analogous views on the nature of logical identity? What is
the evidence that Russell based his early view of identity on that of Jones,
rather than, as he claimed, discovering it independently of Frege? Prior
to addressing these questions, however, we shall explore the development
of Jones' view of categorical propositions.
(a) Categorical Propositions. Elements of Logic begins with a definition of logic as the "science of the import and relations of propositions.,,19
Jones claims that names are a word or any group of words that refer to
things. A thing is that which has "quantitiveness" and "qualitiveness."
By Quantitiveness I mean that in virtue of which anything is something, that which is involved in calling it something or anything
- just the bare minimum of existence of some kind which justifies
the application of a name (that is, of any name at all). To attribute
Quantitiveness to anything would be simply to say that it is. 20
By Qualitiveness I mean that in virtue of which anything is what it
is. The Qualitiveness of a Thing includes all its attributes, thus completely characterizing the kind of its Quantitiveness; and whatever
we predicate of a thing expresses some attribute of it. 21
32
E. E. Constance Jones
E. E. Constance Jones
33
besides A, i.e., if they entirely exclude difference ... all propositions of the form A is B are prohibited. But we can and do constantly
use propositions of the form A is B; no one disputes their propriety
and value. Therefore, propositions of this form being admitted, the
above interpretation [A is A] must be rejected. 24
34
E. E. Constance Jones
E. E. Constance Jones
3S
36
E. E. Constance Jones
E. E. Constance Jones
37
38
E. E. Constance Jones
E. E. Constance Jones
39
Russell follows Bradley in holding that all judgment (and thus all
knowledge and belief) involves identity-in-diversity, though he differs
from Bradley in thinking that this requires a plurality of diverse things
or contents. 41
But what of Bradley is Russell following? Certainly not the early
Bradley whom Jones quoted, who conflated equation and identity.
According to Russell in My Philosophical Development,42 his early ideas
on identity in diversity are from page 519 of the second edition of
Bradley's Appearance and Reality. The first edition of this work was
in 1893, and the second, revised edition appeared in 1897. This means
that the second, revised edition, appeared in time for Russell to take
Bradley's views into account while preparing his dissertation. And it is
the second edition that Russell specifically cites as influencing him
towards identity in diversity. Yet, both editions of Bradley appeared
long following Jones' initial publication of her view on identity in diversity in 1890, and following her second expression of it in 1892. Bradley's
second edition appeared after Jones' reiteration of her view at the
Aristotelian Society Symposium (with Mann and Stout) in 1893. 43 Was
Bradley indebted to Jones, and Russell through him? That is possible,
for the correction Jones made to Bradley is more on the order of urging
Bradley to clear up some confusion between equality and identity that
would then permit Bradley to adopt identity in diversity as an analysis
of logical identity. He followed her suggestion.
No account would be complete of the many opportunities for Russell
to know of Jones' work while he was at Cambridge unless we consider
the participation of both in the Cambridge University Moral Sciences
Club (hereafter as CUMC). Three years following the publication of
Elements of Logic and only one year following the publication of An
Introduction to General Logic, Jones attended Miss Sidney Webb's presentation of "The Economic Basis of Trade Unionism," to the CUMC.
This is the first recorded instance of women presenting papers at the
CUMC (indeed, the first recorded mention of women attending as guests).
The records of the club are erratic and from what is reported of them
by Pitt44 attendance by Jones and Russell may well have coincided.
Both were concurrently active (she as guest and presenter, he as member
and presenter). According to Pitt, who included Jones among three
"senior people" (along with Moore and Johnson) of CUMC, the available records show that Jones attended one meeting in 1894, and at least
40
E. E. Constance Jones
three in 1895. Russell was travelling in Europe and the United States
during this period. The records also show that Jones presented a paper
in 1899 on Ward's naturalism and agnosticism in McTaggart's rooms with
Sidgwick in the chair, a paper on Moore's view of Ward in November
of 1900, and a paper on Moore's account of hedonism on February 16,
1906. In "Monistic Theory of Truth" written in 1906 Russell was still
defending identity in diversity.45
A letter to Russell dated August 28, 1909 from his friend and former
student Philip Jourdain, apparently remarked that Russell's earlier ideas
on identity expressed in Principles of Mathematics had been anticipated
not originally by Frege's distinction between sense and reference in 1892
"Ober Sinn und Bedeutung," (as acknowledged by Russell in Principles),
but by Jones in 1890,46 as evidenced by Keynes in his Studies and
Exercises in Formal Logic, 1906. On September 5, 1909, as he is frantically tying up loose ends on Principia Mathematica where he will revise
the earlier view, Russell responds:
It would seem, from what you say in your letter, that Miss Jones's
E. E. Constance Jones
41
42
E. E. Constance Jones
E. E. Constance Jones
43
44
E. E. Constance Jones
E. E. Constance Jones
45
46
E. E. Constance Jones
IV. CONCLUSION
Emily Elizabeth Constance Jones was a faculty member at Girton
College, Cambridge who in 1890, published Elements of Logic as a
Science of Propositions. It attracted sufficient attention among Cambridge
philosophers to gain her membership in and an invitation to present to
the Aristotelian Society. Although Elements' taxonomy of "quantitiveness" and "qualitiveness" was clumsy, its articulation of a theory of
"identity in diversity" was not. There followed an unbroken string of fulllength works and formal papers in which Jones' theory was refined,
defended and further explained. Many of these papers were given before
the Aristotelian Society and were published in their Proceedings. Jones'
papers appeared in the first volume of Mind and continued to do so
through the tum of the century. Perhaps Russell scholars will have greater
insight into the questions we raised here. Some will mention, as Professor
Ambrose did, that "Russell was known for his photographic memory;
he may have picked up someone else's ideas and not have a clue as to
where he first learned them."68 If so, this might explain how he assimilated Jones' and later, Frege's ideas free of any recollection of the process
by which he acquired them. Russell might therefore be considered
morally innocent of what in contemporary academic circles otherwise
would be considered a lack of academic integrity. The colleagues with
whom Jones is associated, Sidgwick, Schiller, Stout, Bosanquet, Ward,
Keynes and McTaggart were among the giants in philosophy. Her many
works in both hedonistic ethics and analytic philosophy received considerable positive assessment from her peers who are counted among
the great philosophers of that era. It is our pleasure to introduce you to
her.
NOTES
1. Jones, E. E. Constance, As I Remember. London: A. & C. Black, Ltd., 1922,
p.35.
2. Op. cit., p. 45.
3. Op. cit., p. 53.
4. Op. cit., p. 49. It was not until 1948 that Girton became a full college of
Cambridge University, and its women students became eligible to receive
degrees. In 1885, Cambridge Training College was founded to prepare
women for the teaching profession.
5. Op. cit., p. 56.
E. E. Constance Jones
47
48
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
E. E. Constance Jones
Op. cit., p. 20.
Op. cit., p. 203.
Frege, Gottlob, Begriffsschrift. Halle, 1879.
Frege, Gottlob, Grundlagen der Arithmetik. Breslau, 1884.
Frege, Gottlob, "Uber Sinn und Bedeutung," Zeitschrift fUr Phil. und phil.
Kritik, Vol. 100 (1892).
Frege, Gottlob, Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, begriffsschriftlich abgeleitet.
Jena, 1893.
Russell, Bertrand, Principles of Mathematics, 2nd edition. London and New
York: Norton, 1967. Section 24.
Op. cit., section 64.
Op. cit., section 95.
In addition to the advance notice given Jones' translation of Lotze's
Microcosmus by Bernard Bosanquet in his own translation of Lotze's
Metaphysik and Logik, advertisements for Jones' translation quote favorable reviews in Athenaeum, Scotsman, Andover Review, Evangelical
Magazine and Baptist Magazine.
Griffin, Nicholas and Albert C. Lewis (eds), The Collected Papers of
Bertrand Russell Volume 2: Philosophical Papers 1896-1899. London:
Unwin Hyman, 1990, p. xvi.
Russell, Bertrand, My Philosophical Development. London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1959, p. 56.
Jones, E. E. Constance, Mann, J. S., and Stout, G. F., "Symposium: The
Relation Between Thought and Language," Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society Old Series: Vol. 2 (1892-1894) No.3 (1893), 108-123 (Part I,
pp. 108-113 by Miss E. E. Constance Jones).
Pitt, Jack, "Russell and the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club," Russell:
Vol. 1, No.2 (Winter, 1981-1982): 103-118.
The most interesting analysis of this we have found is Morris' Weitz'
"Analysis and the Unity of Russell's Philosophy," in Paul Schlipp's The
Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, 3rd edition. New York: Tudor Publishing
Company, 1951, pp. 57-121.
According to the editor, no mention was made that the same concept had
been reiterated by Jones in 1892, 1893, and again in 1898 and 1900. Jones,
E. E. C., "The Paradox of Logical Inference," Mind: 7 (1898): 205-218.
Jones, E. E. C., "The Meaning of Sameness," Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society New Series 1 (1900-1901): 167-173.
Grattan-Guinness, I., Dear Russell - Dear Jourdain, Vol. 1. New York:
Columbia University Press, 1977, p. 119 quoting Russell's letter to Jourdain
of 5 September 1909 mentioning Jones' Elements of Logic as a Science
of Propositions, 1890.
Jones, E. E. C. "The Paradox of Logical Inference," Mind: 7 (1898):
205-218.
Jones, E. E. C., "The Meaning of Sameness," Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society New Series 1 (1900-1901): 167-173.
Jones, E. E. C., "Import of Categorical Proposition," Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society New Series 2 (190111902): 35-45. See also: Klein,
E. E. Constance Jones
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
49
I. BIOGRAPHY
52
53
public figure through her poems and lectures for the Nationalist
Movement. Her divorce from Charles was a social scandal, outdone
only by her continued friendship with him and his second wife, Grace
Channing, her life-long friend and soon the primary mother of Charlotte's
daughter, Katherine. Gilman received much criticism for giving up her
child while lecturing about Nationalist views of child-rearing which
held that the best teaching for children could be given not merely by
the parents but by the social community.
Gilman's second marriage to New York patent lawyer Houghton
Gilman in 1900 apparently was peaceful and happy, lasting thirty-four
years. Her autobiography, interestingly enough, hardly mentions
Houghton, demonstrating her own vision that her philosophical career
would eclipse romantic relationships.
Her politics and activism began as early as age twenty-one when,
out of her belief for women's physical fitness and strength, she founded
the first women's gym in Providence. She became heavily involved in
the Nationalist Movement in her early years. The Nationalists were
inspired by Edward Bellamy's novel, Looking Backward (1888), which
presented a socialist America in the twenty-first century. Nationalists
advocated the disappearance of social classes and the collective ownership of land and industry. Gilman was an influential lecturer and
Nationalist poet for many years. She also was a socialist, and a member
of the Fabian Society, which included such English socialists as G. B.
Shaw. She was not a member of the Socialist Party for she rejected
Marxist political methods and the Marxist concepts of economic determinism and class struggle. She supported the Labor Movement
throughout her life, fighting for reduced hours, increased wages, and
improved working conditions. As a feminist, her politics were radical.
She supported suffrage but believed that economic independence was
needed as well as the vote, claiming,
Women whose industrial position is that of a house-servant, or
who do no work at all, who are fed and clothed, and given pocketmoney by men, do not reach freedom and equality by the use of the
ballot. 5
She worked for the vote while lecturing on radical social reforms and
insisting on economic independence for women. One suffrage leader told
her, "I think you will do our cause more good than harm, because what
you ask is so much worse than what we ask that they will grant our
54
55
56
1. Androcentric Philosophy
Gilman saw the history of philosophy as a massive study in patriarchal
philosophy which attempts to function as an "anti-toxin" to the oppression of women that it perpetuates. She summed up the history of
philosophy in terms of its corresponding diseased conditions:
The self-torturing savage is the precursor of the Stoic philosopher; the
self-indulgent savage, of the Epicurean. The submissive and longoppressed Oriental produces his philosophy of resistance and progress,
crying "Never say die!" and "You can't keep a good man down!"
The morbid woman-hating Schopenhauer gives us a philosophy of
grisly pessimism, followed by a worse degree of Nietzsche. In more
modem times we have the pragmatic philosophy of William James,
and the more esoteric work of Bergson. 13
Gilman critiqued the male-biased philosophy of her own time.
Dominant early thinkers being men, and having in their minds
as premises the common errors as the nature and power of women,
naturally incorporated these errors in their systems of philosophy.
When the women thought, is not recorded, any more than the lion
has erected a statue to the victor in the hunt. 14
Androcentric philosophy or male-biased philosophy is inadequate for
affecting the progress of humanity because it is cut off from women's
insights and sensibilities. The emergence of androcentric philosophy was
"natural" for humanity:
It was natural enough that the mind of man should evolve a philos-
57
58
personal immortality, nor did she fear death. Rather she saw herself
as part of the collective consciousness which was immortal: In her
seventies, she wrote,
My life is in Humanity - and that goes on. My contentment is in
God - and That goes on. The Social Consciousness, fully accepted,
automatically eliminates both selfishness and pride. 21
Androcentric religion, in contrast to Gilman's own religious views,
privileges the individual over the group, the afterlife over social life, it
is full of "baseless dogmas" and morbid anxiety for a belief in personal
immortality. Androcentric religion has not promoted human happiness
for society. Further, its masculist bias has been preoccupied with fear
of death seeing life as a hunt, man as the hunter and fighter, and death
as the ultimate crisis.
Androcentric religion further failed to advance humanity by assuming
that women were "private servants" and not the rightful mothers of the
human race. How different religion would be if women shaped it, Gilman
believed, for women are not hunters and fighters, nor do they have a
perverse concern with death. It is women's duty and responsibility
to guide religion by expanding motherhood to social service. Social
motherhood would maintain and improve humanity.
3. Philosophy of Social Evolution
Gilman's human philosophy was envisioned in terms of social evolution. As a Reform Darwinist she believed that human beings could
understand and play an active role in their evolutionary course, taking
issue with the deterministic stance of Herbert Spencer and the Social
Darwinists. As a feminist, she believed that social evolution required
the liberation of women for the race to truly advance. As a socialist,
she held that "progress" entailed the advancement of the whole, through
collective action.
Gilman's theory of social evolution is, by her own admission, largely
indebted to the sociologist Lester F. Ward, whose gynocentric theory
provided a suitable alternative to androcentric thinking. Gilman called
his theory "the greatest single contribution to the world's thought since
Evolution,'m and in her dedication of Man-Made World, she said of Ward
that "nothing so important to women has ever been given to the world.,,23
Ward's gynocentric theory appeared in an article, "Our Better Halves,"
59
(1888), where he claimed that the female human was superior to the male,
and her capacities for nurturance and altruism would be necessary for
preserving the human race:
Woman is the unchanging trunk for the great genealogical tree; while
man, with all his vaunted superiority, is but a branch, a grafted scion,
as it were, whose acquired qualities die with the individual, while those
of woman are handed on to futurity. Woman is the race, and the race
can be raised up only as she is raised Up.24
Inspired by Ward, Gilman believed that the oppression of women
was the greatest obstacle to social progress, yet was, for a time, necessary. Like Ward, she claimed that it was natural to the course of social
evolution that a sex distinction be established, making a wide gap
between males and females. The male evolved for sex only, having but
one function, to fertilize the female. "The superiority of men to women
is not a matter of sex at all; it is a matter of race." Yet social evolution
brought about a reversal in the relationship between the sexes. It was
necessary for the male to rule over the female for a long period of
evolutionary history. In order for the male, the inferior sex, to achieve
race equality with the female, the superior sex, males needed to advance
which meant becoming more like females and to incorporate female traits
in their nature. This could only be accomplished by restricting the
abilities of females. By encroaching steadily upon women's freedom, men
reduced women to economic dependence elevating themselves to be
women's providers. As such, men were compelled to completely provide
for women's needs, "to fulfill in his own person the thwarted uses of
maternity.,,25 Hence men began evolving female characteristics, becoming
men-mothers and partaking in the most powerful of female qualities,
creativity, creating the social world. Gilman claimed that "the subjection of woman has involved to an enormous degree the maternalizing
of man. Under its bonds he has been forced into new functions, impossible to male energy alone. He has had to learn to work, to serve, to
be human.,,26 Thus, the greatest source of productivity in the world,
maternal energy, was usurped by men closing the major gap between
the sexes by adopting the feminine capacity for self-preservation and race
preservation to balance out the masculine capacity for destruction. "The
naturally destructive tendencies of the male have been gradually subverted to the conservative tendencies of the female".27 Through natural
selection and training, superior habits of females have been bred into
males.
60
61
economic advantage by preparing her for the market. This is an excellent instance. It is common. It is most evil. 30
The social institutions of marriage, the family, and the home would
need to be revised if female oppression were to be eradicated. Gilman's
most original contribution to social philosophy is her critical analysis
of these current social institutions and her proposals for reform. She
believed in marriage, finding the monogamous relationship the most
advanced. Yet, she did not believe that marriage ought to be directly
tied to the home. The comfort of humanity and shelter should not be
dependent on marriage. Many men, women, and children may choose not
to be married either temporarily or as a permanent choice. Under the
current institutions of marriage, the family and the home, single people
are, she claimed, unfairly deprived the comforts of home. The family
is suffering in modern times, requiring a sort of military rule to function
at all. In her view, many tasks should be replaced by professionals.
Most specifically, motherhood needs rethinking.
According to Gilman, the goal of motherhood ought to be the progress
of civilization. However, she found that the practice of motherhood had
been thoroughly domesticated. The domestication of mothers, she argued,
was outdated and inefficient. The mother has been primarily a domestic
servant, cooking, cleaning, educating the children. Yet, to leave these
duties in the hands of individual mothers is inefficient for society because
mothers are untrained, confined to private industry, and society is
deprived of their talents for social service. Gilman gave three reasons
why mothers are unfit to take care of children: not every woman has
the special talents for child-rearing; no women get any professional
training for child-rearing; and each mother, if she takes care of only
her own children, is inexperienced. Children, which are an important
resource for transmitting social advances, "pass under the well-meaning
experiments of an endless succession of amateurs.,,3l The home would
be a place for the development of human relations among family members
provided that" cooking, cleaning, and education of children were specialized tasks for professionals:
When parents are less occupied in getting food and cooking it, in
getting furniture and dusting it, they may find time to give new thought
and new effort to the care of their children. 32
Though women are taught that their maternal instinct warrants a
sacrifice of all their social service to their ill-trained abilities with
62
children, humanity does not profit from their sacrifice. Instead, trained
professionals should clean the home and assist mothers in the care of
children.
Gilman was highly critical of the home which epitomized the sexuoeconomic relation. Man's world was the market place, woman's the home.
The home became a private industry in which women were confined.
Gilman advocated the elimination of "housework" freeing women up
for social service. The occupation of the home should not be housekeeping but rest. She proposed that the kitchen should be taken out of
the home, leaving a room available for other pursuits. The home "costs
three times what is necessary to meet the same needs. It involves the
further waste of nearly half the world's labor. It does not fulfill its functions to the best advantage, thus robbing us again. ,,33
If it were not for her socialist theory of work, Gilman's theory of
the "undomesticated home" could appear classist, available only to the
middle and upper class while enslaving the working class into domestic
duties. Gilman was not in favor of domestic service for wages, because
she knew that since most domestic servants were young girls, the same
problems would ensue as for mothers. Further, she supported the ideas
of Thorstein Veblen against class distinctions because they were inefficient for society. She believed that work itself was evolving in stages:
first, female labor; second, slave labor; third, wage labor; and the fourth
stage would be free labor.
Work, for Gilman, ought to be a matter of social-cooperation, not competition and exploitation. She redefined private property believing that
what an individual needs, he or she should have a right to. Each person
should be entitled to all the clothing, food, education, tools, he or she
could consume. The products of labor belong to the consumers, not the
producers, and should be distributed to them as widely, swiftly, and freely
as possible; so adding to the social good. The mistake has been to attach
ownership rights to the producer. Gilman advocated an economic system
of cooperative exchange in which the workers would "own" the means
of production but not the products they produce, i.e., a weaver would
own her own loom but the wearer would own the cloth. 34
The activity of work needed reform as well. The worker should be
well-nourished, physically and socially, well-educated, and aligned with
work he or she prefers. Work should be a joy, a source of strength for
the individual and the society, not a physical drain. Work ought to be
social service. Women and men should share in work equally.
63
4. Gilman ~ Eugenics
Gilman's philosophy of social evolution presupposed an ultimate standard
of progress that was not free of racism or ethnocentrism. Like other
Darwinists, she believed that civilizations could be ranked from superior
to inferior levels of advancement. It was tacitly assumed that white EuroAmerican cultures were the "most advanced," that non-Western cultures
were "savage" and "inferior". Yet, because social evolutionists believed
behavior can be improved by transmission of advanced traits over
generations, "inferiors" could be improved through education and
socialization. "It is easily within our power to make this world such an
environment as should conduce to the development of a noble race,
rapidly and surely improving from generation to generation, and so
naturally producing better conduct."35
For Gilman, although humanity was "in the making," and history
was the story of progress, the development of our human-ness was merely
presupposed. On the one hand, "advancement" in her view meant qualities favorable to most liberal reformers: more education, good health,
free labor, ease from needless suffering. Yet, Gilman, in practice, was
xenophobic in ways that overlapped with goals of the Eugenic Movement.
The American Eugenics Society, founded in 1926, proposed concrete
strategies for accomplishing the goals of Darwinists, specifically the
sterilization of "inferiors" and the restriction of immigration. Although
not a member of the Eugenics Society, Gilman was biased against immigrants, particularly non-white immigrants, and was favorable toward
eugenics in her work. Her racism is evident in the article, "A Suggestion
on the Negro Problem" in which, while recognizing the exploitation of
Black people in post-abolitionist America, she nonetheless referred to
Black people as "aliens", and the Black race as an "inferior" or backward
race. She believed that Black people need to "attain" the level of white
cultural civilization. She stated the problem explicitly, synthesizing
racism with eugenics: "how can we best promote the civilization of the
Negro? He is here: we can't get rid of him; it is all our fault; he does
not suit us as he is; what can we do to improve him?,,36 She suggested
the formation of a Black labor army for all non-self-sufficient Black men,
women, and children that would provide food and education in exchange
for farm and factory labor.
Her eugenics position is also found in her theories of improving
children through better breeding. She claimed that to improve humanity
we must have better children born:
64
Theories of social evolution may be inherently laden with the oppressions derivative of eugenics to the degree that the "superior" society,
or "advanced individual" is specified by some standard that is intolerant of diversity. Although some forms of social progress such as
advances in health, education and free-labor may be objectionable,
definitions and methods for bringing about "progress" is problematic.
For instance, would it be correct for an "advanced culture" to improve
the health of an "inferior" culture if it did so by annihilating the customs,
religion, and politics of the latter? If education and training are desirable,
what "truths" should be taught? If training, to make what kind of products
or perform which services? In Gilman's social philosophy, she was
unable to advocate progress without suggesting the breeding of whiteEuro-American Society, albeit, presumably free of sex, class and wage
exploitation. Although she consistently privileged the group over the
individual, it has only by privileging individuality and diversity over
the group that has enabled a tolerance of difference to exist within and
between cultures. Gilman's social philosophy, xenophobic or racist,
does not overcome the conflict between respect for diversity and the
primacy of the social group.
5. Androcentric Ethics
Gilman believed that humanity would only advance if women were
liberated and if we achieved the transition from the primacy of the
individual consciousness to the collective consciousness. Her economic analysis of free labor sought to promote collectivity. "The life
and prosperity of each member is absolutely interwoven with that of
the others, of the whole, and not to recognize this, and act accordingly,
is to manifest an inferior plane of development.,,38 Women should have
an active role in the development of social consciousness, shaping a social
ethics along feminine lines. The masculine world, she claimed, has valued
patriotism, as a general concept of ethical behavior, which once again
65
emphasizes fighting and death. But she insists that humanity needs new
values. Women, she believes, have no "joy of combat," no "impulse to
bang one another about, taking neither pride nor pleasure in violence."39
Instead, women, as members of the superior sex, are the peacemakers
of the race. Women's nature is "more human" than man's. Fighting,
war, aggression, destruction are the qualities only of the male, not of
humans as such. The highest value ought to be caring for others through
serving society.
To attain an advanced social ethics, Gilman proposed that we change
our sex-based thinking which has attributed to women the virtues of
the oppressed: obedience, patience, endurance, contentment, humility,
resignation, temperance, prudence, cheerfulness, modesty, gratitude,
thrift, and unselfishness, and to men, virtues more social in scope: truth,
justice, loyalty, generosity, patriotism, honor. Truth, for instance, is
honored in men, by "keeping their word," central to their manhood, while,
she notes, women are allowed to change their minds. 40 For Gilman the
most important virtue women need to respect in themselves is courage.
Women have been socialized not to be courageous. "Women were
expected to be meek, modest, and submissive ... Women are not ashamed
of being cowards. They will own to it without a blush, even, indeed, with
a sort of pride.,,41 Yet courage is central if women are to be active in
maintaining and improving humanity.
Gilman's ethical theory was utilitarian: right conduct is that which
tends toward the greatest development of humanity, wrong conduct
promoted injury to human advancement. The degree of rightness or
wrongness of an act, was determined by the amount of good or evil it
produced for society.
66
67
NOTES
1. Lester F. Ward, Independent, 8 March 1906, p. 541.
2. Charlotte Perkins Gilman, The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An
Autobiography. With a foreword by Zona Gale (New York and London:
Appleton-Century, 1935), p. 182.
3. Ibid., p. 8.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., p. 198.
6. Ibid.
7. Ibid., p. 304.
8. Private letter, from Belmont, New Hampshire, Sept. 2, 1897, from the
Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in
America.
9. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography, p. 333.
10. Ibid., p. 335.
11. Ibid., p. 275.
12. Ibid.
13. His Religion and Hers: A Study of the Faith of Our Fathers and the Work
of Our Mothers (Westport, Conn.: Hyperion Press, 1976), pp. 159, 160.
14. Ibid.
15. Ibid., p. 163.
16. Ibid., p. 170.
17. Ibid., p. 270.
18. Ibid., p. 171.
19. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman: An Autobiography, p. 182.
20. Ibid., p. 185.
21. Ibid., p. 335.
22. Ibid., p. 187.
23. The Man-Made World of Our Androcentric Culture (New Haven, Conn.:
Research Publications, 1976), p. 1.
24. Lester Ward, "Our Better Halves."
25. Women and Economics: A Study of the Economic Relation Between Men
and Women as a Factor in Social Evolution (Boston: Small, Maynard &
Co., 1898, 1899, 1900), p. 125.
26. Ibid., p. 127.
27. Ibid., p. 134.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid., p. 70.
30. Ibid., p. 86.
31. Ibid., p. 293.
32. The Home: Its Work and Influence (New York: McClure, Phillips & Co.,
1903), p. 301.
33. Ibid., p. 320.
34. Human Work (New York: McClure, Phillips & Co., 1904), p. 331.
35. His Religion and Hers, p. 5.
36. "A Suggestion on the Negro Problem," pp. 78, 80.
68
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
Lou Salome represents a unique figure in modern western thought charismatic and cerebral, feminine and forthright, meditative and
dynamic. Her extraordinary life and work is most often associated with
three major figures - and areas of thought - of her period: Friedrich
Nietzsche in philosophy, Rainer Maria Rilke in the arts, and Sigmund
Freud in psychoanalysis. Her various liaisons with these central figures
has been cause for her inclusion in historical chronicles.
At the same time, however, by being identified with and through this
illustrious company, Salome's position as a philosopher has been compromised, for she has been deprived of due consideration as a significant
thinker in her own right. Indeed, her biographies usually center on her
role as astute observer and cultivator of genius, most blatantly in Rudolph
Binion's description of Salome as "Nietzsche's Wayward Disciple".2 Even
Salome's friend and literary executor, Ernst Pfeiffer, speaks of her as
being "dominated" by various male figures at different periods of her
life,3 thereby excluding the possibility of mutual influence. Following
this trend, the recent resurgence of interest in Salome's work focuses
on her texts which deal with her famous contemporaries.4 Our discussion here gives primary emphasis to Salome's philosophical contributions,
to which other concerns, and people, are ancillary.
I. BIOGRAPHY
70
Lou Salome
Lou Salome
71
by it; she could protect her highly valued personal freedom by never
being possessed exclusively, and in all senses, by anyone man. 13
Salome did not so much challenge the sexist assumptions of her times,
as transcend them through her own unconventional lifestyle and strength
of will. She tended to regard herself as a thinker first and a woman
second. '4 Hence, she did not sense a need to align herself with either
the feminists, or with anti-feminist forces. '5 Her writings do not apologize for the "weakness" of the feminine (as compared to the masculine),
they vindicate its inherent value. '6
Thus, rather than pursuing the cause of women's liberation, Salome
felt that being a woman was a form of liberation - namely, liberation
from the social and natural constraints which burdened men. This may
explain her seeming resignation to the condition of women, as reflected
in her comment to Freud that ambition is "a great lack, but one which
must be allowed to us womenfolk, for why should we bother with
ambition?,,'7 In the excesses of intellect and its cultural products Salome
senses "a decline of life, a culture obtained by a deficit in life, a culture
of the weak [that is, of men]."18
Despite Salome's advocacy of the feminine, others often described her
as being possessed of masculine sensibilities and perspectives. 19 This
impression probably can be accounted for by her acute and unashamed
intellect. Moreover, in regard to her own life, she was determined to
let nothing stand in the way of her personal development - neither
parental objections nor potentially-stifling love relationships; neither
social convention nor religious scruples. This much is made clear in a
letter to her first "love" (and first in a series of rejected suitors), Pastor
Gillot, as she responds to his objections to her intention to live in platonic
bliss with Paul Ree:
I can neither live according to models nor shall I ever be a model
for anyone at all; on the contrary - what I shall quite certainly do is
make my own life according to myself, whatever may come of it. In
this I have no principle to represent, but something much more wonderful - something that is inside oneself and is hot with sheer life,
and rejoices and wants to get out. 20
II. PHILOSOPHY
The main areas of interest to Salome in her thought and work are religion
and morality, specifically the religious experience, and the philosophy
72
Lou Salome
Lou Salome
73
to a fusion of "the knowledge of our limit, and at that limit the exaltation that grows beyond it."28
While Salome's religious views are often claimed to have been heavily
influenced by Nietzsche,29 another possible source of influence seems
to have been overlooked - namely Benedict de Spinoza. Salome became
acquainted with Spinoza's thought during her first serious lessons with
Pastor Gillot. 30 In him she found a kindred philosophical spirit, much
as Friedrich Nietzsche was to be later on in her life. Moreover, her resonance with Spinoza seems to exceed that with Nietzsche, for she carried
him with her even into her relationship with Freud. 31 An early experience recorded in her autobiography demonstrates why Spinoza, who
equates God with nature, proved so attractive to her; she describes a
"darkly awakening sensation, never again ceasing, conclusive and fundamental, of immeasurable comradeship - in fate . .. with everything
that exists.'>32
Just as Spinoza begins his Ethics with God, Salome begins her autobiography with "The Experience of God". She even asks "What must I
do to be blessed?",33 echoing Spinoza's discussion of the blessedness
(equivalent to salvation and freedom) which results from the intellectual love of God. 34 The joy which Spinoza ascribes to the ultimate
intuitive love of God seems similar to Salome's own discussion of religious joy in her essays.35
Like Spinoza, Salome early on interpreted religion within elitist categories. 36 The ultimate peak experience of the elitist, however, is not
the extreme individualism of Nietzsche, but rather the oneness of the
Spinozistic universe: "At these heights of our self we are released from
ourselves.',3? Hers was the religion of a freethinker seeking not an external
divinity but a return to the self (prefiguring her later doctrine of narcissism).38 A contrast is made by Salome between the construction of
the divine as an anticipation of "the prospects of the future" (found in
primitive religion) and as the now more common source of "compensation": "The two kinds of faith are as sharply and precisely distinguished
as creative processes are from neurotic.',39 Salome, of course, opts for the
primitive and healthy form of faith.
2. The Philosophy of Women: The Experiences of Love and Sexuality
The nature and role of women were also consistent subjects within
Salome's work, which naturally led her to a consideration of love and
sexuality. Salome's concern with women is hardly to be wondered at,
74
Lou Salome
for throughout her life critics could rarely say anything about her work,
either to praise or condemn it, without making mention of her gender. 40
Additionally, she lived in a period when questions about the nature of
women were being hotly debated. Salome did not deny the existence
of differences between the sexes, only that these differences decidedly
did not prove women to be inferior to men. Reacting to the defeminizing tendencies of feminists which threatened these values, Salome
gained a reputation as a reactionary among some. 41
An early essay on women unfortunately has been lost, but we do know
that it evoked favorable comments from Nietzsche as a harbinger of
things to come. 42 The tone of that essay probably was reflected in her
later writings, however, where she approvingly described woman as
possessed of "a special resonance" for truth which transcends logic. 43
Since woman is a "more integrated being" than man, "a man as a person
cannot limit her: he too will some time become an image of unities
that lie beyond him."44 The erotic spirituality of women is approximated only by men who are artists and are thus influenced by "that which
darkly proceeds beneath all thoughts and will-impulses.,,45
The primal element in women is brought to light in Salome's discussion of six heroines from Henrik Ibsen's dramas. 46 Each is compared
to a wild duck who has become trapped in an attic. In fact, the wild
duck metaphor is a thinly veiled reference to the role of women in
Salome's own society, specifically the artificial confinement imposed
by the conventions of marriage. Salome goes on to analyze each character in terms of their individual reactions to the captivity of social
conventions and the deprivation of natural freedom. For some it ends
in death, for others in various degrees of liberation from self, society,
or both.
Only in the experience of love, Salome claims, does "our deepest entry
into our self" become possible, where the beloved serves as the mere
occasion for a return to ourselves, a spiritual homecoming. 47 So it is
that "two are at one only when they remain twO".48 Describing her love
for the poet Rainer Maria Rilke she says the experience was "not only
without defiance or guilt-feelings, but comparable to the way you find
something blessed, through which the world becomes perfect",49 once
again conjoining blessedness and perfection in a Spinozistic way. Hence,
for Salome love offered a means of transcending the boundaries of consciousness, by delving our primal depths. 50
Salome's theory of human bisexuality (referring to the co-existence of
masculine and feminine traits in each person) supports the value of love
Lou Salome
75
76
Lou Salome
What Salome points to here are the vast riches of the unconscious
of which only a warped view is obtained through psychoanalytical examination. These very riches are what she herself most valued. 59 Along these
same lines, Salome suggests that Freudian sublimation actually amounts
to "our own self-realization".60
Salome's concerns with religion and the nature of woman and sexuality may well have been among her primary motivations to pursue
psychoanalysis, especially in view of Freud's demythologizing of religion
and his emphasis on sexuality.61 The primacy of erotic impulses in women
is asserted by Salome when she refers to woman as one "whose spirit
is sex, whose sex is spirit".62 Again, Salome emphasizes woman's greater
connection with primal unity, and thus with eroticism. 63
Perhaps Salome's greatest, and certainly most original, contribution
to psychoanalytic theory comes in her exposition of narcissism as
embodying the dual currents of self-love and self-surrender. 64 This too,
however, was a further working out of her previous ideas. Narcissism
for Salome takes a decidedly positive turn. In contrast to Freud's assessment of narcissism as regressive and pathological, Salome finds in
narcissism "the creative element, i.e., the natural and at the same time
the spiritual goal of every human development, the unity of sex and
ego.,,65 Moreover, narcissism for Salome implies a continuity with nature,
an identification of self within nature as a whole: "Bear in mind that
the Narcissus of the legend gazed, not at a man-made mirror, but at the
mirror of Nature. Perhaps it was not just himself that he beheld in the
mirror, but himself as if he were still All".66 It is this primal unity that
Salome commends when she discusses narcissism.
The primal unity is disrupted by "the primal hurt of all of us ...
the uncomprehending self-abasement of becoming an individual", which
leaves us "homeless and impoverished".67 Thus, as explicated by Salome,
her enriched notion of narcissism ranges across three phases 1. "a particular developmental stage to be transcended",
2. the "creative ... the persistent accompaniment of all our deeper experience, always present, yet still far beyond any possibility of hewing
its way from consciousness into the unconscious", and
3. the "self-knower."
4. Later Writings
Lou Salome
77
referred to her by Freud himself and others in his circle. 69 The First World
War weighed heavily upon Salome, and was often a topic of discussion in her diary, causing her to speculate upon war and its root causes. 70
The opposition of Germany and Russia in the war divided her loyalties. The Russian Revolution of 1917 also touched her deeply, and she
reacted strongly against the Bolsheviks and their policies. 71
The last years of Salome's life were given over to three major works
- her books on Rilke (1928), Freud (1931), and herself (published posthumously in 1951). The Rilke book incorporated her work in literary
criticism along with psychoanalysis. The Freud text serves as both
a tribute to the man and a forum for elaborating her own interpretations of psychoanalytic theory. Her autobiography, originally entitled
Grundriss einiger Lebenserinnerungen ("Ground-plan of some liferecollections"), was completed in 1932, and later extended. It is written
in phenomenological fashion, touching upon events and people Salome
deemed central to her life experience, rather than following an historical pattern of specific dates and facts.
The subject of old age also merited Salome's meditations as she
herself experienced this final stage of her own life: "deep down, knowing
how to live and knowing how to die go together.,,72 The move into old
age she compared to a move back to the expansive world of childhood. 73 Salome's positive attitude is more noteworthy in view of the
illnesses that beset her last years, including diabetes, heart disease, and
breast cancer. She died quietly February 5, 1937, shortly before her
seventy-sixth birthday. Her last recorded words: "The best is death,
after all. ,,74
III. INFLUENCES
The philosophic currents of Salome's time were numerous and complex,
with topics ranging from Darwinism to the unconscious, from the death
of God and denial of free will to the alternative of Nietzsche's
Ubermensch. Salome participated in the debates and followed the modern
trends in science very closely through her extensive, and distinguished,
range of acquaintances. Many of her articles appeared in pacesetting
journals such as Die Freie Biihne. Of the swirling currents available to
her, Naturalism seemed most in accord with Salome's way of thinking. 75
Yet it cannot be said that she subordinated herself to any school, only
that she sympathized with many.
78
Lou Salome
Lou Salome
79
IV. CONCLUSIONS
In summing up the life and work of Lou Salome, it is somewhat paradoxically true that, despite her many relationships, she was "a woman
80
Lou Salome
thinking alone".91 Although exposed to the ideas of many of the strongestwilled and famous individuals of the age, she was able to maintain her
identity as an independent spirit who refused to be trapped by conventional labels or categories. This very independence may explain why
so many of her interpreters have accused her of intellectual perversity
and even inconsistency. Still, the phenomenological tone of her writings
is consistent with her guiding principle that "we know only that which
we experience.,,92
Two keynotes of Salome's thought are her continual reference to
dualities and the image of home. In fact, the two elements are intertwined
in that we return home to the primal oneness (as in narcissism) after
our excursion into the dualities of life. Her arguments on a myriad of
subjects are outlined under the headings of dual concepts - whether
humility versus pride in religious experience, the wild and domesticated animals of her Ibsen discussion, the tensions between art and illness
in Nietzsche, or the conflicting temptations of surrender and assertion
in sexual experience. Later Salome adopted the psychoanalytic term
"ambivalence" to convey this root reality, describing it as "nothing but
the polarity or duality which life never outgrows, and all creative activity
on which the culture of humanity rests flowers from it.,,93
Understood in her own right, Salome has left behind invaluable critical
accounts of those around her - most notably Nietzsche, Rilke, Freud.
In these accounts her incisive mind is always clearly at work, shifting
and analyzing one moment, synthesizing the next, extending the original
thoughts above and beyond the intentions of their initiators. Speaking for
Nietzsche, Binion writes "no idea, he well knew, was ever the same
for having been discussed with her.,,94
Salome is especially to be valued for her insights into questions of
philosophical interest offered from the rarely heard woman's perspective.
If her comments on religion, art, love, and sexuality occasionally
confound the reader, this may be due to the fact that she presents us
with new phenomenological categories to complement those of masculine thinkers. For example, Spinoza's denial of mind-body dualism
breathes most expressively in her writings. Reacting to the beauties of
spring while traveling northward from Italy toward Germany Salome
exclaims "if human receptivity were only more capable of nuance and
were more deepreaching, the Immeasurable would await us in the most
Earthly.,,95
Thus, when criticism is leveled at her concepts the fault may lie
more in the deficiency of the interpreters than in Salome herself. In
Lou Salome
81
particular, her recognition of the limits of logic lead her to put forth
contradictory statements. Yet she does so with full cognizance of the contradictoriness, which is an inevitable by-product of having transcended
logical categories, or perhaps of having substituted a both/and logic for
the either/or of mutual exclusivity.96 Her statements are intended to
provoke our own thinking, to challenge the reader to participate in the
very process of her thought which reflects the process of life itself "In the fundamental condition that accompanies us all our lives (and especially penetrates all creative experience) ... megalomania and absolute
dependence seem to flow into one another".97
Emphasizing these same lines of thought, future research needs
to reconsider the significant impact of Spinozistic philosophy upon
her overall outlook. Yet, here too, her interpretations remain provocative, as when she explains the strict determinism of the Spinozistic
universe as "a principle of universal reciprocity" which takes us "from
the empirical world of movement to the eternal rest of his philosophy"
which is simultaneously "the most passionate ecstasy".98 Spinoza's perspective is most especially evoked in the life-affirmation which pervades
Salome's thought. Livingstone calls this Salome's characteristic
"profound joie de vivre", which stands in sharp contrast to "the strenuously achieved affirmations of Nietzsche, the lamentations and anguished
acclamations of Rilke and the scepticism [sic] and final misanthropy
of Freud.,,99
The criticism has been made that Salome's writings lack cohesiveness and that her style is problematic. 1O This may be accounted for in
part by the sporadic nature of her formal education, especially at the
university level. Nonetheless this flaw need not prevent us from realizing
the brilliance of her thoughts, even when wrapped in stylistic obscurities. Instead, it should spur us on to more assiduous digging to find the
treasures buried beneath. For example, the contents of the Freud Journal
extend far beyond what the title would lead one to expect, wandering
far and wide across Salome's own intellectual landscape, to integrate
observations on epistemology, philosophical methodology, ethics, and
aesthetics with the expected psychoanalytical topics.
Perhaps Salome's most fitting epitaphs have been written by those who
knew her as both a person and an intellect. Her sometime lover and
longtime friend, Rilke observes:
... she turns all that books and people bring her at the right moment
into the most blessed comprehension, ... she understands, and loves,
82
Lou Salome
and moves fearlessly among the most burning mysteries - that do
nothing to her, only beam at her with pure firelight. 101
From the end of her life we have the comment of another acquaintance:
She loved the spirit and was at home in the world of solitude. 102
NOTES
1. At the outset we must acknowledge a conflict in terms of the very name
of our subject. Often she is referred to by her birth name, Salome. In
other cases this name is combined with that of her husband, F. C. Andreas,
as Andreas-Salome. In this essay we will refer to her as Lou Salome.
2. It has been said of Salome that "during five decades she made acquaintances in artistic and learned circles in Berlin, Munich, Vienna, Paris
and Petersburg, and the full story of them would be something approaching
a history of modern European culture"; Angela Livingstone, Salome: Her
Life and Work (Moyer Bell Limited, 1984), p. 10. A notable exception
to this general rule of subordinating Salome's life to that of her famous
friends comes in Livingstone's meticulously researched, yet not completely
uncritical, book. Livingstone refers to Binion as "the most energetic of her
[Salome's] posthumous detractors" (p. 12). Binion also seems to suffer
from the common obsession with Salome's unorthodox lifestyle, especially
as concerns her relationships with men. One might well ask whether
the emphasis on her personal life, which severely inhibits an objective
evaluation of her work, would have been practiced had she been a man.
The routine denigration of Salome's work is exemplified by Walter
Kaufmann's cavalier remarks in his Foreword (p. v) to Binion's nearly
six hundred page text, Frau Lou: Nietzsche's Wayward Disciple (Princeton,
New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1968):
The bulk of this volume is not out of proportion to the importance
of its subject, for Frau Lou is more significant than Lou's own
books. In the case of most biographies the opposite may be taken for
granted, but in this case the author's own reach exceeds the woman
whose biography he offers us ....
This approach is especially questionable in light of Binion's admission that he failed to acquire unrestricted access to Salome's unpublished papers from the proprietor of her literary estate, Ernst Pfeiffer,
a situation he chooses to interpret as an attempt at "covering up for
Lou's autobiographical aberrations" (p. 557). His chapter titles echo his
distaste for the very subject of his analysis - "The Unholy Trinity", "Super-
Lou Salome
3.
4.
5.
6.
83
Lou and Rainer", "Russia In, Rainer Out", "At Freud's Elbow", and
"Revamping the Past". Significantly, Livingstone was not working under
similar restrictions of access to Salome's unpublished papers.
Ernst Pfeiffer in his Introduction to Sigmund Freud and Lou AndreasSalome Letters, trans. William and Elaine Robson-Scott (New York:
Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc, 1972), pp. 1-6.
Thus, the texts chosen for translation into English (as part of an AustrianGerman Culture Series) and releases by Black Swan Press include: Freud
(1986), Ibsen's Heroines (1985), Nietzsche (1986), Rilke (1986).
Salome reports that she was "miserably lonely with all of them and closely
devoted to my fantasy life as my only joy". "Childhood, Ego, and World"
in The Freud Journal of Lou Andreas-Salome, trans. Stanley A. Leavy
(New York: Basic Books, Inc., 1964), p. 93.
Hendrik Gillot (1836-1916) was a Dutch pastor who attracted a devoted
following among the Petersburg elite, especially among the women, due
to his engaging rhetoric and dynamic personality. In her letter of introduction to Gillot, Salome offers a self-description:
The person writing to you, Herr Pastor, is a seventeen-year-old-girl who
is lonely in the midst of her family and surroundings, lonely in the sense
that no one shares her views, let alone satisfies her longing for fuller
knowledge .... it is so bitter to close everything up in oneself because
one would otherwise give offence, bitter to stand so wholly alone
because one lacks that easy-going agreeable manner which wins
people's trust and love.
84
Lou Salome
- "Russische Dichtung und Kultur" ("Russian Poetry and Culture"), 1897
- "Das russiche Heiligenbild und sein Dichter" ("The Russian Saintly
Image and Its Poet"), 1898
- "Russiche Philosophie und semitischer Geist" ("Russian Philosophy and
Semitic Spirit"), 1898
- "Bilder aus der Geschichte und Litteratur Russlands" ("Images from
the History and Literature of Russia"), 1898
- "Leo Tolstoi, unser Zeitgenosse" ("Leo Tolstoy, Our Contemporary"),
1898
- "Die Russen" ("The Russians"), 1909
- "Der russiche Intelligent" ("The Russian Intelligence"), 1919
- "Der geistliche Russe" ("The Spiritual Russian") 1919
- "Unser Anteil an Dostoevski und Tolstoi" ("Our Share in Dostoevsky
and Tolstoy"), 1920
- "Russiche Romantik" ("Russian Romanticism"), 1921
- "Tendenz und Form russischer Dichtung" ("The Tendency and Form
of Russian Poetry"), 1922
- "Rilke in Russland" ("Rilke in Russia"), 1928.
Lou Salome
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
85
see Peters, p. 44. Also relevant is the fact that Andreas coerced Salome
into marriage through a bloody suicide attempt, stabbing himself in her
presence.
"I have never understood why people who are in love in a predominantly
sensual way get married" ["ich habe nie begriffen, warum Leute, die
ineinander vorwiegend sinnlich verliebt sind, sich vermiihlen."] Diary note,
October 31, 1888, trans. and quoted by Livingstone, p. 62. German original
quoted by Pfeiffer in his notes to Lebensruckblick, p. 309.
By this means Salome resolved in her own life the tensions between
feminine surrender and masculine assertion which are so graphically
represented in so many of the heroines in her works of fiction. See note
16 below.
Sigmund Freud's obituary corroborates this view of Salome, reading
in part: "Whoever came close to her received the strongest impression
of the genuineness and the harmony of her being and could see, to his
astonishment, that all feminine, perhaps most human, weaknesses were
foreign to her or had been overcome in her course of life." Quoted by
Livingstone, p. 236 (note to p. 193). Daughter Anna Freud agreed, stating
"the unusual thing about her was what ought actually to be quite usual
in a human being - honesty, directness, absence of any weakness, selfassertion without selfishness"; letter from Anna Freud to Ernst Pfeiffer,
quoted by Livingstone, p. 11.
Binion espouses quite the opposite opinion, stating that Salome's
"trouble in being a woman was at the source - indeed, practically was
the source - of her whole mental life", p. ix. This reputed source is
minutely delved in Binion's psychobiographical sketch, in terms of
Salome's "anal-sexual cravings" and their increasingly complex manifestations against the men in her life.
Many close friends of Salome were feminists nonetheless, such as Malwida
von Meysenbug (born 1816-1903; author of Memoires d'une Idealiste
(Memoirs of an Idealist), 1869), feminist writer and political activist,
and Helen StOcker (1869-1943), a key member of the radical feminist
movement in Germany. Another close woman friend was Marie von EbnerEschenbach (1830-1916), a distinguished Viennese novelist.
This point will be demonstrated below in Salome's writings on the philosophy of women. The same philosophy, and the same variation from
main feminist themes of the times, appears within the unusual women characters in her works of fiction. Livingstone (p. 212) describes their general
personality type:
Lou Salome's women do not and cannot succumb. In one way or
another, they get clear of their men and discover their freer self. Because
she is interested in the women who can do this - by definition the extraordinary ones - she is less concerned with the social question and
with the liberation of women who, even if quite gifted and vital, are
weaker and tied to men. She is not concerned with the loneliness of
marriage but with the acceptance of unmarried solitude.
86
Lou Salome
See also Leonie Miiller-Loreck, Die Erzahlende Dichtung Lou AndreasSalome: Ihr Zusammenhang mit der Literatur um 1900 (Stuttgart:
Akademisher Verlag Hans-Dieter Heinz, 1976).
A further proof of Salome's pro-feminine attitude is to be seen in her
criticism of Alfred Adler: "I considered it unproductive that, in order for
him to cling to the terms 'above' and 'below' and 'masculine protest,'
the 'feminine' must always have a negative sign, while passivity as such,
functioning sexually or generally, is apositive foundation of ego function."
October 28, 1913, Freud Journal, p. 34. See also her letter to Adler, August
12, 1913, p. 160. To understand the import of Salome's position, and
forestall the criticism that is betrays a masculine devaluation of the
feminine, the term "passivity" may be replaced by "receptivity". This interpretive approach is found in Sandra A. Wawrytko, The Undercurrent of
"Feminine" Philosophy in Eastern and Western Thought (Washington
D.C.: University Press of America, 1981).
17. Letter to Freud, March 18, 1919. In Freud Salome Letters, p. 95.
Elsewhere, noting the debates within Freud's school, Salome observes "the
tasks of the sexes in this world have been done separately and still in union.
For men fight. Women give thanks."; April 2, 1913, Freud Journal, p. 130.
As if to illustrate this truth, Salome titled her work on Freud My Thanks
to Freud.
18. "The Commonplace - Man and Woman", Freud Journal, p. 118. Salome
also notes "it is really woman's only cultural attainment that she isolates
sexuality from her experiences less than a man is able to do"; January
21, 1913, Freud Journal, p. 80. According to Salome it is through the
"feminization" of culture that radical ideas are "permitted to be entertained
and boldly stated", citing as an example the Baroque period in France,
which culminated in the French Revolution; "Baroque", Freud Journal,
p. 121. Vera Lee has written about this period in her appropriately named
text, The Reign of Women In Eighteenth-Century France (Cambridge,
Massachusetts: Schenkman Publishing Company, 1975).
19. This assessment of Salome's character as "transcending" the feminine is
evident in early observations of her. Thus, Professor Biedermann in his
letter to Salome's mother describes the daughter as having "a quite unchildlike, almost unfeminine, direction of her mind and independence of will"
["unkindlicher, fast unweiblicher Richtung des Geistes and Selbstiindigkeit
des Willens"]. Letter from Biedermann to Salome's mother, July 7, 1883,
Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ree, Lou von Salome: The Documents of their
meeting, p. 319; trans. and quoted by Peters, p. 66. Friedrich Nietzsche,
spurned lover, still was able to muster an affirming reception for Salome's
first novel, published in 1885, 1m Kampf un Gott, declaring "if it is certainly not the Eternal-Feminine that draws this girl onward, perhaps it is
the Eternal-Masculine" ["wenn es gewiss nicht das Ewig-Weibliche ist,
was dieses Miidchen hinanzieht, so vielleicht das Ewig-Miinnliche"]. Letter
to Heinrich von Stein, October 15, 1885; trans. and quoted by Livingstone,
p. 55. German original quoted by Pfeiffer in his notes to Lebensriickblick,
p. 262. For similar assessments of Salome's character from other sources
see Livingstone, p. 30.
Lou Salome
87
20. "Ich kann weder Vorbildern nachleben, noch werde ichjemals ein Vorbild
darstellen konnen fiir wen es auch sei, hingegen mein eignes Leben nach
mir seiber bilden, das werde ich ganz gewiss, mag es nun damit gehn
wie es mag. Damit habe ich ja kein Prinzip zu vertreten, sondem etwas
viel Wundervolleres, - etwas, das in Einem seiber steckt und ganz heiss
von lauter Leben ist und jauchzt und heraus will." A letter to Gillot written
in Rome, dated March 26, 1882. She felt it significant enough to include
the entire text in her Lebensruckblick, pp. 77-79; trans. and quoted by
Livingstone, p. 36.
Reflective of this same spirit is Salome's poem "Lebensgebet" ("Prayer
to Life") (LebensrUckblick, pp. 38-39; trans. and quoted by Livingstone,
p. 28), also written during this period of her life:
Truly, the way a friend loves friend
Is how I love you, riddle, life Whether I've rejoiced in you or wept,
Whether you've brought me joy or grief.
I love you, with your sorrow too;
And if you must destroy me, still,
I'll tear myself from your arms, as friend
Tears himself from the bosom of friend.
I clasp you with my strength entire!
May your flame kindle me, your riddle
Even in the ardour of the battle
Only more deeply plumb my depths.
Millennia-long to be! to think!
Enclose me fast in both your arms;
If you've no happiness left to give me Well then! you still possess your pain.
[Gewiss, so liebt ein Freund den Freund
Wie ich Dich liebe, Rlitselleben Ob ich in Dir gejauchzt, geweint,
Ob Du mir Gliick, ob Schmerz gegeben.
Ich Liebe Dich samt Deinem Harme;
Und wenn Du mich vernichten musst,
Entreisse ich mich Deinem Arme,
Wie Freund sich reisst von Freundesbrust.
Mit ganzer Kraft umfass ich Dich!
Lass Deine Flammen mich entziinden,
Lass noch in Glut des Kampfes mich
Dein Rlitsel tiefer nur ergriinden.
Jahrtausende zu sein! zu denken!
Schliess mich in beide Arme ein:
Hast Du kein Gliick mehr zu schenken Wohlan - noch hast Du Deine Pein.]
88
Lou Salome
Lou Salome
89
mental experiences (love, "Liebeserleben", and friendship, "Freundeserleben", respectively), while God, Russia, and Freud share the same
grammatical construction ("Das Erlebnis Gott", Das Erlebnis Russland",
"Das Erlebnis Freud"), which highlights their importance for Salome.
24. Freud's work culminated in Totem and Taboo, which was being written
around the time Salome joined his psychoanalytical circle in Vienna.
25. "Es schadet nichts, gottlos zu sein, wenn man Gott nur wirklich los ist."
From Salome's Stibbe Nestbuch (Stibbe Nest-Book), written during her
brief relationship with Nietzsche. Included in Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul
Ree, Lou von Salome: The Documents of their Meeting, p. 192; trans.
and quoted by Livingstone, p. 49.
26. In "Jesus der Jude" ("Jesus as Jew") Salome sets forth what came to be
known as the "back-effect" (Ruckwirkung) concept of religion:
If one starts from the human being instead of - as one used to - from
the God, then one realizes almost involuntarily that the actual religious phenomenon comes to be present in the back-effect of a godhead
- no matter how it arose - upon the person who believes in that
godhead.
90
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
Lou Salome
for all that abundance of unconscious meaning, inexpressible itself, associated with it."; "In creative art, if anywhere, we find the colors and the
shapes by which the divine is approximated in earthly form." "Narzismus
als Doppelrichtung", Imago, 7 (1921); trans. Stanley A. Leavy as "The
Dual Orientation of Narcissism", The Psychoanalytic Quarterly, 31, #1,
(1962), 10, 30.
"Realism in Religion"; 1028; trans. and quoted by Livingstone, p. 76.
See for example Livingstone, pp. 74-86.
One of the most significant of the philosophers initiating the modern
period, Spinoza was born and lived his life in Holland from 1632 to
1677. Although of Jewish heritage, he was ostracized from the Jewish community early on due to the provocative and radical nature of his thought,
becoming the first westerner to survive without formal religious affiliations. His most important work was The Ethics, which encompasses
metaphysical, epistemological, and ethical concerns in a sweeping system.
An entire section is devoted to Spinoza in the Freud Journal, pp. 74-76.
Only the philosopher Max Scheler is accorded a similar honor in this
text, although without the accompanying effusiveness of tone.
Of Spinoza, Salome states "It is a quality of Spinoza that a few pages
by him can teach us whether we are his disciples, whereas big interpretive works have been written about him based on the most erudite
misunderstandings. For to think like him does not mean to adopt a system
but just to think." Further, she deems the Spinozistic system to be "the
philosophical step that goes beyond Freud.... It delights me that the
one thinker I approached in my childhood and almost adored now meets
me once again, and as the philosopher of psychoanalysis. Think far enough,
correctly enough on any point at all and you hit upon him; you meet him
waiting for you, standing ready at the side of the road."
It is clear from Nietzsche's writings that he did not share Salome's
enthusiasm for Spinoza: " ... consider the hocus-pocus of mathematical
form with which Spinoza clad his philosophy - really 'the love of his
wisdom,' to render that word fairly and squarely - in mail and mask, to
strike terror at the very onset into the hearts of any assailant who would
dare to glance at that invincible maiden and Pallas Athena: how much
personal timidity and vulnerability this masquerade of a sick hermit
betrays!" [" ... gar jener Hokuspokus von mathematischer Form mit der
Spinoza seine Philosophie - 'die Liebe zu seiner Weisheit' zu letzt, das
Wort richtig und billig ausge1egt - wie in Erzpanzerte und maskierte,
um, damit vonhereinden Mut des Angreifenden ein zuschiichtern, der auf
diese uniiberwindliche lungfrau und Pallas Athene den Blick zu werfen
wagen wiirde - wieviel eigne Schiichternheit und Angreifbarkeit verrat
diese Maskerade eines einsiedlerischen Kranken!" "On the Prejudices of
the Philosophers", 5, Beyond Good and Evil ["Von den Vorurteilen der
Philosophen", 5, Jenseits von Gut und Bose in Friedrich Nietzsche: Werke
in Drei Biinden, vol. II (Miinchen: Carl Hanser Verlag, 1960), pp. 570-71.
"[E]ine darnals dunkel erwachende, nie mehr ablassende durchschlagende
Grundempfindung unermesslicher Schicksals-genossenschaft mit altem,
Lou Salome
33.
34.
35.
36.
91
92
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
Lou Salome
has also made his history the subject of a biographical romance [Spinoza:
ein Denkerleben, 1855]. Among German philosophers Kant is, perhaps,
the last, who shows no traces of Spinozism." Reprint of the original text
(New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 1951), p. viii.
"On the Religious Affect", trans. and quoted by Livingstone, p. 83. This
view is repeated in her doctrine of narcissism in psychoanalysis.
Writing in her 1882 Tautenberg diary on August 18, 1882 (composed
during a month long stay with Nietzsche) Salome observes: "In the freethinker, the religious emotion cannot relate itself to some divinity or heaven
outside, where those forces that give rise to religion - like weakness,
fear and greed - can be accommodated. In the freethinker, the religious
need ... thrown back upon itself, as it were, can become a heroic force,
an urge to sacrifice himself to some noble purpose." In this sense she
saw Nietzsche as "the prophet of a new religion and it will be one that
seeks heroes for disciples." ["1m Freigeiste kann das religiose Empfinden
sich auf kein Gottliches und keinen Himmel ausser sich beziehen, in denen
die religionsbildenden Krafte wie Schwache, Furcht und Habsucht ihre
Rechnung flinden. 1m Freigeiste kann das durch die Religionen entstandene
religiOse Bediirfen ... gleichsam auf sich selbst zuriickgeworfen, zur
heroischen Kraft seines Wesens werden, zum Drang der Selbsthingabe
einem grossen Ziele."] Trans. and quoted by Peters, p. 123; German
original from Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ree, Lou von Salome: The
Documents of their Meeting, p. 184.
November 12, 1912, Freud Journal, p. 45.
Commenting on Salome's Ibsen book, Wilhelm BlOsche both identifies
it as the best available book on the subject and describes its author as
a problematic "modern woman"; "Sechs Kapitel Psychologie nach
Ibsen", Die Freie Buhne, 1891, vol. 2, 272-74; as trans. and quoted by
Livingstone, p. 90. In a more enlightened vein, Fritz Mauthner notes "it
is only right and delightful that it is a woman who has so well understood old Henrik's praise of women'; "Henrik Ibsens Frauen-Gestalten",
Das Magazin fur Literatur, February, 1892, 135; trans. and quoted by
Livingstone, p. 90.
The same sexism pervades both the denunciations of as well as the
praise for Salome's book on Nietzsche; see Livingstone, pp. 97-98.
Representative is the following quote from Henri Albert: "Nietzsche cannot
repeat often enough his low estimation of women and - cruel irony! his work is most intimately understood - by a woman!"; Mercure de
France, February, 1893, quoted by C. A. Bernoulli in Franz Overbeck und
Friedrich Nietzsche Eine Freundschaft (Jena, 1908), p. 389; trans. and
quoted by Livingstone, p. 97.
Salome is listed as one of three reactionary women by Hedwig Dohm in
her article "Reaktion in der Frauenbewegung" ("Reaction in the Women's
Movement"), Die Zukunft, November 11, 1899; 272-91. Nonetheless,
Salome did follow the literature of feminism and expressed sympathy
for its views. A diary note includes her approval of a work by American
feminist Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Women and Economics; cf. Livingstone, p. 134.
Lou Salome
93
42. Salome reports in her diary for August 14, 1882 that, based on this essay,
Nietzsche declared it would be a pity if the world were deprived of a
"monument of your full and inward spirit." ["Verges sen Sie niemals, dass
es ein Jammer ware, wenn Sie nicht ein ... Denkmal Ihres innersten
... vollen Geistes setzen"] In Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ree, Lou von
Salome: The Documents of their Meeting, p. 182.
Other works by Salome in the area of women, love, and sexuality
include:
- "Physische Liebe" ("Physical Love"), 1898 - an article responding to
Wilhelm BOlsche's Das Liebensleben in der Natur (Love-Life in Nature)
(1898-1901)
- "Missbrauchte Frauenkraft" ("Misuse of Female Strength"), a review
of a book by the same name, 1898
- "Ketzereien gegen die moderne Frau" ("Heresies against the Modern
Woman"), 1899
- "Der Mensch als Weib" ("The Human Being as Woman"), 1899
- "Gedanken fiber das Liebensproblem" ("Thoughts on the Problem of
Love"), 1900
- Die Erotik (The Erotic), 1910
- "Zum Typus Weib", 1914
- "Anal" and "Sexual", 1916
- "Psychosexualitat" ("Psychosexuality"), 1917.
An informal working out of Salome's philosophy of love and sex is to
be found in her opus of fiction, which invariably focuses upon the problematics of female-male relationships from a woman's point of view. By
dealing with the experiential aspects of love and sexuality these works constitute a feminine phenomenology.
94
Lou Salome
43. Both Salome and Nietzsche seem to agree on the adverse affects of rampant
logic. In Twilight of the Idols Nietzsche criticizes Socrates for "hypertrophy of the logical faculty. . . . Honest things, like honest men, do not
carry their reasons in their hands .... One chooses dialectic only when
one has no other means"; "The Problem of Socrates", 4, 5, 6, trans. by
Walter Kaufmann and included in The Portable Nietzsche, pp. 475-76.
The major difference between the two philosophers on this point is that
Nietzsche sees this problem as a sign of decadence, while for Salome it
is merely a another sign of the inferiority of the masculine.
44. "Infidelity", Freud Journal, p. 125.
45. "The Human Being as Woman", pp. 234, 232; trans. and quoted by
Livingstone, pp. 136-37.
46. Henrik Ibsen's Frauen-Gestalten (Henrik Ibsen's Female Characters),
1891. The characters include Nora (A Doll's House), Mrs. Alving (Ghosts),
Hedwig (The Wild Duck), Rebecca (Rosmersholm), Ellida (The Lady from
the Sea), and Hedda (Hedda Gabler).
47. "Thoughts on the Problem of Love", p. 1016, as trans. and quoted by
Livingstone, pp. 138. This presents an interesting parallel with Spinoza's
notion of God's self-love, which is identified with the human mind's
intellectual love of God and described as a divine rejoicing in selfperfection (Ethics, V, xxxv, proof). No better model of positive narcissism, a key concept in Salome's later psychoanalytic work, can be
imagined.
48. "Thoughts on the Problem of Love", 1022; quoted by Binion, p. 256.
49. "Nicht nur ohne Trotz- oder gar Schuldgeftihle, sondem so, wie Gesegnetes
begegnet, durch die Welt vollkommen wird"; Lebensruckblick, p. 215,
trans. and quoted by Livingstone, p. 100.
50. " ... the physical representation of our affection enters at a point where
we can no longer follow it of ourselves, our feeling being bounded by consciousness. A higher symbol, as it were, it contains more than our orbit
can reach; and so it is with all the final transcendental mysteries of love."
"Forepleasure and Endpleasure", Freud Journal, p. 119.
51. "Man and Woman - Bisexuality", Freud Journal, p. 189. In this same
text ("Male and Female", pp. 60-61) Salome remarks:
In love making itself, i.e., when the sexes are most sharply differentiated, where woman seems truly woman and man truly man, a
recollection of one's own bisexual being seems to be awakened by
the opposite sex, as a consequence of the other's profound approach,
his understanding, and his embrace. In love and in submission we are
given the gift of ourselves, we are made more actual, more encompassing, more wedded to ourselves, and this alone is the true efficacy
of love, giving life and joy. That is equally true for the second side
of our being (male or female, respectively) which otherwise is likely
to shrivel up and be suppressed, unchampioned in the struggle for
existence. If we give ourselves, we possess ourselves entirely, in the
image of the beloved - a seeming modesty!
Lou Salome
95
96
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
Lou Salome
(shadow): "The right picture is rather that of the plant around high noon:
then it casts its own shadow straight down beneath it, a self-duplication
wherein it gazes on its own repeated outline, its finest safeguard from
the great flame that would consume it before its fruiting." Similarly,
Salome sees "the repressing force as a concomitant of organic development, i.e., not only as a cultural factor or one produced by outer
developments or pathologically." "Resistance - Repression", p. 190.
Salome's earliest psychoanalytical article was "Vom fruhen Gottesdienst"
("Of Early Divine Service"), 1913. Discussing her motivations with Freud,
Salome concludes "To begin with, it was nothing but the kind of neutral
objective interest that one feels when embarking on new researches. Then
the opportunity came in all its liveliness and personal urgency to stand
in the presence of a new science, again and again to be at a beginning
and thus related to the problems of science in an increasingly intimate way.
What settled the matter for me, however, was the third and most personal
reason that psychoanalysis bestowed a gift on me personally, its radiant
enrichment of my own life that came from slowly groping the way to
the roots by which it is embedded in the totality."; February 2, 1913, Freud
Journal, pp. 89-90.
"Discussions on Masturbation - Female and Male", Freud Journal,
p. 99. Earlier in the Journal ("The Nature of Punishment", p. 36) a
significant observation occurs which seems to refer to sexuality: "What
primitive man knew all along, that life is all we have to obey, that 'joy
is perfection' (Spinoza), we rediscover only in states of untrammeled
ecstasy antithetical to morality - inspired states of the noblest egoism."
"The Human Being as Woman", Imago, 1914. Salome waxes rhapsodic
when she proclaims "Woman - the fortunate animal: really just as prone
to regressive narcissism as the neurotic, not really undifferentiated like
animals, but a regressive without a neurosis .... Only in womankind is
sexuality no surrender of the ego boundary, no schism.... 'So do thou
give as giveth a woman who loves. The fruits of her giving abide in her
bosom. ' " In comparison to this the man is indeed, for Salome, "the weaker
sex". "The Commonplace - Man and Woman", Freud Journal, p. 116.
See especially "The Dual Orientation of Narcissism".
November 26, 1912, Freud Journal, pp. 56-57.
"The Dual Orientations of Narcissism", 9.
"The Dual Orientation of Narcissism", 5, 7.
March 5, 1913, Freud Journal, pp. 110-11.
Freud often had occasion to assist Salome during the war years by encouraging her to charge patients at a reasonable rate (she tended to undercharge
or charge nothing) and sending her 1000 marks from his 10,000 mark
Goethe prize.
As evidence that Salome did not unrealistically idealize the feminine,
we have her denial that rule by women would prevent the existence of war.
Lebensriickblick, pp. 184.
Writing to Freud on May 18, 1918, Salome says "Of my own personal
life I would rather say nothing, because - in consequence of having
Lou Salome
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
97
98
77.
78.
79.
80.
Lou Salome
its essence. In my eyes, such a relation obtains between this subject and
you." Quoted by Binion, p. 237.
Scheler had several interchanges with Salome, as she herself reports
- "with all the interrupted leaps and bounds in his brilliant conversation
- often following one another disconnectedly - the most enduring impression is really this: a tremendously logical mode of expression grounded
in tremendously personal experience .... His philosophy acquires its allure
from its transparency as a form of self-analysis and self-healing, but that
is what makes it fragile." September 29-30, 1913, Freud Journal, pp. 175,
176.
And it was because of Nietzsche that the relationship between Salome
and Meysenbug was ultimately broken. Nietzsche's sister, Elizabeth,
enlisted the aid of Meysenbug to seek revenge against Salome following
the unfortunate "affair" with her brother. See Peters, p. 144.
Paul Ree (1850-1901) was trained as a philosopher. His thought followed
the lines of Positivism, and he is often described as a disciple of Auguste
Comte. His study of Arthur Schopenhauer was the basis of his friendship with Nietzsche, who also was deeply influenced by Schopenhauer.
Ree's works include Psychologische Beobachtungen (Psychological
Observations) (1875), Der Ursprung der moralischen Empfindungen (The
Origin of Moral Feelings) (1877), described by the newly-formed British
journal Mind as espousing a Darwinian sense of ethical evolution, and
Die Entstehung des Gewissens (The Emergence of Conscience) (1885);
Livingstone, p. 229, note to p. 33. Insight into Ree's character is given
by the fact that he chose a quiet comer of St. Peter's in Rome as the
place to write his book disproving the existence of God. This also happened
to be the very place where Salome and Nietzsche first met.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900), represents one of the outstanding minds
in the history of western philosophy, being claimed variously by existentialists, nihilists, phenomenologists, and proponents of various other
schools. He is best known for his unorthodox method of presentation
and his ultimate end in insanity. Through Nietzsche's early connection
with Richard Wagner his work was outrageously exploited by Nazi theorists in support of their racist doctrines, aided by his anti-Semitic sister
Elizabeth.
Nietzsche writes to Franz Overbeck in September, 1882 of the unique
"philosophical openness" ("philosophische Offenheit") existing between
himself and Salome; trans. and quoted by Livingstone, p. 46 from Friedrich
Nietzsche, Paul Ree, Lou von Salome: The Documents of their Meeting,
p. 229. Most of all Nietzsche saw in Salome an embodiment of his ideas:
"she is prepared, as no other person is, for the hitherto unexpressed part
of my philosophy." [fUr den bisher fast verschwiegenen Theil meiner
Philosophie vorbereit ist, wie kein anderer Mensch"]; letter to Franz
Overbeck, November, 1882, trans. and quoted by Livingstone, p. 52,
from Documents, p. 246. When the "affair" had run its course Nietzsche
mused "The peculiar misfortune of the last two years consisted most strictly
in the fact that I thought I had found someone who had exactly the same
Lou Salome
99
84. Freud obituary, trans. and quoted by Livingstone, p. 236 (note to p. 193).
Viktor von Weizslicker states "because of her own originality she was
entirely free of psychoanalytical dogmatism..... In Lou Andreas-Salome
I met the rare case of somebody who, having understood this new science
profoundly, had yet remained herself. I have never again, either before
or afterwards, met it as convincingly as with her"; Natur und Geist:
100
85.
86.
87.
88.
Lou Salome
Erinnerungen eines Artzes (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1955),
p. 186; trans. and quoted by Peters, pp. 293-94.
Letter from Freud to Salome, July 10, 1931, in Letters, p. 195. Mein
Dank an Freud: Oftener Brief an Professor Sigmund Freud zu seinem
75 Geburtstag. Vienna, 1931. Salome seem to have thought of her relationship to psychoanalysis in these same terms of comradery rather than
discipleship. Writing in here diary in December of 1911, a few months
after her initial meeting with Freud, she reports: "Ceaselessly concerned
with psycho-analysis, with ever-growing admiration for Freud's ruthless
consistency. I am penetrating deeper into it than I did with Bjerre [a
Swedish psychotherapist]. I can see where the latter stops. If one avoids
that, the springs gush forth." Quoted by Pfeiffer in his ed. Sigmund Freud
and Lou Andreas-Salome, trans. William and Elaine Robson-Scott (New
York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Inc., 1972), p. 212.
Another point of divergence noticed by Freud himself occurs in a
letter from Freud to Salome, July 30, 1915, Letters, p. 32: "I so rarely
feel the need for synthesis."
E. M. Butler describes Salome as "one of those interesting and problematical women who so often beset the paths of poets"; Rainer Maria Rilke
(Cambridge: 1946), p. 21.
Peters (p. 284) records a conversation on the therapeutic aspect of art
for the artist which took place between Salome and a doctor she was
analyzing. Salome mentioned her relationship with Rilke which, she stated,
led to the realization of "the danger of psychoanalysis for the creative artist.
To interfere here means to destroy .... A germ-free soul is a sterile
soul."
Writing to Rilke (February 16, 1922); trans. and quoted by Livingstone,
p. 170) upon the completion of his Duino Elegies Salome remarks:
I sat and read and howled with joy, and it was far from being merely
joy, but was something more powerful, as if a curtain were divided,
tom through, and everything all at once had become quiet and certain
and present and good.
And in a later letter (March 6, 1922; trans. and quoted by Livingstone,
p. 171):
Yes, these are the gardens of my most secret home from time immemorial, childhood and youth and all existence have always stood in the
midst of these gardens and grown eternal there. This I shall never be
able to tell you, what this means to me and how I have been unconsciously waiting to receive what is yours as mine like this, as life's
veritable consummation. I shall be grateful to you for this as long as
I live.
89. Rainer Maria Rilke. In fact, it has been suggested by Ernst Pfeiffer (in
"Rilke und die Psychoanalyse", p. 253) that Salome's primary motivation in her pursuit of psychoanalysis was to help Rilke. This judgment does
Lou Salome
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
10 1
102
Lou Salome
Mary Whiton Calkins, philosopher and psychologist, was the first woman
to be elected president of the American Philosophical Association. She
lived during "the golden age" of American philosophy and studied under
two of the classic American philosophers, William James and Josiah
Royce. Though she was influenced by both of these teachers, her philosophy has been described as a continuation and development of Royce's
idealism.l Yet it also takes account of her own empirical knowledge of
psychology.
Since she achieved distinction in two professional fields, we shall
consider her achievements in both of these fields. We shall look first
at the main facts of her life, then at her work in psychology, and finally
at her work in philosophy.
I. BIOGRAPHY
104
whom she travelled first to Italy and then to Greece, to visit places of
historical interest.
In September of 1887 she began teaching in the Greek Department
at Wellesley College. After receiving an M.A. from Smith College in
1888, and after being invited to teach psychology at Wellesley, she
studied psychology at Clark University and psychology and philosophy
at Harvard University. Although she completed all the work for a Harvard
Ph.D. and though William James said her oral examination ranked above
any he had previously heard, the Harvard Corporation refused to grant
her the degree because Harvard University did not give degrees to
women. In 1902 Radcliffe College offered her a doctor's degree as a
substitute for the Harvard degree, but she declined because her work
had been done at Harvard, not at Radcliffe. She was awarded the honorary
doctoral degrees: Doctor of Letters from Columbia University in 1909,
and Doctor of Laws from Smith College in 1910.
While continuing her interest in the field of psychology, she gradually devoted more of her time to the studying, teaching, and writing of
philosophy. She was honored by her peers in both fields. In 1905 she
became the first woman president of the American Psychological
Association, and in 1918 she served as the first woman president of
the American Philosophical Association. She was given the title of
Research Professor when she retired from Wellesley College in June,
1929.
She had enjoyed good health for most of her life, but after an operation in November, 1929, she learned that she was incurably ill. She
died three months later on February 26, 1930. A memorial service was
held at the Wellesley College Chapel on April 13, 1930.3
Since she is remembered for her achievements in two fields, we shall
take note of her work in each of those fields. We shall begin with her
work in psychology.
II. PSYCHOLOGY
1. Education, Contributions, and Publications in the Field of
Psychology
Psychology was not Mary Calkins' first choice of a field of specialization. She had been teaching Greek and she liked philosophy,
but when she was invited to prepare herself to teach psychology at
105
Wellesley College, she accepted the invitation and sought the best
possible preparation.
At that time the opportunities for a woman to do graduate work in psychology were limited, but she received permission to attend a seminar
given by William James at Harvard. She says:
I began the serious study of psychology with William James. Most
unhappily for them and most fortunately for me the other members
of his seminary in psychology dropped away in the early weeks of
the fall of 1890; and James and I were left ... quite literally at
either side of a library fire. The Principles of Psychology was warm
from the press; and my absorbed study of those brilliant, erudite,
and provocative volumes, as interpreted by their writer, was my introduction to psychology.4
During the fall of 1890 she also began work in experimental psychology under the guidance of Dr. Edmund Sanford, a teacher at Clark
University, and for parts of three years, beginning in the Fall of 1892
she worked in the Harvard Psychology Laboratory under the direction
of Hugo Munsterberg who had recently come to Harvard from Freiburg.
These three men, James, Sanford, and Munsterberg, she later referred
to as her "great teachers in psychology."s
During the 1891-1892 school year she introduced a new course in
psychology at Wellesley and, with Dr. Sanford's help, she established
a psychology laboratory at the college, one of the earliest psychology
laboratories in the country and the first one in any college for women. 6
In 1892 she also began her work as a publishing scholar. In the field
of psychology she has published four books and more than sixty articles.
Topics treated in her articles include association, dreams, mental forms,
sensation, elements of conscious complexes, emotions, experimental
psychology at Wellesley College, genetic and comparative psychology,
structural and functional psychology, behaviorism, the Gestalt theory, self
in psychoanalytic theory.7
Her books in the field of psychology include Association: An Essay
Analytic and Experimental (1896) (her doctoral thesis); An Introduction
to Psychology (first published in 1901); a summary of the teaching of the
Introduction which she wrote in German and published under the title:
Der Doppelte Standpunkt in der Psychologie (1905); and A First Book
in Psychology (first published in 1909). Of her works in psychology
the two textbooks in English were the most widely known. There were
106
In both of her books and in many of her articles she is concerned with
the question: What is psychology?
The early history of psychology is intertwined with the history of
philosophy, but whatever differences early 20th century psychologists
may have had among themselves they maintained that psychology is
not a subdivision of philosophy. Calkins agreed with her fellow psychologists that their field is a science, "a systematic study of facts of
phenomena; that is, of limited or partial realities, as related to each
other without reference to a more fundamental reality."ll Unlike philosophy, psychology does not try to study the whole of reality nor should
it try to relate phenomena to ultimate reality.
Some psychologists have treated their science as a branch of physiology; some as a science of ideas; some as a science of mental functions.
While trying to be as conciliatory as possible to each of these views
Calkins does not think that psychology can be reduced to anyone of
them. Those who would reduce psychology to physiology hold that
consciousness literally consists in bodily reactions. While granting that
psychology rightly attempts to ascertain the bodily conditions for consciousness, she says that "it does not thereby lose its own identity as a
study of conscious phenomena.,,12
She agrees that psychology can be studied as "science of ideas;" that
is, it can treat "of the contents-of-consciousness as such, of psychic
107
While holding that through introspection we know the self, Miss Calkins
admits that the self-psychologist cannot directly dispute the statement
of the person who asserts that he never finds a self. But she points
out that Hume's famous arguments are incapable of disproving the
108
existence of a self and that there is a naive inconsistency in the assertion of anyone who says, "I find no self." She asks:
For who ... is this I which denies that it observed an I? In a word,
I accuse my critic of assuming, in almost every paragraph, the existence of the very self whom he disbars. 19
And elsewhere she reiterates that all the critics of her self-psychology
imply a self "in their unguarded moments and paragraphs.,,20
The self that she finds through introspection cannot, strictly speaking,
be defined, but it can be described. It has the following characteristics
or properties, all of which she is directly aware of:
a) It is relatively persistent ("I am in some sense the same as my childhood self");
b) It is changing being ("I the adult self differ from that ten-year old");
c) It is complex ("I am a perceiving, remembering, feeling, willing
self.");
d) It is a unique irreplaceable self ("I am I and you are you. No one,
however similar, can take the place of you or of me");
e) It is related to objects, both personal and impersonal. 21
Though Calkins intends to be speaking here as a psychologist, limiting
her account of the self to what is immediately experienced, the philosopher might wonder: What is the relation of this self to the soul? And what
is its relation to body?
Calkins carefully distinguishes between the psychologist's self and the
philosopher's soul and regrets the confusion that results from assuming
that they are identical. In "Self and Soul" she says that the traditional
doctrine of the soul as simple spiritual substance suffers from two
significant defects: (1) it conceives soul after a material analogy (since
in the most primitive belief, soul was merely a shadowy sort of body)
or as endowed with mere negations of bodily characteristics (such as
unextended, indivisible); and (2) it lacks the concrete characteristics
of the modern concept of self and leaves soul-substance as an empty
abstraction. 22
What especially concerned Miss Calkins was that some psychologists refused to acknowledge the existence of the self because they had
mistakenly identified it with the notion of soul which they could not
accept. In "The Case of Self against the Soul" she notes that in the history
109
of philosophy soul has had three functions: biological (or vitalistic), metaphysical, and psychological. That is, it has been regarded as the source
or explanation of life; as a simple, immaterial substance; and as a source
of consciousness. But modern biologists do not think that soul is
necessary to account for life-functions, and modern philosophers and
psychologists regard the notion of soul as simple spiritual substance as
a myth or abstraction. Because the notion of the self, that is, the conscious factor, has been associated with the other two functions which
in our time have lost credibility, the self also has been rejected.
Calkins protests against the expulsion of self along with the soul.
She seems to be saying: Though you may throw out the soul with its
dubiously inferred characteristics, do not throw out the conscious self,
which is directly experienced. Self is not soul. 23
But one may also wonder: "How is this conscious self related to
body?" In one of her articles she asks: "Is the self body?" and gives a
negative answer. The self is not body nor is the body part of the self.
Some psychologists regard the self as a psychophysical organism, a
psycho-soma or conscious body or mind-in-body or a mind-and-body
complex, with the body definitely constituting part of the self. But she
thinks this view implies that every function would have to be psychophysical and thus it would fail to account for the admitted distinction
of functions that are just psychical (conscious functions) and those that
are just physical (such as digestion and circulation). Instead of insisting
on a unity of mind and body she finds it simpler and more logical to
admit the existence of a psychical functioner in close relation to a
physical functioner. 24
One psychologist attributed to Mary Calkins the view that self is mindwithout-body, self unrelated to body, or pure disembodied spirit, but
she says that she never held or meant to teach such a view. Her view
is that self is distinct from body but related to it. Its varying experiences may in part be explained by reference to nerve excitations, to
muscular contractions, and to organic accommodations. 25 There are
certain physical facts which regularly precede or accompany certain facts
of consciousness, but the reference to physical facts is subsidiary to
the psychologist's description of conscious experience, since the self does
not consist in body. It is not made up of body-and-mind. Rather, she
says that self has body.26
Whatever questions there might be about the precise relation of body
to self in her psychology, she was a leading exponent of self-psychology.
In commenting on her work, one critic said:
110
111
III. PHILOSOPHY
1. Education, Contributions, and Publications in Philosophy
Mary Calkins showed some interest in philosophy when she was a student
at Newton High School. She chose as the subject of her graduation essay:
"The Apology Which Plato Should Have Written: A Vindication of the
Character of Xantippe." At Smith College she majored in classics and
philosophy. She was later to acknowledge her indebtedness to her first
instructors in philosophy, Professor Charles E. Garman who introduced
her to idealism, and Professor Harry N. Gardiner, under whom she studied
Hume and Kant. At Harvard she studied metaphysics with Josiah Royce
and came to be known as "the most prominent pupil of Royce.,,34
At Wellesley College, as we have seen, she was first a teacher of Greek
and then a teacher of psychology, but her freshman Greek course included
the study of Plato's Apology and Crito, and in 1888 she mentioned her
deep interest in philosophy to Mary S. Case, a teacher of philosophy
at Wellesley. After another person who was trained in experimental
psychology joined the Wellesley faculty, Mary Calkins was able to devote
more time to philosophy.35 The sequence of titles that she held at
Wellesley College is at once a summary of her career and of her professional interests. After serving as tutor and instructor in Greek from
1887 to 1890, she held the following titles:
-
112
ophy and in metaphysics. Its full title was: The Persistent Problems of
Philosophy: An Introduction to Metaphysics through the Study of Modern
Systems. The modern systems she discusses are those of Descartes,
Hobbes, Leibniz, Berkeley, Hume, Kant. Spinoza, Fichte, Schelling,
Schopenhauer, Hegel, and some contemporary philosophers. She tries
to give a fair and accurate account of their views. based on their texts,
and at the same time to evaluate them from the standpoint of her own
personal idealism. In commenting on her work, E. S. Brightman has said:
Few historians of philosophy have ventured to combine, as does she,
objective exposition with critical evaluation. Her masterpiece, The
Persistent Problems of Philosophy (1907), is a remarkable combination of these two factors ... it must be conceded that Miss Calkins
has shown unusual skill in making her criticisms of the various
thinkers grow up out of the internal implications of the systems with
which she is concerned, rather than applying any external a priori
standards of evaluation .... 38
She also revised a translation of La Mettrie's Man a Machine; edited
some of the writings of Hobbes. Locke, Hume. and Berkeley; and published an ethics textbook entitled The Good Man and the Good. 39 She
wrote and published more than thirty philosophical articles on such
subjects as time, idealism and realism. soul and self. the personalistic
conception of nature, the basis of objective judgments in subjective ethics,
Kant's doctrine of knowledge, Hegelian categories, Schopenhauer.
Bertrand Russell, Bergson as a personalist, Royce's philosophy and
Christian theism. She also wrote a statement of her own philosophical
credo, which can serve as a guide to her main philosophical ideas.
113
"The second article . . . embodies the conviction that mental realities are ultimately personal, that the mental phenomena which I
directly observe are not percepts, thoughts, emotions, and volitions,
in unending succession, but rather perceiving, thinking, feeling, and
willing self or selves."
3) " ... the universe is through and through mental in character, ...
all that is real is ultimately mental, and accordingly personal in
nature."
4) " ... the universe literally is one all-including (and accordingly
complete) self of which all the lesser selves are genuine and identical parts or members.,,41
2)
114
She prefers the position of Leibniz and Royce who conceived of the
physical world as made up of selves, though of an extra-human type.
Influenced by Leibniz's doctrine of bare simple monads (as distinguished
from his rational monads), Miss Calkins conceived the conscious
selves that constitute the infra-human world as being like herself in her
"inattentive, dazed, inactive, sleepy states.,,45 Since they are at a low level
of consciousness, there seems no hope of getting them to talk to us,
but she would explain the difference between such physical objects and
persons not by saying that persons are conscious and things are not
conscious, but by using Royce's distinction between communicative
and uncommunicative selves. She holds that a non-human or infra-human
being is still a self, though incommunicative. 46
She insists that her personalistic nature philosophy should not be
regarded as a return to a pre-scientific animism. She is not personifying trees and rivers. She does not interpret every recurring sensecomplex as an individual self (for example, a tree-self or a pebble-self);
but, more likely as a part or aspect of a non-human self or group
of such selves. She says that the modern personalist emphasizes
the differences between selves of different levels and does not claim
to have a definite conception of any selves with whom he has no
communication. 47
But how, from her starting point, can she know that any other selves,
whether human or non-human exist? She says that she bases her idealism
on Berkeley's fundamental position: "that what any man unchallengeably
knows ... is himself and his experiencing." How then can one get beyond
oneself and one's own ideas to a certainly of the existence of another
self? Her way of escaping solipsism is by arguing:
In that direct experience of myself which is, as yet, the only immediate certainly I have admitted, I am aware of myself as, at many points
involuntarily limited, thwarted, and hampered. But this direct awareness of myself as involuntarily limited involves and includes the direct
consciousness of something which-is-in-some-sense-outside-me. 48
She suggests that the two seemingly contradictory assertions, that
she is conscious (1) of limit, but also (2) of somewhat-beyond-the-limit,
are reconcilable only if this "somewhat-other" is conceived as a greater
self of which she is a part. If this be true, then in fully knowing herself,
she knows the nature of that greater including self.49
This reasoning leads to the fourth article of her philosophical credo:
115
116
harder to see, the Absolute shares the evil of the partial included selves,
but he also transcends it since evil here is only a subordinate element
in a wider total good, "as a chord which, taken by itself, is a discord,
may yet form part of a larger harmony.,,54
The relation of finite selves to the Absolute Self is not easy to explain.
One might well wonder: How is the Absolute absolute if he includes
finite selves? And how do the finite selves retain their individuality if
they exist merely as manifestations of an including absolute self? To
the first question Calkins would say again that the Absolute is not an
aggregate, a sum total of separate independent finite selves, but One
Whole which determines the nature of its many included parts. 55 To show
how that One can keep its unity while still including many, she uses
an analogy from our human experience. Each one of us experiences
himself or herself as a hierarchy of partial selves: a reasoning and impulsive self, a conscientious and reckless self, a business-like and a
speculative self, yet we recognize that no one of these conflicting selves,
but the whole of which they are parts constitutes the human me; so
similarly all the finite selves may be parts of the One Absolute Sel[56
To understand how the finite selves can retain their individuality we
must be aware that the Absolute is not only a thinking self, but a willing
self, and that will, "the supreme, assertive attitude," is "the basal relation
of Absolute to partial self.,,57 The Absolute is the cause of finite realities which exist as his purposes, and these purposes can be expressed
both through non-human selves and through human selves. 58 Since each
individual represents a different purpose of the Absolute Self, the existence of distinct individuals is not merely reconcilable with the Absolute
but essential to him. Calkins tries to assure us that our human individuality will be maintained when she says:
You and I, so far from being swallowed up in the absolute self, so
far from being lost or engulfed in the ultimate I, find the guarantee
of our individual reality precisely herein that we are essential and
unique expressions of this absolute self.... 59
To summarize Miss Calkins' philosophical creed we can say that she
conceived the universe as not merely mental but personal, that is as
constituted of selves of varying levels or grades of personality, existing
as parts or members of the One Absolute Self. This metaphysical position
of absolutistic personalism or monistic personal idealism also had implications for other areas of philosophy.
117
Implied in Miss Calkins' metaphysics is a philosophy of nature, a philosophy of God, a theory of knowledge, and, taken together with her
self-psychology, a philosophy of human nature. Each of these could
well be the subject of a long, separate study, as could her work in the
history of philosophy as manifested in some of her articles, in her editions
of modem philosophers, and in her book, The Persistent Problems of
Philosophy.
But in our limited account, we must also take note of her interest in
ethics, as reflected in her book, The Good Man and the Good. Ethics,
for Miss Calkins, was a division of psychology, yet it also was linked
to metaphysics. She thought that a complete metaphysics always must
concern itself with the facts of ethics, that is, "the philosopher must
rightly know the moral self and his object, the good, in their relation
to the rest of the universe.,,60 Her purpose in her ethics textbook is to
present not a science of abstractions, but a study of live men. 61
The title of the book is a concise statement of its contents. Calkins
begins by trying to state what a good man is (namely, one who wills
the good); then she considers what the good is; and in the last few
chapters she discusses how a person becomes good.
Though her description of the good as that which is willed for its
own sake echoes Aristotle, its identification with the universal community of selves comes from Royce's discussion of the Great Society and
the philosophy of loyalty. For Calkins, as for Royce, the good man is
he who is loyal to the universe of selves of which he himself is a member.
This view overcomes the opposition between egoism and altruism since
the good man is indeed loyal to himself, but to himself not in isolation
from, but as related to the Great Community of which he is an organic
part. 62
Since she agrees with Aristotle that we study ethics not primarily to
know the good, but in order to become good, she moves on to a discussion of good habits or virtues, linking her comments to what she
has learned in psychology about instincts. She defines a virtue as "a habit
of will through which a man controls his instinctive tendencies in such
wise that he furthers the chief good.,,63 Like Aristotle she holds that a
virtue is a mean, a balance between two opposing vices, but she includes
some new applications of that teaching in her discussion, for example,
of the conformer and the non-conformer, of the controlled pugnacity
of the militant man, and of justice in relation to the question about the
118
119
120
NOTES
1. Edgar Sheffield Brightman, "Mary Whiton Calkins: Her Place in
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
121
122
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
123
I. BIOGRAPHY
126
L. Susan Stebbing
L. Susan Stebbing
127
128
L. Susan Stebbing
II. PHILOSOPHY
L. Susan Stebbing
129
130
L. Susan Stebbing
New Philosophy go to the other extreme and utterly divorce the useful
from the true" (PFV, p. 73).
The anti-intellectualism of the pragmatists is rather different from that
of the Bergsonians. Stebbing reviews the work of Charles Renouvier
by way of building a bridge from the pragmatists to Kant. Though not
himself properly considered a pragmatist, the part Kant assigns to will
in establishing truth opens, in her view, an avenue for the pragmatists
in developing their own criterion of truth. Renouvier finds the existence of possible doubt in all judgments in the liberty of will. Since,
he argues, error and truth are distinguished one from the other, and
since free decision is possible, then doubt is also possible. To will to
affirm a judgment becomes, according to Renouvier, the only escape from
scepticism (PFV, p. 102). Stebbing responds:
It may be granted that we cannot set out from the circle of doubt
L. Susan Stebbing
131
With the publication of A Modern Introduction to Logic 9 Stebbing established her reputation as a metaphysician equal to the questions posed
by logic and the foundations of science. The book's value lay not so much
in its original developments in formal logic as in its clear exposition
of various logical theories and in its lucid discussion of the metaphysical problems the new logical techniques raised.
Stebbing set out with this book to fill what she perceived as a major
132
L. Susan Stebbing
matical logic, but only to enable him to realize that the principles of
symbolic logic are not peculiar to a special kind of study but are
principles exemplified in everyday reflective thinking no less than
in mathematical deductions. I have not sought to write an introduction to symbolic logic; my purpose has been to emphasize the
connexion between Aristotelian logic and symbolic logic, and thus
to write a text-book which will include as little as possible that the
student has subsequently to unlearn, or for the teaching of which the
modern logician feels it necessary to apologize. (MIL, ix)
Because it will be important in later work by Stebbing, we must take
note of the fact that even in this text the intent of which is to bring
mathematical logic to the attention of students and readers, Stebbing
has twice already mentioned "ordinary reasoning" and "everyday reflec-
L. Susan Stebbing
133
134
L. Susan Stebbing
L. Susan Stebbing
135
p.56)
136
L. Susan Stebbing
3. Logic in Practice
It is not, however, the case that Stebbing allowed no place for the pur-
p. 1)
The most highly developed form of such directed thinking is reasoning
(LIP, p. 10). While Stebbing asserts that all thinking is purposive, she
is not averse, as is Schiller, to its formal representation in symbol. On
the contrary, it is her view that sound reasoning is a habit which can
be more fully developed by the study of logical principles, and the
intent of this slim volume is to relay these principles to the non-academic
audience.
Despite the nontechnical emphasis of the book, Stebbing does still
manage to emphasize the value of a formal approach to reasoning. In a
chapter entitled "The Importance of Form" she illustrates the form of
deductive inference through a number of examples. In one of these an
investigative committee has been formed to search for the causes of a
fire aboard a passenger steamer. The committee has no immediately available premises that entail an answer to their question. In lieu of data
they were forced to assert and test a number of hypotheses: 1) that an
unnoticed lighted match had come in contact with some combustible part
of the ship and had ignited; 2) that a wire had shorted out; or 3) that
someone had deliberately set the ship on fire. In hypothesis number
1) the unnoticed match, for example, the argument breaks out into the
following form:
L. Susan Stebbing
137
(1) If so, then the match was dropped in a cabin or in a public part
of the ship, and the fire began in the place where the match was
dropped.
(2) But, the fire broke out in the luggage-room (i.e. not in a cabin
nor in a public part of the ship).
(3) Therefore, the cause of the fire was not a lighted match. (LIP,
p.26)
She goes on to illustrate this symbolically:
If HI, then C1,
but not C1,
not HI.
(LIP, p. 27)
138
L. Susan Stebbing
follows that others cannot be directly taught to think any more than
they can be directly made into other sorts of persons than they are.
What can be taught indirectly, however, is the content of thinking since
all thinking is about something (/&T, p. 16). With her usual directness
Stebbing says that though "Only a fool or a logician would suggest that
we could train people to think by giving them facility in the use of the
delightful language of pure logic," students can be taught to ask themselves "What is it exactly that I am saying?" (/&T, p. 17).
The B.B.C. asked Stebbing to follow up this lecture with twelve
talks. She was never able to accomplish the radio series, but the synopsis
she submitted for the proposed talks became Thinking to Some Purpose. 19
And it is in this book that Stebbing goes to some lengths to get students
and general readers alike to ask themselves not only what they are saying
but also what twisted thinking and crooked arguments they are using
and/or falling prey to. While this book recaps some of the points in Logic
in Practice, particularly with regard to thinking as a purposive activity,
the two books differ primarily in that the latter deals with reasoning in
its formal aspects while Thinking to Some Purpose is a practical guide
to the numerous obstacles thrown in the paths of those who would wish
to think clearly. From the prologue, intriguingly entitled "Are the English
Illogical?", to the epilogue "Democracy and Freedom of Mind," Stebbing
demonstrates through example after example - drawn from the speeches
of politicians, from newspapers, and from advertising - the common
fallacies, the dangers of propaganda, what she calls potted thinking,
problems of statistical evidence, and potential misuses of analogy in
argument.
5. A Modern Elementary Logic
Stebbing's final book on logic, A Modern Elementary Logic,20 which
appeared in 1943 was in many ways a pared down version of the earlier
A Modern Introduction to Logic. In this textbook written with the express
purpose of preparing first-year students for the logic examinations,
Stebbing felt free to exclude some of the "technical trivialities" she'd
been constrained by the form of the exams to include in the earlier test.
In addition, discussions on scientific method are more restricted. The
book also differs from the earlier text in that Stebbing, keeping in mind
students who, like members of the armed forces, were studying on their
own without the assistance of a tutor, devised an appendix intended to
answer students' most commonly asked questions about logic.
L. Susan Stebbing
139
140
L. Susan Stebbing
Jeans has not suggested any criterion for meaning relative to distances,
and, she claims, it is absurd for him to assert that distances are either
"meaningless" or "meaningful." He misuses metaphor in a similar way
when he adds to the above description that "into such a universe we have
stumbled" and goes on to speak of the universe as being "indifferent"
or even "hostile." Stebbing counters that these terms can only bear
significance when they are predicated of living beings (P&P, pp.
12-13).
In The New Background of Science Jeans again falls prey to anthropomorphism despite his own protests about the necessity of avoiding
it. Suggesting that scientific developments have led to the abandonment of the mechanical view of the universe, Jeans remarks:
We are beginning to see that man had freed himself from the anthropomorphic error of imagining that the workings of nature could be
compared to those of his own whims and caprices, only to fall
headlong into the second anthropomorphic error of imagining that they
could be compared to the workings of his own muscles and sinews.
Nature no more models her behaviour on the muscles and sinews
of our bodies than on the desires and caprices of our minds. (P&P,
p.22)
He himself, nonetheless, continues to insist, as Stebbing points out,
that nature models herself Furthermore, as his argument develops he
shifts with neither explicit clarification nor argument from a conception of "goddess Nature" to that of a universe consciously designed by
a God who has the qualities of a Great Mathematician. After extricating
the form of his argument from his ambiguous language, Stebbing concludes that Jeans has made two serious blunders. First, he's forgotten
that any given collection of objects can be brought within the scope of
mathematical formulae and analysis, and second he's failed to distinguish
pure from applied mathematics:
His first blunder has prevented him from seeing that what is surprising
is not that the world "obeys mathematical laws" but that terrestrial
mathematicians should be competent to discover them. His second
blunder leads him to impute to God the desire to make models of
his mathematical creations, in fact to make "graven images". (P&P,
p.26)
L. Susan Stebbing
141
When Jeans goes on from there to take a position that the findings
of the new physics support philosophic arguments for idealism and that
materialism and matter need redefinition in light of new knowledge,
Stebbing demurs: "both idealism and materialism, as understood by Jeans,
are out of date." Further, "these cloudy speculations of Sir James Jeans
cannot properly be regarded as affording the common reader any clear
information as to the 'philosophical implications' of the new physics"
(P&P, p. 42).
In Part II, "The Physicist and the World," Stebbing turns to the work
of Sir Arthur Eddington. First she addresses Eddington's famous passage
describing his entry into a room in The Nature of the Physical World.
He stands at the threshold knowing that in order to enter he must press
with a force of fourteen pounds per each square inch of his body. He
must step onto a plank travelling at twenty miles per second around
the sun.
I must do this whilst hanging from a round planet head outward into
space, and with a wind of aether blowing at no one knows how many
miles a second through every interstice of my body. The plank has
no solidity of substance. To step on it is like stepping on a swarm
of flies. 23
Lively as this description is, Stebbing charges that the mixing up of
language appropriate for "the furniture of earth and our daily dealings
with it with language used for the purpose of philosophical and scientific discussion" can only lead to confusion (P&P, p. 47). Adding the
disclaimer that some may see her criticism of a picturesque passage as
overly heavy-handed, Stebbing elaborates that the picturesqueness is
not itself at issue. Rather, his conclusion is at issue, i.e. that while it is
not problematic for an ordinary person to enter a room, it is problematic for a physicist to do so.
Furthermore, Stebbing examines just what Eddington claims when
he denies that the plank has solidity. Here she relies on the common,
ordinary usage of the word "solidity," for, she claims, we can only understand Eddington's denial of the solidity of the plank if, in fact, we do
understand what it means to say that the plank is solid. Either a misuse
or a figurative use of the term relies on some correct and literal use of
the term. "The point is that the common usage of language enables us
to attribute a meaning to the phrase 'a solid plank'; but there is no
142
L. Susan Stebbing
common usage of language that provides a meaning for the word 'solid'
that would make sense to say that the plank on which I stand is not solid"
(P&P, p. 52).
She goes on to point out another of Eddington's illustrative passages
that suffers from the same confusion of language. In this one he elaborates the "two tables" analogy. One is the familiar table that has extension,
color, substance - the table at which Eddington has sat and written for
years. The other is his scientific table which is really mostly empty space
because it consists of electric particles and charges. About this table,
he says, there is nothing substantial. Stebbing criticizes this view that
there are two tables, one belonging to the external world of physics
and the other to the familiar world. With this duplicate worlds theory,
Stebbing charges, he has fallen into the same error that Berkeley accused
the Newtonians of committing. In this case, as in others she claims,
Eddington's failure to familiarize himself with philosophy before venturing into its territory has done him in. Finally she suggests "that it is
as absurd to say that there is a scientific table as to say that there is a
familiar electron or a familiar quantum, or a familiar potential" (P&P,
p.58).
Eddington gets himself in further trouble with Stebbing by asserting
that the aim of science is to construct a world that is symbolic of the
world of common experience. She criticizes him for failing to make clear
in what way the symbolic construction of physics relates to the familiar
world. He wants to suggest that the familiar world is a delusion and,
hence, constructs an idealist metaphysics. Three lines of thought lead him
to this: 1) his notion of physics as "world-building"; 2) his belief that
physics concerns itself with "pointer readings" suggests the existence
of some background of an inscrutable nature; and 3) a belief that the
world of physics is symbolic of both the familiar world and this
inscrutable background (P&P, p. 83).
Further, she chides, his metaphorical use of the word "building" leads
him into some mystification. According to him the mind builds both
the scientific and the familiar worlds. In building the scientific world,
the scientist uses simple elements for which there is no counterpart in
the everyday world. These elements, such as energy, momentum, stress,
are selected or decided upon by the mind. Eddington asserts that
"Ultimately it is the mind that decides what is lumber - which part of
our building will shadow the things of common experience, and which
has no such counterpart" (P&P, p. 84). Stebbing, however, watching
the construction of his argument closely, notes:
L. Susan Stebbing
143
But when Eddington says "the mind decides", the common reader is
likely to attach quite a different significance to the statement.
Eddington himself does so. The mind decides is gradually transformed into the mind contributes, and then into, the mind creates. This
transformation is all important for his metaphysics, and is utterly
unwarranted. (P&P, p. 85)
Fundamental to Eddington's philosophy of science and metaphysics
in his view that science consists of pointer-readings. When he elects to
elaborate this view he presents his common reader with the example of
an examination question in which a student is asked to compute the
time of descent of an elephant sliding down a grassy hillside. The student
knows, in this example, that he can ignore the elephant per se; he need
only work with the two-ton mass accorded to the elephant. That is,
"Two tons is the reading of the pointer when the elephant was placed
on a weighing-machine" (P&P, pp. 92-3). The student is then given
the slope of the hill, the co-efficient for friction, and other data from
which to calculate his answer. About this Eddington remarks:
And so we see that the poetry fades out of the problem, and by the
time the serious application of exact science begins we are left with
only pointer readings. If then only pointer readings or their equivalents are put into the machine of scientific calculation, how can we
grind out anything but pointer readings? (P&P, p. 93)
Stebbing charges that in characterizing the situation in this way he
overlooks the way physical measurements are obtained and used for
prediction (P&P, p. 96). Here, as elsewhere, Eddington's failure to give
an adequate account of the relationship of the symbolic world of physics
to the familiar world of everyday experience has led him, and along
with him the common reader, into mystification and absurdity.
Another of Eddington's analogies that Stebbing feels draws him
inexorably into difficulty is that of the newspaper office. He sketches
it in this way:
The inside of your head must be rather like a newspaper office. It is
connected with the outside world by nerves which play the part of telegraph wires. Messages from the outside world arrive in code along
these wires; the whole substratum of fact is contained in these code
messages. Within the office they are made up into a presentable story,
144
L. Susan Stebbing
L. Susan Stebbing
145
146
L. Susan Stebbing
L. Susan Stebbing
147
148
L. Susan Stebbing
latter, the physical world or Nature, is that which physics is about . .. "
(P&P, p. 281)
Stebbing's final word on the problem of freedom is that it is ultimately
one of the self:
Human freedom consists in this: that we do not yet know what we
shall be, not because the knowledge is too difficult to acquire, not
because there are no certainties but only very great improbabilities,
but because we are not yet finished. We are begun; what we have
already become and are now becoming plays a part in what we shall
become. (P&P, p. 249)
L. Susan Stebbing
149
150
L. Susan Stebbing
L. Susan Stebbing
151
when we must set aside our own happiness and come to the aid of our
fellow-men. This is the subject of chapter V, "While Rome Is Burning."
As the title suggests, Stebbing uses the example of Nero fiddling while
Rome burns to illustrate a conflict between two values: the aesthetic value
of music and the arts and the value of saving lives. In the course of
this discussion she refers to Clive Bell's Civilization in which he sketches
the characteristics of a "civilized man." Given qualities such as, among
others, tolerance, intellectual honesty, and a taste for truth and beauty,
Bell reluctantly concedes that a "civilized" person cannot fail to take note
of the social conditions around him. Using this as a springboard, Stebbing
draws a parallel between Nero's Rome and Europe in the years preceding
World War II:
To-day, although Rome is not burning, not a few of the cities of Europe
are, or have been, in flames - deliberately set on fire. What does it
matter to us, if we be sensitive and intelligent men, provided that
our own city is not in flames or, if it is, if we can take refuge in
California and there produce masterpieces, or at least enjoy the
masterpieces of others? Mr. Bell has, I think, given us the answer.
We cannot remain unaware of what is happening; we may escape
the danger and the discomfort; we may still, far removed to a safe
place, continue our civilized pursuits; but we do so at a cost - the
cost of callousness or a sense of discomfort. (/&/, p. 96)
Bell's "civilized society" is not, in the end, a good society, according
to Stebbing, both because it was based on slaves at the bottom of a
hierarchy and because Bell's "civilized man" could not, by definition,
truly be aware of the suffering of others. Bell's "civilized man" might
well be like Nero and fiddle while all about him burns; the ideal to which
Stebbing aspires would not admit of such callousness.
Stebbing turns next to political ideals. She claims that:
the necessity is thrust upon us of making clear to ourselves our
political ideal. Have we any clear, or even moderately clear, conception of what we mean by 'a better world'? We need to be definite,
and to be definite is difficult. It is a grave illusion to suppose that
we (the ordinary men and women of this country) can leave to our
statesmen alone, or indeed chiefly, the task of making definite the
conception of a better world. Upon each of us lies the responsibility
of hard thinking in order to answer two questions: (1) In what ways
152
L. Susan Stebbing
does the world need to be made better? (2) How is this better world
to be achieved? (/&/, p. 110)
In the twenty-year interval between the wars, the democratic ideal
has "not only been explicitely denied and vilified in certain countries,
it has further faded as an ideal even in those countries where the citizens
continue to admire the sound of the word 'democracy'" (1&1, pp. 112-3).
Stebbing makes an assessment of what it means that this is the case; in
so doing she asks what must then be restored in order to achieve a
better world. Among those qualities that need to be restored she lists
activity of mind, aesthetic perception and a passionate need for
humane feeling, discipline, desire and respect for knowledge. After laying
this groundwork she proceeds to an exploration of the conflict between
the political ideals of fascism and democracy. The opposition between
the two is fundamental and has to do with ultimate values. While fascism
values power and the State, democracy values the development of free
and happy human beings. The two ideals differ, at base, with regard to
their conception of the worth of human beings (/&1, p. 133). But it is
extremely important, Stebbing insists, to recognize that fascism does
present an ideal to its adherents, "that is, it is accepted as a vision of a
world worth having and worth dying for in order that it may be achieved."
For that ideal, she contends, is precisely what led, along with conditions of economic distress, to the submission of the German nation to
Hitler (/&1, p. 143).
Chapter VIII, entitled "Speaking Plainly," presents what Stebbing calls
"a digression of importance" (/&1, p. 217). It opens with the sentence:
"Of the usefulness of abstract words there can be no doubt, but there
are unnoted dangers in our use of them" (/&/, p. 162). From there
Stebbing goes on to elaborate at some length on the uses and abuses
of abstractions in our language. She proposes a principle to use as a
method of distinguishing between the harmful and harmless usage of
abstract words: "If a sentence in which the main word is translated into
an equivalent sentence in which this word is replaced by corresponding
less abstract words, and if the new sentence thus obtained would be
dissented from (or assented to) by someone who had formerly assented
to (or dissented from) the original sentence, then the use of abstract words
in the original sentence was harmful" (/&1, p. 163). The leading example
to which she applies this principle is the word "war." She translates
the word into the less abstract phrase: "organized effort of individuals
to kill, injure, and hurt one another in all conceivable ways." Then she
L. Susan Stebbing
153
154
L. Susan Stebbing
Written in some haste and under stress of deep emotion in times whose
horror, even now when the worst may be over, has numbed most of
us into an indefensible degree of near-acquiescence, the book is characteristic of a lady whose intellectualism, impatient of vague
abstractions, was bent upon helping the lives, through the minds, of
her contemporaries, whose zest for principle invariably had the purpose
of social betterment. (PS, p. 20)
NOTES
1. John Wisdom, "L. Susan Stebbing, 1885-1943," Mind, NS 53 (1944),
283-285; rpt. "An Appreciation by J. Wisdom," in Philosophical Studies;
Essays in Memory of L. Susan Stebbing (London: Allen & Unwin, 1948),
pp. 1-4.
2. Margaret Macdonald, "Stebbing (Lizzie) Susan," DNB (1959).
3. Wisdom, p. 2; G. C. Nerlich, "Stebbing, Lizzie Susan," The Encyclopedia
of Philosophy, 1967 ed., Vol. 8, pp. 11-12.
4. P. Magg, "Homage to Susan Stebbing," The Personalist, 27 (1946), 165-72.
5. Nerlich, p. 12.
6. L. Susan Stebbing, Ideals and Illusions (London: Watts & Co., 1941; rpt.
Thinker's Library, 1948), p. 218; hereafter cited as 1&1.
7. Wisdom, p. 2.
8. L. Susan Stebbing, Pragmatism and French Voluntarism; With Especial
Reference to the Notion of Truth in the Development of French Philosophy
from Maine de Biran to Professor Bergson, Girton College Studies, No.
6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1914); hereafter cited in text
as PFV.
9. L. Susan Stebbing, A Modern Introduction to Logic, 2nd ed. (1930; rpt.
London: Methuen & Co., 1961); hereafter cited as MIL.
10. Philosophy, 6 (1931),110-111.
11. The Philosophical Review, 42 (1933), 431-2.
12. C. A. Mace, Mind, NS 40 (1931), 354-64.
13. The papers include: Joseph, "A Defence of Freethinking in Logistics,"
NS 41 (1932),424-40; Stebbing, "Mr. Joseph's Defence of Free Thinking
in Logistics," NS 42 (1933), 338-51; Joseph, "A Defence of Free-Thinking
in Logistics Resumed," NS 42 (1933),417-443; Stebbing, "A Second Reply
to Mr. Joseph," NS 43 (1934), 156-169; Joseph, "A Last Plea for FreeThinking in Logistics," NS 43 (1934), 315-320.
14. Ralph Eaton, General Logic, An Introductory Survey (New York: Chas.
Scribner's Sons: 1931). Eaton reviewed Stebbing's book in Journal of
Philosophy, 28 (1931), 607-610.
15. First printed in the Personalist (1931); reprinted as Chapter V in Must
Philosophers Disagree? (London: Macmillan & Co., 1934); hereafter cited
as MPD.
L. Susan Stebbing
155
I. BIOGRAPHY'*
Edith Stein was born on October 12, 1891 in Breslau, East Silesia (now
Wroclaw, Poland), the youngest of the eleven children of Siegfried and
Auguste Stein. She grew up in a strict Jewish home where her mother
was the strong, pious, guiding figure. Her father, a businessman, died
when Edith was two years old and her mother continued to run the family
lumber business with the help of her children. The home, though strict,
was a warm one and Edith's childhood was filled with religious observations, family celebrations, visits to and from grandparents, aunts and
uncles, cousins and friends. At age thirteen Edith began to doubt her
Jewish faith, and became, for all intents and purposes, an atheist.
After completing her secondary school education, Edith went to the
University of Breslau where she studied German language and literature, philosophy and history. Upon discovering Edmund Husserl's
philosophy in his Logische Untersuchungen (Logical Investigations), she
went, in 1913, to the university at Gottingen to join the circle of students
around HusserI, who were in the forefront of a new philosophical
movement known as phenomenology.2 She desired ardently to discover
the truth, and she saw that HusserI's thought was about reality, undercutting the epistemology of the neo-Kantians. After the outbreak of World
War I, many of HusserI's students were at the front, and Stein's strong
nationalistic feelings moved her to volunteer as a nurse's aide for the Red
Cross, but she returned to her studies after a time. When HusserI left
Gottingen for Freiburg, she went with him and wrote her doctoral dissertation entitled Zum Problem der Einfiihlung (On the Problem of
Empathy). With the presentation of the dissertation, Stein was awarded
the doctorate summa cum laude. HusserI was so impressed by her intellect that he offered to make her his assistant. In this capacity her duties
A History o/Women PhilosopherslVolume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, 157-187.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
158
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
159
bership in the female sex may not be seen as an obstacle to habilitation" in German universities. 7 She did not, however, renew her attempt
to habilitate at Gottingen. She wrote to a friend at the time that she did
not think the ruling would be of much help to her personally, but that
she had sought it as a way of thumbing her nose at "the gentlemen in
Gottingen."8 It did, however, clear the way for women seeking a professorial career in fields other than philosophy. In philosophy it was
another 30 years before the first German woman actually habilitated
and took up teaching duties at a German University.9
Much has been written about the fact that many of the phenomenologist philosophers underwent religious conversions or an intensifying
of their religious faith during this period. 1O Around 1920 Stein read the
autobiography of St. Teresa of Avila. When she laid down the. book she
said to herself, "This is the truth." She does not tell us what made her
see the truth in this account, but it may be that she was searching for
the meaning of her own existence. Husserl, with his method of describing
the world, had not been able to show her why she was in it. She now
found this content for her existence in Roman Catholicism, and on New
Year's Day, 1922, at thirty-one years of age, she was baptized - a step
which caused considerable concern on the part of her mother and other
family members.
From 1922 until 1932 Stein worked as a lay teacher in a Catholic
girls school run by the Dominican Sisters of St. Magdalena in Speyer,
and became quite well-known in Catholic educational circles. During this
time she wrote a number of treatises on the education of girls, and on
professions for women, and other pedagogical issues. From her correspondence during that period it seems that she was very much in demand
as a speaker at various conferences on Catholic education. At first she
gave up her philosophical work entirely, believing that faith and reason
do not mix. But she learned that she did not have to cut herself off
from philosophy when she discovered the writings of St. Thomas
Aquinas. Once more she took up the study of philosophy, this time that
of scholasticism. In order to grasp St. Thomas's thought, she translated
his Quaestiones disputatae de veritate into German, using the language
of phenomenology so that he would be intelligible to the contemporary
German philosopher. She also wrote original works which attempted a
synthesis between Thomistic and phenomenological thought. l1 In
addition, during this period she began the preliminary work for her
book Endliches und Ewiges Sein (Finite and Eternal Being).
This appears from her letters to have been a full and satisfying time
160
Edith Stein
of life for Stein, but that she viewed it as a time of waiting and that
she believed eventually the right opportunity would emerge for her,
whatever it might be. In 1931 Stein conferred with Professors Eugen Fink
and Martin Heidegger about the possibility of her habilitating at Freiburg;
later that year there was talk about her habilitating at the University of
Breslau. Nothing came of either of these attempts. Finally, in 1932, she
joined the faculty of the German Institute of Scientific Pedagogy in
Munster. As a Dozent she held lectures and attracted some students
from the university as well as her education students from the Institute. 12
Stein's career in higher education was, however, to be very brief. By
the summer semester of 1933, the Nazis had come to power, and, because
of her Jewish background, Stein was no longer allowed to meet her
classes. Her contract was not renewed for the following year.
One would expect that this tum of events would have been devastating
to Stein. One effect it had was to motivate her to write Life in a Jewish
Family, a memoir of her childhood, youth and family, in particular her
mother, as an antidote to the terrible anti-Jewish propaganda spread by
the Nazis. It also moved her to political action in the sense that she
appealed to the Pope to issue an encyclical condemning Facism and
racism, but this did not happen. Nonetheless she seems to have experienced the loss of her position almost as a positive development. She
remarked on several occasions while she was in Munster how foreign the
world had become to her during the ten years she spent within the walls
of the Dominican convent in Speyer, even though she had been a lay
person. In late 1932 she remarked that she must seem strange to more
worldly people and that she notices, now that she is out in the world,
what an effort it is to be a part of it. She says, "I do not believe that I
can ever really do it again.,,13 By late in May, 1933 the future course
of her life had become clear to Stein and it is one which she welcomed
with all her heart. In late June she informed her closest friends that she
would be spending the summer in Breslau with her family. There she
would have the excruciatingly difficult task of breaking the news to
her mother that she intended to enter the Carmelite convent in CologneLindenthal as a postulant on October 15. 14 She did so, and six months
later she donned the habit of a Carmelite nun and became Sr. Teresia
Benedicta a Cruce, OCD.
The Carmelites are a cloistered order devoted to prayer and meditation. They may speak with the outside world only through a grille.
Stein did not expect to continue her writing after entering the order,
but, in fact, she was asked by her superiors to continue her work on
Edith Stein
161
the manuscript entitled "Akt und Potenz," which was published posthumously as Endliches und Ewiges Sein. 15
By 1938 the Nazi menace was becoming ever greater, and in order
to ensure the safety of Stein and of her older sister Rosa, who had also
converted to Catholicism and was now serving as the concierge of the
convent, it was arranged that they would move to the Carmelite Convent
in Echt, Holland. 16 But even this was not a sufficient refuge after Hitler
marched into Holland, so it was decided that Edith and Rosa must
go to Switzerland. The arrangements were slowly put into place, and
everything was settled except for the exit visas. But they did not come
in time.
On Sunday, July 26, 1942, the Catholic Bishops in Holland issued
a pastoral letter condemning the Nazi extermination of the Jews
throughout Europe. As an act of revenge for their courageous stand, on
August 2 the S.S. made a sweep through the country incarcerating all
"non-Aryan Christians." At five in the afternoon two uniformed S.S.
officers appeared at the convent and demanded to speak with Sr.
Benedicta. They gave her and Rosa ten minutes to get ready to leave
the convent. Sr. Benedicta took Rosa by the hand and said, "Come, we
will go for our people."
They were loaded into a truck and taken, along with 10 or 15 religious
and approximately 1000 others to a concentration camp at Amersfoort,
and then on to Westerbork. Some of these people were later released
so there were eye-witnesses to the events of the next few days. The image
that emerges is of Sr. Benedicta plunging in and working to comfort
the terrified children and their despairing mothers. She is reported to have
remarked, "Until now I have prayed and worked, now I will work and
pray." Seldom saying a word, she moved about tirelessly, doing what
she could to comfort and console and to lead the others in prayer. On
August 6 she was able to send a brief note to the sisters in the convent
in which she asked for clothing, medicine and blankets and told of a transport that was leaving the following day for the East. Two men from
Echt had gone to Westerbork to try to see the sisters, and, indeed, they
were able to get into the camp and spend some time with them. Sr.
Benedicta sent back word to the Convent that they were not to worry,
and that she and Rosa were all right. She praised the Jewish relief organization which was working hard, but in vain, to secure the release of
this group of Jewish Catholics.
All reports that we have of Sr. Benedicta during this time stress her
calm, peaceful manner amidst chaos and despair. When the lists were
162
Edith Stein
read of those prisoners who were to get on the train, Edith and Rosa Stein
were among them. They were murdered in the gas chambers of Auschwitz
on August 9, 1942.
Sr. Teresia Benedicta a Cruce was declared a Saint and martyr in
the Roman Catholic church by Pope John Paul II on May 1, 1987 in
Cologne.
II. PHILOSOPHY**
Edith Stein, philosopher, is not so well-known as Edith Stein, heroic
German-Jewish woman, educator, lecturer, feminist, saint, and victim
of the Holocaust. Yet it was philosophy that was the axis of her being
as it was lived in all of these modes, and anyone who desires to know
and understand Stein must know her as a philosopher. The present
account attempts a developmental approach, revealing her advances in
phenomenology from method to metaphysics, from the realm of mind
to that of reality, and from a largely theoretical content to the inclusion
of a Weltanauschauung. It would not do justice to her philosophizing
simply to present a summary of her thought at the end of her life.
From her early years, Stein was always asking the why of human existence, never satisfied with the ready answers prevalent in her religious
and social milieu. Her student days at Breslau, Gottingen, and Freiburgim-Breisgau were animated by a passionate interest in philosophy and
characterized by disciplined study of phenomenology under Edmund
Husserl, in company with the famous scholars who engaged him in discussion and dialogue: Max Scheler, Adolf Reinach, Fritz Kaufmann,
Roman Ingarden, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, Alexandre Koyre, and Martin
Heidegger, to name only a few. After achieving the Ph.D. at Freiburg
in 1917, her own philosophy was taking a form that was basically phenomenological but often at variance with views of Husserl in substance,
if not in spirit, and she was writing original works of her own. Her
questioning soon moved beyond the limits of phenomenology to a broad
and deep exploration of the greats in the history of philosophy, particularly Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas, but extending also to Plato,
Augustine, Descartes, Duns Scotus, as well as contemporary philosophers. In her efforts to construct a body of theory, there is evidence of
a strong impulse toward synthesis of phenomenology with what she found
true in the philosophy of other times and other schools.
Stein was a prolific writer on a broad range of philosophical subjects,
Edith Stein
163
but only a few of her works were published during her lifetime, largely
because of the ban on works by non-Aryan writers after the Nazis came
to power. Her dissertation, On the Problem of Empathy, completed
under Husserl at the University of Freiburg and published in 1917 17 is
the only full-length philosophical work of hers that has been published
in English translation to date 18 although others will be forthcoming as
part of the project to translate her Works into English.
As has been indicated in the account of her life, Stein and a number
of other young students had flocked to Gottingen to study with Husserl
because, after reading his Logical Investigations, they seemed to find
in his work a turning away from German Idealism toward a new form
of realism. 19 But in 1913 history was being made in Husserl's theory.
ldeen fO had just appeared in the lahrbuch, and many of Husserl's pupils
were quick to realize and resist the impact of his emerging transcendental
idealism. Edith Stein was among these.
Stein soon declared her independence implicitly in her own writings,
but it should be noted that she was an remained in many ways a true
disciple of Edmund HusserI. She appreciated the critical receptivity of
mind that came from her philosophical training in examining presuppositions, in weighing without prejudice, and in being open to all
phenomena. She used to advantage the method of descriptive analysis
of the phenomena of consciousness - the turning to the "intentional
object," of which the subject, the "I" is conscious in its stream of lived
experiences. She also affirmed in theory and in practice HusserI's "eidetic
reduction," that is, the thought act which proceeds from the psychological phenomena to the essence, from fact to essential universality,
the process which focuses on the "things" of experience,21 the cogitationes and their cogitata, and probes them by way of descriptive analysis.
But for Stein these "things" of experience presupposed things of the
fact world, the existence of which HusserI "brackets." She never gave
assent to Husserl's transcendental reduction, the epoche, that is, the
suspension of judgment in regard to the transcendent existence of the
objective correlates of the cogitata. 22 In the foreword to the English translation of her dissertation, Edwin W. Straus remarks on Stein's existential
approach as contrasted with the predominantly epistemological interests of HusserI. 23 Although Husserl had taken his starting point from
mathe-matics and logic, and questions relating to man were relatively
far from him at this time, Stein continued her interests in literature,
history, and the humanities, which she had studied at Breslau, and
persisted in her desire to discover roots for the empirical science of
164
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
165
body belonging to an "I" that senses, thinks, feels, and wills. This "I"
faces "me" and my phenomenological world and communicates with
"me." Her investigation proceeds from these data of foreign experience
to questions about the nature of the acts in which foreign experience
can be grasped: the acts which she designates as empathy. She attempts
to grasp its nature by means of lengthy analyses of empathic experiences,
such as the experience of another's pain and of another's joy. The experience of joy is a favorite example of Stein throughout her work.
Her directing purpose is to investigate philosophically the nature of
empathy, but she engages in a preliminary examination of the psychological process of its genesis, comparing her theories with those of
Theodor Lipps and Max Scheler. Empathy, she holds, is an act of perceiving that is sui generis, an act which is primordial as present
experience but non-primordial in content. When the empathizing subject
is living in another's joy, for example, he/she does not feel primordial
joy. It does not issue from hislher "I," nor does it have the character of
ever having lived as remembered joy or fancied joy; but in this nonprimordial experience, the "I" is led by the primordial experience of
the other subject's joy. The joy itself cannot be outwardly perceived,
but its object, a joyful countenance or other outward sign, is perceived
outwardly, and the joy is given "at one" with the object. In a different
situation, the "I" may hear of the joyful event before meeting the other,
and the "I" can have the primordial act of joy without first grasping
the other's joy.28
The awareness of what empathy is as well as that it is linked by
Stein with the understanding of the "I" as person, and the understanding
of person is aided by descriptive analyses of empathy. If one follows
the line of her reflections and analyses, however, it may be seen that
this is not a vicious circle but a phenomenological viewing from all sides
that reveals for her the ontological structure of the person.
The awareness of one's being that is concomitant with the acts of
consciousness is the awareness of the self which is simply given as the
subject of experience and is brought into relief in contrast with the
otherness of the other, when another is given. This "I" is empty in itself
and depends for its content on experience of the outer world and of
an inner world. Upon reflection it is revealed as the subject of actual
qualitative experiences, with experiential content, lived in the present and
carried over from the past, experiences which form the unity of the stream
of consciousness. This affiliation of all the stream's experiences with
the present, living "pure I" constitutes an inviolable unity. Now other
166
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
167
with the living body forms the substantial unity of the psycho-physical
individual.
The living body is also the instrument of the "I's" will. Experiences
of will have an important meaning for the constitution of psycho-physical
unity. Both willing and striving make use of psycho-physical causality,
but what is truly creative is not a causal, but a motivational, effect.
Will may be causally influenced, as for example, when tiredness of
body prevents a volition from prevailing, but a victorious will may
overcome tiredness. What is truly creative about volition is not a causal
effect; the latter is external to the essence of will.30
The above description shows how Stein has given in outline an account
of what is meant by the psycho-physical individual. It is revealed as a
unified object inseparably joining together the conscious unity of an
"I" and a physical body which occurs as a living body, and consciousness occurs as the soul of the unified individual. This unity has been
revealed by examining sensations, general feelings and their expression
as well as the causal relationship between body and soul and the outer
world. Finally, the living body has been considered as the instrument
of the "I's" will.
(b) Knowledge of Other Persons. With a similar type of painstaking
analysis, Stein examines step by step the nature of the "I's" consciousness of the foreign individual. In the popular English usage of the term
empathy, the focus is usually on the feeling aspect. Also the German
word Einfuhlung gives primary philological reference to feeling. In
Stein's theory of empathy, the unity of the "I" becomes clearly evident
in the grasp of the other which occurs both cognitively and affectively.
Her account shows the impossibility of separating feeling from the total
complex of cognitive acts, such as perception, ideation, and insight.
Through "sensual empathy," the "I" perceives and interprets the
other as sensing, living body and empathic ally projects itself into it. In
acquiring objective knowledge of the existing outer world, empathy has
an important function. Although the outer world may appear differently
to different individuals to some extent because of different sense capacities and perspectives, the world appears much the same however and
to whomever it appears. If the "I" were imprisoned within the boundaries
of its own individuality, it would not get beyond the "world as it appears
to me.,,31 Further, intersubjective experience is presented as significant
in reaching knowledge of the self. Empathy and inner perception of
self must work hand in hand in order to "give me myself to myself.,,32
168
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
169
170
Edith Stein
(c) Consciousness and Spirituality. Her investigation again takes the form
of analysis of the phenomena of consciousness, the objects in their
entire fullness and concretion as well as of the consciousness corresponding to them: the neomatic levels and gradations and the noetic
elements in all their complexity. She examines the experience-units
which rise, peak, flow into the past, often emerging again, in the unity
of the stream; also the life-feelings (Lebensfiihle) , the life-states
(Lebenszustiindlichkeiten) and life-force (Lebenskraft) of the real "I"
which come to givenness. She designates the real "I" and its qualities
and conditions as the psychic. Conclusions regarding psychic causality
are shown to be only approximate and non-exact, but as having practical value. 37
In making the transition from the psychic to the realm of spirit, Stein
arrives at a radical distinction between causality and motivation. To
appreciate the clarity, completeness, and even originality of her reach
for understanding of these and related complex questions, one must
follow her meticulous analyses - sometimes a tedious task but worth
the effort; for the outcomes are valuable to the reader on many levels,
including the personal and the pedagogical. The course of motivation
is shown to be a series of acts that move to meaning. The "I," the center
and turning point of all acts, directs its gaze on the lived ensemble of
intentional objects in consciousness and grasps their connections, progressing from act to act with a constantly developing continuity of
meaning. The subject can bring the act-life under the laws of reason
and can regulate the course of the motivation. "Motive" is the meaning
content (Sinngehalt) which involves perception of a thing's existence and
a vague grasp of its whatness as steps in the comprehension of a value
which can motivate the taking of an attitude and, possibly, a willing
and a doing?8 In all this, the degree of spontaneity is carefully investigated. Stein recognizes the complexity of the influence of the outer and
inner situation on the decision, resolution, and execution of the will
act, but she holds firmly to the freedom of the person within proper limits.
She meets and finds untenable the arguments regarding determination
by the strongest motive and also determinism on the basis of the principle of association. 39
Finally, her careful distinction between psyche and spirit in the human
being should be noted. The psychic life has to do with the soul, with
its constant and variable dispositions; this life refers to a subjective
consciousness, monadic and closed. Spirit, on the other hand, has to
do with objectifiable contents of intentional acts: thoughts, ends, values,
Edith Stein
171
creative acts. This is why their bearer is an individual person with a qualitative point of view, incarnating a unique value. A true science of spirit,
she states, should recognize the autonomy and individuality of the person,
while recognizing at the same time that every person is subject to general
laws of nature and of psychic life. Although the latter are less precise
than the former, knowledge of these laws can afford the basis of a limited
prevision,the eidetic possibilities, of what can take place, not what
must or will take place. Her final view of the human person in this
work is that of a totality of qualitative particularity formed from one
central core (Kern), from a single root of formation which is unfolded
in soul, body, and spirit.
Stein devotes many pages toward the end of the work to the description of psychic and spiritual faculties in the context of her treatment of
community and her attempt to distinguish soul from spirit. In regard to
the latter, she herself concludes that the boundaries between soul and
spirit cannot be firmly drawn and strict separation cannot be made.40 After
many years of contact with the thought of Aristotle and Aquinas, she
presents a modified view in her long metaphysical work, Endliches und
Ewiges Sein (Finite and Eternal Being).41 Following her long treatment
of the structure of concrete being in terms of potency and act, essence
and existence, substance and accident, matter and form, she returns to
the question of What is Menschsein? (What is human being?) She
acknowledges the mystery of human nature, since the entire conscious
life, upon which she has relied for knowing what it means to be human,
is not synonymous with her being. It is only the lighted surface over a
dark abyss, which she must seek to fathom. 42
She now defines soul in the Aristotelian-Thomistic sense as the
substantial form of a living body. There is a plant soul, and animal
soul, and the human soul, each differing essentially from the other. As
form, the soul is the principle of life and movement and gives essencedetermination to the being. A person is neither animal nor angel - but
is both in one. The conscious Ichleben gives access to the soul just
as sensuous life gives access to the body. When the "I" goes beyond
originary experience and makes the self an object, the soul appears to
it as thing-like or substantial, having enduring characteristics, having
powers or faculties which are capable of and in need of development,
and having changing attitudes and activities. Each human being has not
only universal essence but also individual essence. 43 These are not two
separate essences but are a unity in which the essential attributes join
together in a determinate structure. In Socrates, for example, his Socrates-
172
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
173
174
Edith Stein
supra-individual subject, and in the actual life of such a subjectcommunity, an experience-stream is constituted. How this comes about
is uncovered by means of descriptive analyses which build upon the
structures treated in her previous works.
Her next work 53 applies the conclusions of her investigations into
community to her political philosophy, considering the state as a community which also involves some societal elements; these, however,
should be subordinate to the interpersonal life of members of the community. The state is, by origin, a natural community-society, not one
formed by social contract. The state is characterized by sovereignty;
however, it should preserve its character of community by limiting
civil power to what is necessary for the common good and by promoting the freedom of its citizens. She does not think that there is any
one absolutely best form of government; each has to be considered in
relation to the particular circumstances. She takes issue with Fichte and
Hegel in their exalting of the state and the unfolding of a dialectical
process in being that fails to root the ethical order in personally free
agents. Her theory of the state reminds one of Maritain's ideas of the
person and the common good54 in its insistence on the requirements of
social responsibility and "amity" (to use Maritain's term) and in her
refusal to grant ethical supremacy to the state. Stein appears to develop
a theory that is definitely critical of the rising totalitarianism of the
time at which she was writing (1925), while repudiating extreme individualism. It should be noted also that she presents historical evidence
that a state need not confine itself to a single folk or race in achieving
the unity of community. 55 In her open criticism of totalitarian and racist
trends she appears to stand out from other German phenomenologists
of the time.
2. Theology
(a) Thomasism and Phenomenology. During the period from 1922 to
1931 56 Stein extended her philosophical horizon far beyond phenomenology. She translated from English to German Newman's letters,
journals, and The Idea of a University. Her two-volume translation from
Latin to German and interpretation of Aquinas's Disputed Questions on
Truth 5? was a work of rigorous scholarship and philosophical significance.
Martin Grabmann 58 and James Collins59 commented favorably not only
on her rendering of Aquinas's Latin into a vital, philosophically pertinent German but also on her interpretation of the text. Incidentally, the
Edith Stein
175
176
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
177
that her final conclusions are to be found. Between the two works, she
had read Maritain's De la philosophie Chretienne and had participated
in the discussion of the subject of Christian philosophy at Juvisy and
in other discussions of the issue, which was very much alive at the
time. Stein affirms the formal distinction between belief and knowledge, stating that philosophical science remains in the sphere of human
reason; religious belief and theological science rest on divine revelation, but she would not erect barriers between faith and reason,
philosophy and theology. "Reason," she says, "would become unreason
if it wanted to stick obstinately to what it can discover by its own light
and to close its eyes to what a higher light makes visible."64
Historically, she maintains, philosophy has received many leads from
theology; it should be open to theology and can be completed by it,
not as philosophy but as theology. In her opinion, the deciding factor
as to whether a work is philosophical or theological is the "directing
intention." Her purpose in Finite and Eternal Being is to keep the
directing intention philosophical. 65 That she feels free to supplement
the truths of reason with the truths of faith is evident, particularly in
the section which considers man as the image of the Trinity. It is obvious
that she considers some sort of synthesis of faith and reason desirable for
the believer, but she insists that philosophy calls for completion by
theology without becoming theology. The exposition of her philosophy
given by her will, of course, be limited to her philosophy.
3. Metaphysics
(a) Being. It seems likely that when Edith Stein conceived the idea of
Finite and Eternal Being, she may have had in mind the words of Pere
Rene Kremer which she heard at the Journee of the Societe Thomiste
at Juvisy: "The question of being," he noted, "can be resolved only by
a complete system embracing finite being and infinite being.,,66 He was
referring in this context to the system of Aquinas. Stein may have taken
his statement as indicating a desirable structure for her "ascent to the
meaning of being." Undoubtedly, she determined to make the attempt
to transpose traditional concepts into a contemporary key by making
use of the linguistic and methodological resources of phenomenology.
In locating the problem of the meaning of being primarily in the recognition of First Being, she is faced with the problem of coming to the
knowledge of First Being early in her work. Since, to her mind, the
existence of God is not intuited in privileged experience nor is it
178
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
179
180
Edith Stein
the "I" have a beginning of its being? What of its end? Did it come
out of nothing? Faced with the chasms of its past and the mystery of
its whence and whither, Stein concludes that the "I" could not be the
source of its own life; that it could not possibly call itself into being
nor sustain itself in being. Its being must be a received being; it must
be placed in being and sustained in being from instant to instant.
Experience-units require the "I" for their being; their being is only a
coming to be (Werden) and a passing away (Vergehen), with an instantaneous height of being (Seinshiihe). The "I" appears nearer to being;
yet its being has a constantly changing content, and it knows itself dependent not only in regard to its content, but also in regard to its very
being. She calls it a "nothinged being.,,76
The "I," frightened before nothingness, longs not only for the
continuation of its being but also for the full possession of being, for
being that can enclose its total content in a changeless present. It experiences in itself varying degrees of actuality, grades of nearness to the
fullness of being. Proceeding in thought to the upper limit by canceling
out all deficiencies, the "I" can attain the awareness of the all-encompassing and highest degree of being, Pure Act, of which it is only a
weak image. 77
(c) Eternal Being. In subsequent analyses, the Angst of the "I," as it
comes face to face with its own non-being, is countered by the experience that "I am," and "I am sustained in being from moment to moment,"
and "in my fleeting being I hold an enduring being." "Here in my being
I encounter another, not mine, which is the support and ground of my
support-less being."78 Could man's fleeting being have its final ground
in another finite being? It could not, she replies, since everything temporal
and finite is, as such, fleeting and ultimately requires an eternal support.
The ground of contingent being cannot be received being, but must be
being a se (aus sich selbst), being that cannot be, but is necessarily,
she concludes.
Eternal being is thus grasped at this point of her analyses as First
Being, the Urgrund of the finite being of the "I"; Pure Act, having no
potentiality; immutable (wandellos) being; the full possession of being
(Vollbesitz des Seins); all-encompassing (allumspannendes) and highest
encompassing (hochstgespanntes) being; being a se; necessary being.79
In the section of the book which deals with the analogy of being,80
Stein says that an infinite difference separates the human "I" from any
other which lies within the range of our experience, because it is person.
Edith Stein
181
From human being we come to a grasp of the divine esse if we take away
everything of non-being that was discovered in the finite "J." God's "I"
is eternally living presence, without beginning and without end, without
any lacunae or obscurity. His Ichleben is fullness of being, in self and
of self; there are no changing contents, no rising or falling of experiences, no passing from potentiality to actuality. The entire fullness of
being is eternal-present. Thus God's "I am" (sum) says: I love, 1 know,
I will, not as one-after-another or side-by-side acts, but fully in the
unity of one divine actuality, in which all meanings of act coincide. He
is his being (Sein) and essence (Wesen). He is fullness of being in every
sense of the word but especially fullness of being-person. sl
The question may be raised why Edith Stein did not select for the
title of her book the term zeitlich (temporal) to parallel the term ewig
(eternal) or perhaps unendlich (infinite) to parallel enlich (finite), rather
than pairing enlich and ewig in the title Endliches und Ewiges Sein.
Careful study of her use of these terms seems to indicate the nearequivalence of Unendlichkeit and Ewigkeit it her work. They are
sometimes used interchangeably; sometimes one or the other is used to
being out the movement of her thinking. It seems probable that Stein
selected ewig as the stronger, more positive term and wished to avoid
the possible construing of unendlich in the narrow sense of unending.
She prefers endlich to zeitlich because she considers finitude as the
more basic, as the ultimate reason for temporality. In the order of
knowing, however, her method makes temporality the source of the
knowledge of finitude.
Her concept of eternity reminds one of the definition formulated
by Boethius and approved by Aquinas: "Aeternitas est interminabilis
vitae tota simul et perfecta possessio."S2 Stein has enlarged it to signify
the "perfect possession of personal life." The living, personal being
of man is her focal point in attaining the awareness of the living, personal being of God. The meaning of the tota simul of the traditional
definition is captured in her description of allumspannendendes und
hochstgespanntes Sein, of being that encompasses its total content in
the changeless present. The indivisibility of eternity as compared with
the indivisibility of man's present, the nunc stans, is clearly evident in
her analysis. Like Aquinas, she comes to the knowledge of eternity
through time. The temporality prominent in HusserI's phenomenology
has afforded her a congenial starting point, and from the flux of human
life registered in consciousness, from the before and after of man's
Ichleben, she leaps to the idea of life that is immutable, that has no before
182
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
183
184
Edith Stein
III. CONCLUSION**
All in all, one who studies the whole corpus of Stein's work may find
in it a happy reconciliation of polarities which, if dichotomized, sometimes detract from the quality of philosophizing. Examples of these are:
faith and reason, the concrete and the abstract, thinking and feeling,
objectivity and subjectivity, classical philosophy and contemporary phenomenology. It is evident that the above account of Stein's philosophy
is expository rather than critical. It has attempted to present the overall
directing lines of her thought as faithfully as possible. In every section
there are positions which cry out for comparison and contrast with other
philosophers as well as for careful critique. There is a rich field for studies
here, and it is hoped that scholars will soon explore it more adequately
than has been done in the past.
NOTES
1. The best sources of information about Stein's life are to be found in
volumes VII through X of Edith Steins Werke (hereafter cited as ESW),
namely, Aus dem Leben einer liidischenfamilie, the two volumes entitled
Selbstbildnis in Briefen and Rei! im Unheil.
2. Additional sources of information concerning the period of Stein's life as
Hussed's student and later his assistant are, Roman Ingarden, "Edith Stein
and her Activity as an Assistant to Edmund Husserl," Philosophy and
Phenomenological Research, XXIII (1962); Gerda Walther, Zum Anderen
Ufer, Ch. 20 and 25; and Hilde Graef, The Scholar and the Cross: The
Life and work of Edith Stein.
3. Letter to Roman Ingarden of February 20, 1917, in ESW, VIII, p. 20.
4. Letter to Roman Ingarden of January 18, 1917, in ESW, VIII, p. 15.
5. Letter to Roman Ingarden of February 19, 1918, in ESW, VIII, pp. 30-31.
6. Letter to Fritz Kaufmann of November 8, 1919, in ESW, VIII, pp. 4142.
Edith Stein
185
186
Edith Stein
Edith Stein
187
60. "HusserIs Phiinomenologie und die Philosophie des hI. Thomas v. Aquino,"
Festschrift Edmund Husserl, Supplementband, Husserls lahrbuch (Halle:
Niemeyer, 1929). Hereafter cited as Festschrift.
61. "La Phenomenoloie," lournee de la Societe Thomiste, I (Juvisy: Editions
du Cerf, 1932). Hereafter cited as lournee.
62. Festschrift, p. 326.
63. See note 41 above.
64. EES, p. 23.
65. Ibid., pp. 12-30.
66. Journee, p. 36.
67. EES, pp. 36-52.
68. Ibid., p. 37.
69. Ibid., pp. 36-37.
70. Spirit in the World (New York: Herder & Herder, 1968), pp. 181 ff.
71. EES, pp. 109-110.
72. Cartesianische Meditationen und Parisier Vortrage, edited by S. Strasser
for the HusserI Archives, Husserliana I (Louvain: Nijhoff, 1950), pp. 81
ff.; Vorlesungen zur Phanomenologie des inneren Zeitbewusstseins,
Sonderdruck aus: Husserls lahrbuch, IX (1928), pp. 436 ff.
73. EES, pp. 38-39.
74. Ibid., pp. 37 ff.
75. Ibid., pp. 42 ff.
76. Ibid., pp. 42 ff.
77. Ibid., pp. 54 ff.
78. Ibid., pp. 56-57.
79. Ibid., pp. 52-59, 106, 311.
80. Ibid., pp. 311-320.
81. Ibid., p. 319. Cf. Reuben Gilead, De la Phenomenologie a La Science de
La Croix-L'Itineraire d'Edith Stein (Louvain: Nauwe1aerts, 1974), pp. 242
ff.
82. Thomas Aquinas, Summa TheoLogiae, I, 10, 1.
83. EES, p. 106.
84. See, for example, EES, p. 90.
85. Ibid., c. 3, pp. 60-116; c. 4, pp. 117-256.
86. Ibid., pp. 123-124. See treatment of universal essence and individual
essence of human being above.
87. Ibid., pp. 70-79; 128-158.
88. Ideen, I, no. 2, pp. 12 ff.
89. "Bemerkungen tiber das Wesen, die Wesenheit, und die Idee," HusserLs
Jahrbuch, IV (1921), pp. 496-497.
90. EES, pp. 61 ff.
91. Ibid., pp. 101, 227-228, 302-303.
92. Ibid., pp. 98, 30-39.
I. BIOGRAPHyl
190
Gerda Walther
In her second semester she was looking for a course that would fit into
a free hour in her schedule so she enrolled in "Introduction to
Psychology" taught by Alexander Pfander,s an event which was to change
the entire course of her life. As she comments in her autobiography,
she probably would have ended up as a minor government functionary
in East Germany if it had not been for this "coincidence." The next
term she took Pfander's "Introduction to Philosophy," and attended his
lectures on logic which motivated her to read Edmund Husserl's Logical
Investigations, then his Ideas, and finally to want to study with him in
person. 6
She arrived in Freiburg im Breisgau in 1917 to join the circle of young
philosophers around Edmund Husserl. 7 Husserl, it seems, was not altogether overjoyed by the arrival of this spirited young Marxist who
announced that her career goal was to become a political agitator. At first
he rejected her outright. Then he relented and sent her to see his assistant, Edith Stein, whose opinion he apparently wanted before deciding
whether to admit the Socialist Walther. Stein (see Chapter 7) was friendly
to Walther and seemed amused by the situation. Walther apparently made
quite a favorable impression on her because she was allowed to enroll
not only in Stein's "philosophical kindergarten" but in Husserl's courses
as well during her first semester. In a letter to a friend about the new
group of students Stein singles out Ludwig ClauB and "Frl. Walther"
as "very promising people."g
Among the other students with Husserl at that time in addition to ClauB
were Roman Ingarden, Otto Griindler, and Karl Lowith. Martin Heidegger
was already a junior faculty member and most of the students attended
his lectures and courses as well, along with those of Jonas Cohn in history
of philosophy. Walther studied Aristotle with the Catholic philosopher
J. Geyser and, at Husserl's suggestion, she took courses in set theory
and analytical geometry, courses in which she found herself the only
woman. In Husserl's lectures there were about 30 to 40 students, among
whom were several other women including Stein, an economist named
Ilse Busse, a Frl. Lande, and another woman remembered only for her
habit of smoking cigars. 9
Walther did not complete her doctoral studies under Husserl but chose
instead to return to Munich to write her dissertation under Pfander. The
primary reason for this decision was the manner in which Husserl worked
with his graduate students. He was extremely directive in his approach,
allowing his students little freedom to develop their own ideas. Walther
wanted to write about the essence of social communities and knew that
Gerda Walther
191
Hussed had other ideas for her, so she told him she had already discussed
her dissertation topic with Pfander and wanted to return to Munich. It
is indicative of Hussed's attitude that when she told him this, Hussed's
response was that, "if the assignment has already been given to you,
you must of course go back to him." Walther did so and earned her
doctorate summa cum laude in Munich with a dissertation entitled Zur
Ontologie der Sozialen Gemeinschaften (On the Ontology of Social
Communities) which was later published in Hussed's lahrbuch fur
Philosophie und Phiinomenologische Forschung. 1O
A pivotal event in Gerda Walther's life took place in November,
1918 on a train as she was returning to Freiburg from her parents' home
in Baden Baden. She underwent an intense spiritual or religious experience which, as she describes it later, was "a force, an all-consuming
light, a sea of warm love and goodness" which surrounded her for most
of the trip. Whatever this "something" was, it was absolutely clear to
her that it had not come from within herself, but from another wodd.
From that time on she dedicated her life to exploring this spiritual world
she had been privileged to discover, and to look for signs of it in others,
in order to help them, too, to explore and develop it further. This was
certainly a far cry from the atheistic materialism in which she was raised.
A significant result of this experience was that Walther gave up much
of her political activism and decided to pursue an academic career. 11
In 1920 Edith Stein had paved the way for women in academia. 12
Unlike Stein, Walther was able to find an established professor, Karl
Jaspers, to sponsor her for habilitation. At that time, however, only
those who had an outside source of income could aspire to university
teaching because a Privat Dozent did not receive a salary from the
university, but collected small tuition payments from the students. Despite
his Socialistic beliefs, Gerda Walther's father had been a man of considerable means, and when he died in 1919 he left enough money in
cash and stocks for Gerda to live comfortably on the income it generated. The well-meaning executor of the estate took it upon himself to sell
most of the stock and reinvest the proceeds in "gilt-edged" securities
and gold-based bonds. Early in 1923, Gerda moved to Heidelberg and
set to work. There she became involved with the circle of people surrounding the poet Stefan George, who came to have a very special
meaning in her life. 13 Within a few months, however, Germany was
engulfed in ruinous inflation, and Walther found herself almost destitute. She was forced to go to Copenhagen to live with her relatives,
only to encounter enormous anti-German feeling there. 14
192
Gerda Walther
Gerda Walther
193
Parapsychologie, and to take part in all of the sessions with the mediums.
She did not normally take the notes for the protocols during these
sessions, but did so on some occasions, using a clock with an illuminated
dial to make exact notations of the time each phenomenon occurred.
The protocols were typed the next day and copies sent to each participant. In addition, Schrenk wrote an analysis and interpretation of
the events of each session. In this position Walther's talents were appreciated and she had the opportunity to learn more about a field that had
interested her for nearly ten years, but she had a premonition that it would
not last and that the apparently healthy Schrenk would die. Within the
year Schrenk was stricken with a burst appendix and died unexpectedly. His widow asked Walther to edit a collection of Schrenk-Notzing's
writing under the title Gesammelten Aufsiitze zur Parapsychologie,
reissued in 1962 by Kohlhammer in Stuttgart as Grundfragen der
Parapsychologie .16
After Schrenk-Notzing's death Gerda Walther expanded her involvement with those areas of particular interest to her, e.g., mental or spiritual
phenomena such as telepathy, clairvoyance, and psychometry, which
Schrenk-Notzing had not been interested in. And now began her long
years on the lecture circuit which took her all over Northern and Central
Europe. She also was asked to take on the editorship of the Dutch periodical Tijdschrift voor Parapsychologie. She earned her living as a
free-lance writer, publishing mostly in Zeitschrift fur Parapsychologie
and Psychic Research published by the American Society for Psychic
Research, as well as from interest on the little money she had left after
the inflation of 1923 had bankrupted herY
When the Nazis came to power in 1933 those whose past included
Socialist political activity and close personal relations with leaders of the
socialist movement in Germany were not exactly in favor. The Third
Reich's attitudes toward parapsychology and the occult were ambivalent at best. 18 In the early years of the regime parapsychology was
tolerated, however, and Walther was able to travel freely around Europe.
In 1938, however, she was ordered to appear before the Nazi authorities because her name appeared on a list of contributors to the Dutch
periodical Mensch in Kosmos which allegedly was published by a Jew.
She was forbidden to write for the journal or even to communicate with
them, and dared not do so because her mail was certainly being censored.
Luckily a Dutch friend visited her at this time and was able to carry a
message back. The article she had already submitted was published in
April, 1939, but under the name F. Johansen, Copenhagen.19
194
Gerda Walther
After World War II broke out, the 43 year-old Gerda Walther was
pressed into national service and assigned to work in the Foreign Postal
Censorship Office, because of her knowledge of English, French, Italian,
Dutch, and Danish. Here all mail to and from foreign countries was
opened, read and approved or censored. In June, 1941, Walther was
arrested by the Gestapo and subjected to hours of interrogation, first about
her acquaintance with Kurt Eisner, who had been a leader of the abortive
Socialist Revolution in Munich in 1918, and then from a list of prepared
questions concerning astrology, parapsychology and the occult. While
in custody her apartment was ransacked and many of her books, letters
and belongings were confiscated. She remained in prison for a period
of several weeks during which she was questioned periodically about her
knowledge of such things as Hitler's horoscope and then released. She
learned later that this was part of a nation-wide "Aktion Rudolf Hess"
directed against everyone known to be involved in astrological, parapsychological or occult activities.20
Ironically enough, less than a year later Walther and many other people
who had been arrested in Aktion Rudolf Hess were asked to participate in a project sponsored by the German Navy which had been suffering
heavy losses in their submarine fleet at the hands of the British. The
Germans were attempting to locate British submarines through "radiesthiology," Le., the use of "pendulum operators" who would hold a
pendulum over a map of the Atlantic, which was supposed to move in
a certain way over the spot where a British ship was located. Walther
did not believe that this would work, and if it did she had no desire to
engage in an activity that would result in the torpedoing of ships, so
she declined, informing the Navy that the Gestapo had forbidden her from
participating in any such activities. She was allowed to return to her
job at the censorship office. 21
Walther's wartime job gave her the opportunity from time to time to
perform humanitarian acts by sending messages back and forth to people
whom she had come to know through reading their correspondence.
She would pencil in warnings or pass along news of loved ones. She
had a typewriter at home and spent evenings making copies of underground documents such as the anti-Nazi sermons of the bishops in
Munster. In 1944, the Gestapo took direct control of the Censorship
Office and fired Walther when they became aware of her previous arrest.
In the same year Walther's spiritual journey from the atheism of her youth
led her to convert to Roman Catholicism, almost thirty years after that
first religious experience of 1918 which had started her on her path. 22
Gerda Walther
195
Walther endured many hardships and was in ill health during the
final months of the war. She was bombed out several times, losing all
her possessions and finally found refuge with relatives of a close friend
outside of the city. The post-war years were equally difficult for her,
having lost her health and everything else. When she was strong enough
she returned to Munich and resumed her writing and work in parapsychology. In 1955 a second, enlarged edition of Phiinomenologie der
Mystik was published, in 1960 her autobiography Zum anderen Uler
appeared and was designated a "Zeitdokument" which means it was
placed in school libraries throughout the Federal Republic because of the
insight it gives into German life in the 20th Century.23 In the 1970's
Walther was persuaded by friends to take all of her assets and purchase
a tiny apartment in a retirement home in DieBen on the Starnbarger See
outside of Munich. She spent her last years here, sadly cut off from
the city and from friends and colleagues. Her neighbors were "only interested in fashion shows and reminiscing about the Kaiser Wilhelm days.,,24
But she continued to write and read voluminously. In 1973 when two
women philosophers, an American and a German, organized a meeting
of German women philosophers, which was the beginning of Die
Assoziation von Philosophinnen in Deutschland, Gerda Walther was the
first person to respond to the announcements. Although she was too
poor and too ill to travel to the meeting, her response to the idea was
typically enthusiastic. 25 She remained mentally alert and actively engaged
in correspondence with philosophers interested in preparing both German
and English editions of her writings up until a few weeks before her
death, three months short of her eightieth birthday.26
II. PHILOSOPHY
1. Phenomenology
All too often the study of the history of philosophy ignores the lives
of the philosophers it studies, and the cultural, social and economic
contexts in which philosophers have functioned. We frequently look at
a philosopher's work virtually in a vacuum. Perhaps this is because
we want to believe that it is reason alone which determines the philosophical positions a person espouses. Perhaps it is because philosophy
has been such an overwhelmingly masculine endeavor and for males
the personal and emotional aspects of life are all too often sharply
196
Gerda Walther
Gerda Walther
197
and rests on the more basic one of how we can know one another, i.e.,
have knowledge of other minds (jremde Seele). Husserl's and Edith
Stein's answer to this question was that we get this knowledge through
"empathy." Others express themselves through body language and
gestures, through speech, and other various sorts of communications, and,
by means of these outward signs, we "empathically" grasp and understand them. So it is an individual body which is "given" first and this
body, this material element, gives expression to the mental. Husserl
believed that this is the only way it could be. Walther, however, believed
that there must be something more, that we must somehow have some
sort of more direct knowledge of other minds. Husserl views the
the nature of communities as a further step, in that after people
"empathic ally" have experience of one another, they band together
(either consciously or unconsciously) to form society. Therefore, on
the Husserl/Stein account knowledge of the community is also based
on material, external evidence. We begin with experience of the
spatio-physical world and derive the inner life of others from that, and
move on to the formation of society. Walther wanted to explore the
possibility that the answer lay in the opposite direction: that the basic
point of departure is some direct inner connection between human beings
and that everything else is just an external expression of that inner
connection.
It was not possible for Walther to pursue such a line of inquiry in
Freiburg with Husserl. He expected his students to elaborate his viewpoints rather than develop their own theses, and certainly not theses which
were contrary to his. As Karl L6with, one of Walther's fellow students
put it Husserl's way of working with students was like an architect who
had not only designed a house but had already built most of the structure himself. All that he allowed the students to do was the finishing
work, such as hanging the wallpaper. But even then Husserl had already
picked out the pattern. 30
Walther, therefore, returned to Munich to complete her dissertation.
Her starting point in working out these issues was Pfiinder's analysis
of the concept of sentiments (Gesinnungen) such as love and friendship, and what he refers to as inner union (innere Einigung). She also
makes use of the work of another of her teachers, the sociologist Max
Weber. But for the most part her work was original and broke new
ground, delving into areas Pfander and the others had not touched upon.
She works out in careful detail the elements essential to a community.
As she enumerates them, firstly there must be people who, in at least
198
Gerda Walther
one facet of their lives, are involved in a relationship to the same intentional object, understood in a broad sense. Secondly, they must at least
know of each other if they do not actually know one another. As a
result of this knowledge there must be some interaction between them,
either direct or indirect. This mutual interaction, which is motivated
directly or indirectly by the fact that they are both in an intentional
relationship with the same object, must bring about some commonality
in their lives (possibly, but not necessarily, the producing of something
in common). But these conditions are not sufficient because they could
all obtain and yet no community exist because of negative attitudes on
the part of the people concerned. The necessary additional factor is the
presence of a feeling of belonging together, an inner unity. Walther's very
detailed analyses of these elements and the issues raised by them is
original and creative. Spiegelberg, in The Phenomenological Movement
calls it "unusually fruitful and suggestive ... especially by virtue of
its careful analysis of the acts of mutual inner union in PHinder's sense
as the essential basis for the feeling of belonging together.... " This essay
might be of special interest to feminists, for whom the concept of community is an especially pertinent one and because Walther herself was
a committed feminist. At the end of this long essay Walther appends a
short treatment of the phenomenology, as opposed to the ontology, of
communities, dealing with the experiences of pure consciousness through
phenomenological reduction. Much to Walther's surprise, this work was
published in Husserl's lahrbuch in 1922, at a time, however, when that
journal was being edited not by Husserl himself, but by Pfander.
2. Mysticism
The single most significant event in Gerda Walther's life, which brought
about a major redirection of her philosophical thinking was the religious conversion experience she went through in November, 1918. 31
Her intense interest in mysticism and her best known philosophical work,
Die Phiinomenologie der Mystik (The Phenomenology of Mysticism), can
be traced directly to this occurrence. The following year, when a friend
of hers in Freiburg was in a state of despair over his inability to believe
in God, she got the idea of describing in writing her own religious
experience in completely objective, dry, scientific terms, without letting
on that this was something she had personally experienced. The title
of this early version of the manuscript was "Beitrag zur inneren
bewuBtseins-maBigen Konstitution des eigenen Grundwesensals Kern
Gerda Walther
199
200
Gerda Walther
fantasy if there were no original experience of God), then surely, somewhere, there must be a real experience of God, even if it is an imperfect
one. If one says that we have to believe on the basis of revelation rather
than on immediate experience of the Divine, it simply means that we may
not experience the Divine directly but must assume that others, those who
transmitted these revelations, have had such experience. So there must
have been immediate, original experience of God and at least every
religious prophet must have had one. Thus, we cannot avoid the immediate experience of the Divine, and, according to all mystics, we find
it in its most perfect and certain form in the mystical experience.
What Walther wants to do is to examine those experiences that,
according to their own inner sense, presume to be of God, or in whom,
a direct expression, revelation, or appearance of God presents itself. Every
experience in which this occurs is considered a mystical experience,
not just "mystical ecstasy," i.e., a complete immersion and submersion
of a person into the Divine Being, although such experiences come closest
to the meaning and purpose of mystical experience.
Walther argues that there are several common prejudices which keep
us from being able to study mystical experience with the open mind
with which the philosopher should approach any subject. One is the
assumption that it is impossible for the human mind to experience God
directly - that the object of mystical experience is merely the deepest
and innermost essence of the human soul. It is said that this innermost
essence generally lies hidden in the depth of a person's being as one goes
about ones daily, superficial life, and is then falsely thought to be a
revelation of God when we suddenly become aware of it. Walther argues
that this is nothing but psychologism, a form of thinking which has
died out in other areas such as mathematics or logic, but still holds
sway here. It is a position which cannot simply be assumed to be true
without further investigation and thus should not be allowed to obstruct
the study of mystical experience.
The second prejudice that must be overcome is the notion, stemming
from the empiricist tradition, that every real thing which can be an object
of our consciousness must be presented to it, directly or indirectly, by
means ofthe five senses, i.e., that it is impossible for anything to be experienced which is not in some way or other based upon sensory data.
Walther notes that some may think that the reports of the mystics confirm
this, in that they frequently use such terminology as "fragrances,"
"perfumes," "sweet feelings," "light," "warmth," and so on. But she
argues that this is the only way they can even approximately describe
Gerda Walther
201
202
Gerda Walther
is no possibility of its being confused with any other kind of experience. Only those who have never had such genuine, mystical experiences
could think that the entirely unique character of such experiences could
be confused with anything else.
3. Parapsychology, Mysticism and Phenomenology
Walther, in the later editions of her book, also raises the question of
the relationship between things such as extrasensory perception and other
parapsychological phenomena to mystical experience. She maintains that
if such phenomena are genuine and not merely expressions of the subconscious, then they, too, must come under the heading of "spiritual
phenomena." It is important to realize that there are many different
varieties of spiritual experience, and spiritual data are as different and
varied as are the data of sensory perception. Walther uses an example
to explain the relationship between mystical experience and parapsychological experience. She says it is like the case of a person who has
spent his entire life in an underground mine illuminated only by dim,
artificial light. Such a person would understand what light is and what
colors are. Then, for the first time, he comes out into the bright sunlight
and he thinks that only then is he really learning what it is to see, because
the experience is so much more vivid than anything he had ever experienced before. This, Walther says, is how occult experiences are relative
to mystical experiences. Yet occult experiences, insofar as they really are
spiritual perceptions, are more closely related to mystical experiences
than they are to external perception. Nonetheless, they may not have
anything at all to do with religious experience. Someone may have had
a great many occult experiences and yet not have the slightest idea
what mystical experiences of the sort Walther is investigating, i.e., religious experiences are like. In spite of all the essential differences between
them, however, the experience of the Divine does bear a certain likeness
to "paraphysical" experience and experience of ones own innermost
being, not only with respect to the inner quality of the experience, but
also with respect to the way mystics generally attain these experiences.
Therefore, the examination of mystical experience is prefaced by an
examination of occult experience, in order better to understand the nature
of the genuinely religious experience of mysticism, and to be able to
distinguish between the two sorts of experience.
It is clear, then that even in Walther's early work she was moving
in the direction of parapsychology. The inner connection which she posits
Gerda Walther
203
204
Gerda Walther
Gerda Walther
205
III. CONCLUSIONS
The necessity of earning a living through free-lance writing and lecturing,
the hardships of World War II and its aftermath, and the disapprobation of her peers kept Walther from doing very much philosophical
writing after the early 1930's. The quality of the work she did produce
is such that it is clear that the field of philosophy is impoverished as a
result of her absence from it. It may be, however, that history will show
that the work she did do in the philosophy of parapsychology was original
and important, and that she was simply ahead of her time.
NOTES
1. All information in this biographical sketch comes from Gerda Walther's
autobiography, Zum Anderen Ufer: Yom Marxismus und Atheismus zum
Christiantum (hereafter ZAU), unless otherwise indicated in the notes.
Specific chapter reference are included below.
2. See ZAU, chapters entitled, "Mein Vater," "Meine Mutter" and "Die
Stiefmutter."
3. ZAU, "Erinnerungen an Patienten," "Am Stambarger See," "Ein Fremdkorper im Madchenpensionat," "Mit dem GroBvater unterwegs," "In
Kopenhagen," "Die Jungsozialistin," and "In der Hochburg des Marxismus."
4. ZAU, "Ausbruch des ersten Weltkriegs," "Die Gymnasiastin," "Bei den
osterreichischen Genossen," "Die 'Sektion der 18-jahrigen' der Munchner
SDP," "Endlich auf der UniversitatL"
5. Alexander PHinder (1870-1941), was one of the early phenomenologists
and the leader of the Munich branch of the movement. He was Professor
of Philosophy at the University of Munich. From 1904 until the mid-1920's
Pfander and Edmund HusserI were close colleagues, but when Pfander
did not follow HusserI in the later developments of his philosophy, Le.,
the phenomenological reduction, they drifted apart. Another of PHinder's
students, Herbert Spiegelberg, provides a brief treatment of his philosophy in The Phenomenological Movement, I, 173-192.
6. ZAU, pp. 194-195.
7. ZAU, "Bei Edmund Husserl in Freiburg L Br."
8. Edith Stein, Letter to Roman Ingarden of August 20, 1917, in Edith Steins
Werke, VIII, p. 29.
9. ZAU, p. 209.
10. ZAU, "Promotion."
11. ZAU, "Sturz in eine andere Welt."
12. See biographical sketch of Edith Stein, pp. 157-162 of this volume.
13. ZAU, "Die Junger und sein Meister," and "Studium in Heidelberg."
14. ZAU, "Verarmt und verzweifelt - wieder in Skandinavien."
206
Gerda Walther
Few, if any, women philosophers have garnered both the adulation and
scorn that Ayn Rand received during her lifetime and even since her
death. This, perhaps, is how she would have chosen it as she intended
to be a revolutionary and to create a system that would allow man to
rescue himself from moral bankruptcy.l Her intention at the age of nine
was to become a writer. She would write four novels, two of which,
The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged have become classics. Her philosophic movement, Objectivism, was often to be called a cult, she abhorred
this term because it implied a religious connotation and Rand was
staunchly atheistic. Rand also eschewed academic philosophy, believing
that the true test of the value in philosophy is its ability to affect the lives
of the common man. In her view, "If all philosophers were required to
present their ideas in novels, to dramatize the exact meaning and consequences of their philosophies in human life, there would be far fewer
philosophers - and far better ones."2
It was not until the completion in 1957 of her novel Atlas Shrugged,
which she felt best exemplified Objectivist philosophy written for nonacademicians, that she was encouraged to systematize her philosophy.
During that same period, Objectivism was being studied at the Nathaniel
Branden Institute (NBI) in New York and popularized through audio tapes
of the lectures given at NBI and broadcast around the world. By the
mid 1960's the Objectivist movement was in full swing and was to have
far-reaching effects. The two strongest drives in Rand's early life were
her desire to write novels and her desire to escape communist Russia
and show the world its evils. She was able to accomplish both of these
with her fiction. Later, with the encouragement and synergistic effect
of her relationship with Nathaniel Branden she was able to systematize
the philosophy inherent in her fiction.
As the characters and plots in her novels were both praised and
A History of Women PhilosophersNolume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, 207-224.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
208
Ayn Rand
I. BIOGRAPHY
Ayn Rand
209
210
Ayn Rand
she was forced to work as a waitress, which she did outside Los Angeles
so that O'Connor would not see her.
In 1929, Ayn Rand married Frank O'Connor. Several friends remarked
that the marriage was prompted by her expiring visa. O'Connor continued
to dabble with acting jobs while Rand got a job working in the wardrobe
department at RKO movie studios. While she loathed the work, the
money was a godsend. During this time Rand continued work on her
writing.
In 1935 Rand went to New York with O'Connor to produce her play
Night of January 16th. In 1940, with $700 left to their names she went
to work on Wendell Wilkie's presidential campaign. Rand saw Wilkie
as the candidate who embraced her philosophy but she was soon to be
disappointed by his political compromises. Although she never enjoyed
public speaking, she took the stage at the Gloria Swanson Theatre on
14th Street to answer questions about Wendell Wilkie. Through these
political activities she met many prominent conservatives. Isabel "Pat"
Paterson, at the time a columnist for the New York Herald Tribune and
later the author of The God of the Machine, was to be Rand's first and
last important friendship with a contemporary. In a strange twist it was
Paterson the guru and Rand the willing student. Rand did have serious
differences with Paterson, who always maintained an element of religion
in her writing, to which Rand responded that religion is the first enemy
of the ability to think. Several of Rand's difficult personality traits were
becoming quite apparent by this time. Her inflated sense of self-responsibility left her astonished at friends' offers to help. Friends were afraid
that help would be viewed by Rand as a pitying insult to her independent spirit. Later, Rand would claim that she achieved all her successes
on her own, obviously forgetting the generosity and breaks extended to
her. She also became suspicious of humor and voiced contempt at the
suggestion that one should be able to laugh at oneself. 8
The Fountainhead was published in 1943. Warner Bros. soon offered
an unheard of amount of $50,00 for the movie rights. Rand was also
called on to write the screenplay for the adaptation. By December 1943
Rand and O'Connor were on their way back to Hollywood. With part
of the proceeds from The Fountainhead they invested in a ranch in the
San Fernando Valley with a house of steel and glass, fitting for the author
of The Fountainhead. It was at the ranch that O'Connor began raising
peacocks and growing acres of citrus and flowers for commercial sale.
While completing the script for The Fountainhead, Rand was hired by
Hal Wallis to write screenplays.
Ayn Rand
211
In 1946 Rand wrote "Screen Guide for America" for the Motion
Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals, an anticommunist organization.9 A friend, Isabel Paterson told Rand that she
had a duty to write more fiction. Rand replied, "What if I went on strike?"
O'Connor suggested that the theme of all the world's great thinkers going
on strike would make a great novel. Thus was the conception of Atlas
Shrugged.
In 1950 Rand received a letter from a young man who would greatly
influence her writing as well as the dissemination of her philosophy.
Nathan Blumenthal wrote his favorite author with questions concerning
The Fountainhead. Rand was so impressed with the insight of his questions that she invited the young man to her home. This meeting was to
be the first of many evenings of intellectual discourse. At their next
meeting, Nathan asked to bring a friend, a woman whom he would later
marry and who would become one of Rand's closest associates for the
next eighteen years, Barbara Weidman. Many young intellectual admirers
were soon to follow. Among the group known as "The Collective," a
name facetiously chosen because of its obvious antithetical nature to
Rand's philosophy, were Leonard Peikoff, Joan Mitchell, Alan Greenspan
and other friends and family. Rand affectionately called them "the
children" or "the class of '43" (the year The Fountainhead was published). These disciples would popularize Rand's Objectivist philosophy.
When questioned by one of her young followers why she would give
so much of her time to them she replied, "The pleasure of dealing with
active minds outweighs any differences in our age or knowledge."lo
One of the privileges "The Collective" enjoyed was reading chapters
of Atlas Shrugged as they were written.
Nathaniel Branden (as Blumenthal was now known) studied psychology at New York University and brought its influence to Rand's
writing. By 1955 the relationship between Rand and Branden had developed into more than a friendship. Both Nathaniel Branden in his memoirs,
Judgment Day and Barbara Branden in her biography of Rand, The
Passion of Ayn Rand tell of the passionate and loving relationship that
developed between Rand and Branden. This relationship was first realized
through a platonic and highly intellectual phase, but soon was consummated sexually. To Rand, Branden was the epitome of her heroic
characters in looks, epistemology and ethics. At this time both Nathaniel
and Barbara Branden had admitted that their marriage was less than ideal.
When Rand and Branden confronted their respective spouses for their
consent to the affair, according to Barbara Branden, Rand said,
212
Ayn Rand
You know what I am, you know what Nathan is ... By the total
logic of who we are - by the total logic of what love and sex mean
- we had to love each other ... It's not a threat to you, Frank, or
to you, Barbara ... It's something separate, apart from both you and
from our normal lives ... Nathan has always represented the future
to me - but now it's a future that exists in the present ... Whatever
the two of you may be feeling, I know your intelligence, I know you
recognize the rationality of what we feel for each other, and that you
hold no value higher than reason ... There's nothing in our feeling
that can hurt or threaten either of you ... there's nothing that alters
my love for my husband, or Nathan's love for his wife .... ll
The affair began during one of the most crucial periods of the writing
of Atlas Shrugged, John Galt's speech, in which Rand explicates the
tenets of her philosophy. Branden assisted her in fleshing out the psychological aspects. It was during this time that Rand and Branden would
apply the term "social metaphysician" to those who had abandoned the
universe of reason and facts and lived in the universe of people. This was
the psychological interpretation of the second-handers, such as Peter
Keating in The Fountainhead. This verdict was meted out occasionally
to members of "The Collective" and frequently to outsiders as if it were
the diagnosis of cancer. It was reported that Rand and Branden were most
vicious in their condemnations and that these purges were often conducted as a trial with Branden the prosecutor. 12
By March 1957 Atlas Shrugged was completed and Rand would
dedicate it to Frank O'Connor and Nathaniel Branden. It was after the
well-expected savage reviews that Rand slipped into a deep depression.
It was not that the reviews affected her so, but moreover that there was
no one with a public voice that would repudiate these attacks. It was then
she must have felt that her association with young intellectuals did not
serve her well.
Rand said several times publicly that Nathaniel Branden was qualified
to speak for her at any time, he was uniquely qualified to be her intellectual heir.13 For the young man who idolized the mind of Rand, this
was the ultimate compliment, but would also become the ultimate and
most repressive responsibility. He now had to see Rand through her
depression while furthering the cause of Objectivism. He reports that their
sexual relationship was suspended by Rand's choice during this period
of depression. Branden suggested the idea of developing a series of
lectures that would explain Objectivism and answer the questions of
Ayn Rand
213
214
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
215
216
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
217
218
Ayn Rand
Rand and her followers consider Atlas Shrugged her true masterpiece.
It is often referred to as the Objectivist "bible." Rand herself would
After the publication of For the New Intellectual Rand realized that it
was nonfiction that was most natural for her to write 27 and soon began
The Objectivist NewsletterS jointly with Nathaniel Branden. In it Rand
discoursed on Objectivism and how it applied to contemporary culture,
politics or ethics. Often there was a guest editor who amplified the
cover page editorial.
The Objectivisf9 was an expanded Newsletter with a different format
and an ever increasing subscription. It was in the May 1968 issue that
she formally broke all ties with and repudiated both Nathaniel and
Barbara Branden. All subsequent issues were edited by Rand and coedited
by Leonard Peikoff. In this journal Rand set forth the policies which
any true "student of objectivism" would follow. She made it clear that
Ayn Rand
219
none of her followers should call themselves "Objectivists" lest they twist
or modify her philosophy.
After the break with the Brandens and a steep decline in subscriptions,
The Objectivist became The Ayn Rand Lette~O (much shorter and
narrower in scope) published fortnightly and addressing the national
and international events of the day. In 1975, at the age of seventy, Rand
was unable to meet the onerous publication schedule and discontinued
220
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
221
This is the first published collection of works written after the break
with Branden. Rand wrote and published these articles in response to a
request from a graduate student for a compilation of her thoughts on
the educational system and the challenges the college students posed
to the system. Rand at once both praises and condemns the protesting
students. She praises them for rebelling against those in the educational
system who taught them to think irrationally; a system which stressed
conformity and socialization over conceptual skills. However, she rebukes
the students for rebelling against modem technology, they should see
the smokestack as a symbol of capitalism.
In a strange twist Rand draws an analogy to the women's movement.
She says that there is envy behind protests; and that the women's
movement in particular shows women's envy of men. She denounces
these protests saying that American women don't appreciate the fact
that they are. the most privileged women in the world. She goes as far
as to call them men-haters.
12. Philosophy: Who Needs it? (1982)
222
Ayn Rand
tend to preserve the dogma of Objectivism rather than forge new ground.
The premise of her title essay is that everyone's actions or inactions
derive from a philosophy, either conscious or subconscious. She takes
this opportunity to attack the philosophies of Hume, Kant, Plato and
Emerson and credits them with influencing modern thought that has come
up with such platitudes as, "Don't be so sure - nothing can be known
for certain."
In "Kant versus Sullivan" Rand rebukes academicians who publish
articles devaluing "the work," propose science without experience and
language without words with the example of Helen Keller and Annie
Sullivan, then a topical item in the Broadway play, "The Miracle
Worker." Keller, blind and deaf, is brought into the world of conceptual awareness by Sullivan through the use of language. Rand sees this
as exemplifying the significance of "the word," of language.
IV. CONCLUSION
Ayn Rand was an original thinker whose early philosophical views were
heavily influenced both by her responses to Aristotle, Aquinas, and
Nietzsche, and by her personal experiences with the moral bankruptcy
of communist philosophy as it was applied in the Soviet state. Although
her early career was a literary philosophical one, her greatest literary
works, The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged were great precisely
because they fulfilled what she viewed to be the proper social role of philosophy: the moral mobilization of the public. By contemporary academic
standards, Rand was not well read in philosophy. Yet, she fits well in
Ayn Rand
223
NOTES
1. In his chapter I shall follow Rand's gendered terminology; she disclaimed
being a feminist.
2. Barbara Branden, The Passion of Ayn Rand (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday,
1986), p. 141.
3. Barbara Branden had occasion to interview Rand at length for the biographical sketch in Who Is Ayn Rand? Branden has over thirty-eight hours
of taped interviews with Rand discussing her childhood, early womanhood, her early years in America, her courtship with Frank O'Connor, her
successes and disappointments. These tapes and her personal interactions
with Rand over their twenty year friendship are the basis of her book The
Passion of Ayn Rand.
4. Barbara Branden, p. 41.
5. Ibid., p. 41.
6. Ibid., p. 63.
7. Ibid., p. 70.
8. Ibid., p. 173.
9. Ibid., p. 199.
10. Ibid., p. 237.
11. Ibid., p. 258.
12. Ibid., p. 269.
13. Nathaniel Branden, Judgment Day (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company,
1989), p. 345.
14. Barbara Branden, p. 352.
15. This respiratory illness was undoubtedly exacerbated by her history of
lung cancer. Rand's signature cigarette holder almost always carrying a
lit cigarette would not bode well for her. She would lose a lung to lung
cancer (although this was denied by Leonard Peikoff). Rand's smoking
created a stir among the Objectivist movement: despite empirical evidence
224
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
Ayn Rand
that smoking was detrimental to one's health, but Rand refused to renounce
the habit and many of her followers continued to imitate her.
I was in New York at the time of Rand's death and was one of the curious
attending the wake. I credit Rand with piquing my interest in philosophy.
James T. Baker, Ayn Rand (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987), p. 39.
Barbara Branden, p. 52.
Ibid., p. 294.
Ibid., p. 114.
For the New Intellectual, p. vii.
Ibid., p. 23.
Ibid., p. 80.
James T. Baker, p. 63.
Ibid., p. 59.
Ibid., p. 59.
Barbara Branden, p. 322.
The Objectivist Newsletter, January 1962-December 1965.
The Objectivist, January 1966-September 1971.
The Ayn Rand Letter, October 1971-February 1976.
The Virtue of Selfishness, p. vii.
Ibid., p. 17.
James T. Baker, p. 81.
Introduction to Objectivist Epistemology, p. 4.
I. BACKGROUND
226
candidate for the chair of ancient philosophy. When the proposal was
already on its way to the Queen's cabinet, it became known that a year
earlier she had embraced the Catholic faith and had been baptized in
the Roman Catholic Church. Many years afterwards I asked a leading
figure on the faculty if he still agreed with the criticisms levelled at
the time, and he answered: "Yes, for sure, - there should not have been
appointed a woman to that chair, let alone a Catholic woman."
II. BIOGRAPHY
Cornelia Johanna De Vogel was born on February 27th, 1905, in the
Frisian capital Leeuwarden, where her father was a pharmacist. Having
completed the Stedelijk Gymnasium she went to Utrecht University
to study Classics (1924-1927), and then to Leyden University (19291930). The years of study were interrupted for two years (1927-1929),
when she lived in Harderwijk, teaching Classics in the "Christelijk
Lyceum," and for longer periodsin the years between 1930-1940,
because of ill health. She passed the doctoral examination in 1932
in Utrecht. According to the order of studies in Dutch universities,
this examination conferred the title of doctorandus and the right to
present a dissertation for the doctoral degree. (She received her Ph.D.
in 1936.)
There is a kind of autobiography up to the year 1974. It takes the form
of an interview with a representative of the "Societas Studiosorum
Reformatorum." In the interview De Vogel recalls her early years at home
and as a student, and describes the atmosphere in which she grew up.
There was no trace whatever of any religious conviction in the family.
No reading of the Bible, no prayers, an attitude of tolerance, and
at times a violent criticism of the arrogance of preachers. The first
notion of religion came to her from children's books in the library of
the elementary school. At the age of about ten the child had her first
awareness of God's presence, and was dominated by the problem that
"without God life had no sense." Having entered middle school she
was sent to a series of confirmation classes, where a minister explained
religion in a rationalistic and Hegelian vein. The person of Jesus was
mythologized and Christ did not come into the picture. In the later years
of the Gymnasium she made her first acquaintance with philosophical
literature, and from what she read she construed for herself "a kind of
philosophical religion" (as she called it).
227
228
229
had traced the allusions and backgrounds of the mysterious eight paradigms in Plato's Parmenides. Reconstructing the Academic context of
the discussions she found not only that Plato's Parmenides marked a
real crisis in the doctrine of Forms (a "keerpunt," i.e. a change of direction, a retractatio), but she even could trace the first and still vague
development of the metaphysical theory which in later centuries was
to be characteristic of Neoplatonism.
The development of metaphysical theory had been for its own
sake the primary issue for De Vogel in the years when her world-view
took shape. She later came to investigate the growth of Plato's theory
of Forms and the appearance of new theories in the dialogues and in
the unwritten doctrines. Her most central studies in this field were published in Mnemosyne (1954),9 in the Royaumont Colloquium-volume
Le Neoplatonism,1O (1969), and (as reprints) in Philosophia I (1970)Y
The results may be seen in Greek Philosophy I. From the outset two
problems were involved: 1) How far can the neoplatonic interpretation
of Plato's theories be accepted as correct? 2) Should the Demiurge of
Plato's Timaeus be seen as an independent hypostasis in the cosmic
scale of being equal to the Plotinian Nous, or simply as a part of or a
faculty of the World-Soul, parallel to human intellect in the human
soul? The first of the two problems intertwines with the exploration of
Plato's unwritten doctrines, internationally in full course from the 1930s
onwards. These investigations were in full swing from the 1930s onwards.
The second problem was interwoven with metaphysical considerations
which formed the core of De Vogel's own world-view.
In Plato's written work the first hint of a super-transcendent One is
found in Rep. VI.12 Leading the way by different arguments, Plato makes
Socrates explain that a first principle must be recognized which lies
"on yonder side" of being and knowledge (and, by implication, "on
yonder side" of the Forms, although in the Republic this formula is not
found). The argument leading to this conclusion begins with the analogy
of sense-perception. The eye can only see the object if both object and
eye are illuminated by the sun, and, by analogy, the mind can only see
the Forms if there is a superior principle enlightening both. In the realm
of pure Forms we must conjecture a first principle over and above the
Forms, which makes the Forms visible to the spiritual eye, a principle
lying "on yonder side of Being" (509B). In the chronological order of
the dialogues this is the first appearance of a super-transcendent principle, later called the Good or the One. De Vogel saw it as the early
foundation for the Plotinian theory of hypostases.
230
231
232
the unwritten doctrine had led her to recognize their presence in Plato's
later work, the so-called metaphysical dialogues.
There was, however, one point in which she did not share the interpretation according to the new "paradigm," as it is called in the Italian
school. From the Republic onwards the bulk of Plato's written work offers
recognizable traces of and allusions to what must have been an existing
background of unwritten doctrines. She had too keen a sense of philological exactness to share the view that even in the very early dialogues
we may recognize the presence of the unwritten doctrines. She consistently held that the texts of the early work simply did not allow drawing
such artificial conclusions.
De Vogel took a keen interest in the investigations and maintained
correspondence whenever one of these voluminous and learned books
was published. In Milan a growing interest in her work became manifest
from 1989 onward. In that year an exhaustive examination of her views
was published by Enrico Peroli,2 and in 1990 Peroli published a complete translation into Italian of her last work: Ripensando Platone e il
Platonismo. 21 This Italian edition has a long introduction by Giovanni
Reale, which reads more like a summary of objections. It is, however,
interesting because it echoes the discussions which had been carried
on by correspondence, including the story of the discussions conducted
by De Vogel with Kramer and himself. The original correspondence is
now in the Katholiek Documentatie Centrum of Nijmegen University.
In the above-mentioned article by Peroli, there is an interesting
summary of De Vogel's views about the question whether the early
origins of Neoplatonic theories can be found in Plato's unwritten doctrines. De Vogel published quite a series of studies on this problem: Mind
1953,22 Mnemosyne 1954,23 and the reprints in Philosophia I ch. 8, 9,
10 and 16. As Peroli states correctly, the unwritten doctrines and the later
dialogues must be considered as the birthplace of Neoplatonism. He
adds that De Vogel's contributions to solving the riddle are all the more
significant
. . . when we realize that her studies on the continuity of Platonism
and Neoplatonism were published in the early fifties. 24
Peroli itemizes three important points in De Vogel's work. The first
is that of the degrees of reality, descending from the One which is "above
being." In this point, when leaving aside the principle of emanation,
the Plotinian system clearly corresponds to the Platonic one.
233
234
235
236
237
238
and every Catholic," as the title suggests, but at the bishops especially.
As an answer to Archbishop Alfrink it missed its point. The papers give
vent to a long drawn out series of irritating protests, occasioned by public
manifestations were the traditional doctrines were deliberately doubted or
denied or given "a new and strange interpretation."
The broadside provoked a short storm in what was left of a Catholic
press in Holland, and after that was forgotten until 1980, when a journalist of the Catholic weekly De Tijd interviewed professor De Vogel. 44
The many reactions to this interview were answered by De Vogel in a
pocket-size book Tijdproblemen 4s (1981). Here again the theological arguments are rather abstract and conventional, but there are two interesting
additions on the question of the specific mission of women in this world,
and on the question why women should not be ordained priest in the
Catholic Church. Another bishop came under fire.
On the occasion of Mother's Day, May 11, 1980, the Bishop of
Rotterdam, Msgr. Simonis, had delivered a radio talk in which he set
forth his view as to the "quite special nature which is the privilege of
all women." The predisposition to be a mother, he said, determines for
every woman the moral character of her being, as well as her mission
in life. This mission can be fulfilled just as well by having children
and educating them, as by taking care of the quality of life in the world
surrounding her. De Vogel took offense at the bishop's tendency to reduce
women's capacities to a biological principle and wrote a letter to him
pointing out his error. She stressed (more or less describing her own
vocation) that teaching and inspiring people in philosophy and religion
is a spiritual process, proper to man as well as to woman. This is what
is meant by being created in God's image and likeness. It is quite beside
the truth to presume that a woman has her capacity of inspiration just
only because of her biological disposition.
Bishop Simonis persisted in his point of view and sent an answer in
which he wrote the "horrible words:" "nothing is more fundamental
than gender," whereupon De Vogel retorted: "nothing is more fundamental than being created in God's image." She added: "nowhere in
the Bible it is said that procreation was the one and only task given by
God to humans."
The second of the added chapters treats the delicate question of the
possibility for women being ordained priests. She writes with tact and
with due respect for the ecclesiastical tradition. At the end she adduces
the example of the by now many women who are working as missionaries in lonely posts. They provide the complete range of pastoral
239
240
VI. CONCLUSIONS
Professor De Vogel was known as a prolific author on questions of
Ancient Philosophy and Patristic Theology. In a long life (in which she
stayed unmarried, having made a vow to that effect) all her efforts were
dedicated to her work as a historian of philosophy, and, from time to
time, to taking part in contemporary theological discussions. Her investigations in the field of Ancient Philosophy and Patristic Theology were
intimately bound up with her religious convictions about the Platonic
roots within the Western theological tradition. De Vogel was internationally leading in the historiography of Platonism and Neoplatonism.
She taught for 25 years in the State University at Utrecht, and, as an
invited professor, for some time at New York University, at Tokyo
University, and on Taiwan.
As her former student and as a senior lecturer in the same field of
studies of Ancient Philosophy, and now the Executor of her literary estate,
I am grateful to the editor and publishers for having invited me to write
her philosophical biography.
NOTES
1. De Vogel, Cornelia, Aan de Katholieken van Nederland. Aan allen.
Nijmegen, 1973.
2. Op. cit., pp. 101-102.
3. De Vogel, Cornelia, Ecclesia catholica. Redelijke verantwoording von een
persoonlijke keuze. Utrecht, 1946, p. 17.
4. De Vogel, Cornelia, Greek Philosophy. Texts with notes and explanations.
Vol. I, Thales to Plato. Leiden, 1950, 2nd ed. 1957; 3rd ed. 1963; 4th ed.
1969.
5. De Vogel, Cornelia, Greek Philosophy. Texts with notes and explanations.
Vol. II, Aristotle, the Early Peripatetic School and the Early Academy.
Leiden, 1953, 2nd ed. 1960; 3rd ed. 1967.
6. De Vogel, Cornelia, Greek Philosophy. Texts with notes and explanations.
Vol. III, The Hellenistic-Roman Period. Leiden, 1959, 2nd ed. 1968; 3rd
ed. 1973.
7. See Bibliography at end of this volume.
8. Vogel, Cornelia J. de, Een keerpunt in Plato's denken. Een historischphilosophische studie. Amsterdam, 1936.
9. De Vogel, Cornelia, "A la recherche des etapes precises entre Platon et
Ie Neoplatonisme," Mnemosyne S. IV:7 (1954): 111-122.
10. De Vogel, Cornelia, "A Propos de quelques aspects dits neoplatonisants
du platonisme de Platon," in Le Neoplatonisme. Paris: Colloque de
Royaumont, 1969; Paris, 1971, pp. 7-16.
241
242
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
I. BIOGRAPHY
244
Hannah Arendt
She spent the remainder of her life living in the United States, receiving
her American citizenship in 1951.
Her many writings against racism, and particularly against antisemitism, brought her major honors including a Guggenheim Foundation
Grant, the Sonning Prize from the Danish government, and the American
Political Science Association's Lippincott Award. She received appointments at major "think tanks" and at American universities. During the
mid 1940's Arendt was Research Director of the Conference on Jewish
Relations, and much later, received a professorial appointment at the
University of Chicago's Committee on Social Thought. Not only did
she teach at the above-mentioned Brooklyn College, but also at New
Jersey's Princeton University, and in Manhattan at the prestigious New
School for Social Research. There she held the rank of University
Professor of Political Philosophy. She was invited to give the Gifford
Lectures at the University of Aberdeen in 1973 and 1974. There she
presented portions of what would be her final works, the first two books
of the planned trilogy: The Life of the Mind. The work is edited by her
friend and literary executor, the writer Mary McCarthy.
Despite her training and her faculty appointments in Philosophy (she
had been the first female full professor at Princeton), Arendt denied
for many years that she was a "philosopher" preferring, in the tradition
of her contemporaries, Beauvoir (see Chapter 12), Sartre and Rand
(see Chapter 9) to bring philosophical insights to bear on subjects that
well-educated non-philosophers would find relevant to their lives. She
wrote numerous short articles for the popular press, and even her more
scholarly full-length works were mostly published by non-academic
presses.
II. WORKS
Hannah Arendt
245
1. On Revolution
In On Revolution Arendt examines the French, American and Russian
revolutions and the central components of each: power, passion and
reason. In Arendt's view, the American Revolution epitomized each
component in ways that were subtly but crucially different than in the
other revolutions. These differences, she claims, account for its unique
success. The American Revolution broke with tradition in assuming the
"naturalness" of poverty, Arendt claims.14 Arendt notes that historically,
"revolution" has meant "restoration" and since Copernicus at least, has
meant in cosmological terms "the orderly and lawful return to the original
position." It is this "orderliness" and "lawfulness" of the American
Revolution that in Arendt's view distinguishes it from others. 15 Its statement of the "original position" (as John Rawls would also use the term)
was a statement of original equality of all and the commitment of
all to the orderly establishment of positive law. This was what the
Declaration of Independence stated prior to the commencement of the
American Revolution: the natural equality of citizens and their natural
right to be self-governing and to establish institutions of law. In contrast,
the French and Russian revolutions attempted to overthrow existing
regimes, but resulted in perhaps even greater chaos, oppression and
disorder:
If the new metaphorical content of the word "revolution" sprang
directly from the experiences of those who first made and then enacted
the Revolution in France, it obviously carried an ever greater plausibility for those who watched its course, as if it were a spectacle, from
246
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
247
of liberation, and the fight for independence which was the condition for freedom of the new states. I?
The French Revolution assumed that the Declaration of the Rights
of Man formed the foundation of any legitimate government; on the
contrary, Arendt argues, the American Revolutionaries assumed that
the rights articulated in the Declaration of Independence outlined the
limits of government control over citizens. IS What the American founders
understood and the French did not, Arendt says, is the need to distinguish
the legitimacy of the government, the constituent power (that it rests
on the consent of public opinion) from the constitutional authority of
government (that it rests on a legitimately written document). The
legitimacy of the American Constitution is derived from the consent of
the legitimate state governments whose representatives wrote it and
whose legislatures then ratified it. The legitimacy of the institutions of
government which it created, and the system of lawmaking which it
sets in place is more or less permanent. Changes in individual laws
which are then written following procedures created by that system are
vulnerable to the constituent power's changeable court of public opinion,
but the system of government itself is not so quickly changeable, and
therefore is comparatively stable. The ability to provide for both stability
and change was the genius of the American system, in Arendt's view. 19
Yet, in the final chapter, we find her lamenting with Jefferson the inability
to avoid the "tyranny of the Constitution" and its consequent suppression of revolutionary spirit. By failing to incorporate the "town meeting"
the truly "grass roots" level of representation into the Constitution, Arendt
claims, the framers of the Constitution had the "vanity and presumption" to govern beyond the grave. At best, the American two-party system
offers some measure of protection against representatives becoming
despots; however, it does not give the ordinary person a true opportunity to participate in government. Thus, government tends to involve
leaders leading the people rather than leaders emerging from and representing the views of the people. Arendt's views here appear somewhat
forced: she does not credit the negative forces within the system that
create opportunities for ordinary citizens to seek leadership roles. She
ignores for the most part, opportunities for initiative and recall, and
seems to forget her own insight that the federal government is a limited
government, all powers not granted to it by the states are reserved to
the states, and thus may be exercised at the level of state assemblies.
She ignores also the fact also that election to the federal House of
248
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
249
250
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
251
252
Hannah Arendt
absent is present to his mind, and among the things absent is the
philosopher's own body. Both the philosopher's hostility toward
politics, "the petty affairs of men" and his hostility toward the body
have little to do with individual convictions and beliefs; they are
inherent in the experience itself. While you are thinking, you are
unaware of your own corporeality - and it is this experience that made
Plato ascribe immortality to the soul once it has departed from the
body and made Descartes conclude "that the soul can think without
the body except that so long as the soul is attached to the body it
may be bothered in its operations by the bad disposition of the body's
organs.,,33
Thinking requires language for its outward manifestation, and bodily
metaphors like "seeing," "gaining insight" "envisioning" are the usual
mode of manifesting thought. 34 Willing, according to Arendt, is usually
expressed by the bodily metaphor of desire. Here, in what can only be
a disingenuous move, Arendt ignores the traditional accounts distinguishing between passion/desire and willlconscience. 35 Judgment, she
notes, has been discussed in depth only by Kant, whose original title
for the Critique of Judgment was Critique of Taste. 36 Thinking is inherently a linguistic act: it needs speech to take place at all, but its language
is entirely one of metaphor
... which bridges the gulf between the visible and the invisible, the
world of appearances and the thinking ego - there exists no metaphor
that could plausibly illuminate this special activity of the mind, in
which something invisible within us deals with the invisibles of
the world. All metaphors drawn from the senses will lead us into
difficulties for the simple reason that all our senses are essentially
cognitive, hence, if understood as activities, have an end outside themselves; they are not energeia, an end in itself, but instruments enabling
us to know and deal with the world .... The only possible metaphor
one may conceive of for the life of the mind is the sensation of being
alive. Without the breath of life the human body is a corpse; without
thinking the human mind is dead. 37
In answer to the question "what makes us think?" Arendt surveys
the answers given by the Greeks (the desire to immortalize oneself,
to find the divine within oneself)38 and by the Romans (the desire to
reconcile ourselves to the disunity and chaos of the universe through
Hannah Arendt
253
254
Hannah Arendt
account the possibility that someone can know the good and can
knowingly will to do evil. The Greeks failed to identify a separate psychological faculty, that of the willing ego and understood only the
knowing ego. It was not until the Christian era with the development
of more complex concepts of the ingredients needed for salvation that
the faculty of will, and thus the act of willing, began to emerge as a
separate moral and psychological construct. Likewise, the Greek stage
had been set by the deterministic fates, and questions of the possibility
of free will in the face of an all-knowing, all powerful deity remained
unaddressed.
Arendt begins with a review of the history of philosophy of willing
and examines that history in terms of two concepts: that of the existence of a separate psychological faculty of willing; and that of a free
will that exercises choice. The mind's power to recall and to recollect,
to bring into the here and now that which is inexorably not now here
prompts Arendt to consider the mind as it exists in time. The will, as a
faculty of choice deals not with the past and with things that exist, but
with the future, with that which mayor may not come into existence.
Willed acts are contingent. They are that which "I know that I could
as well have left ... undone.,,44 Antiquity identified temporality with
cyclical repetitions: that which comes into being has previously potentially but not actually existed. Thus, the concept of willing, of producing
a new possibility that may not have existed as a possibility until we willed
it, was in large part absent to the ancients. The modern age, with its linear
concept of time, and its notion of progress as a causal force in history
emphasized the importance of the future - that which has not yet been
and which might not be thus and so. From the Christian period through
the modern age, the most important philosophical question, Arendt notes,
has been whether the omnipotence and omniscience of the deity can be
reconciled with the concept of a free, rather than a determined will.
Philosophers have wrestled with this problem within the context of
religion, so the question "what is the nature of the will" has historically been tied up with the question of salvation.
Arendt credits Bergson with the insight to recognize the power of
the past in obscuring our concept of the will. Referring to Bergson, she
notes that in
... the perspective of memory, that is, looked at retrospectively, a
freely performed act loses its air of contingency under the impact of
now being an accomplished fact, of having become part and parcel
Hannah Arendt
255
256
Hannah Arendt
Hannah Arendt
257
III. CONCLUSIONS
258
Hannah Arendt
NOTES
1. Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth, Hannah Arendt: For Love of the World. New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1982.
2. Arendt, Hannah, Rahel Varnhagen, the Life of a Jewish Woman. New York:
Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1974. (Originally published in 1957 as: Rahel
Hannah Arendt
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
259
I. BIOGRAPHY*
Since the publication of The Second Sex in 1949 Simone de Beauvoir has
been a source of philosophical inspiration for feminists worldwide.
Beauvoir was born in Paris, January 2, 1908, the daughter of Fran~oise
Brasseur de Beauvoir and Georges de Beauvoir. She studied philosophy
at the Sorbonne and the Ecole Normale Superieure. After completing
the agregation in 1923, she taught philosophy in Marseilles, Rouen,
and Paris. In 1944 Beauvoir decided to become a full-time writer. Simone
de Beauvoir formed many lasting friendships including, most notably,
her life-long friendship with Jean-Paul Sartre, the individual who most
influenced her ideas and writing. She traveled widely and was particularly impressed by her visits to China, the Soviet Union, Cuba, and the
United States of America. She took part in numerous political demonstrations, among which were the opposition to the German occupation
of France, to French colonial rule in Algeria, to the war in Vietnam,
and to sexism in women's lives. Simone de Beauvoir died in Paris,
April 21, 1986.
II. WORKS*
Beauvoir's memo ires document her life and times in vivid detail. Memoirs
of a Dutiful Daughter contains compelling descriptions of her relationship with ZaZa, her childhood friend, and with Helene de Beauvoir,
her sister, as well as discussion of her rejection of religion and of the
family as institution. The Prime of Life brings forth Beauvoir's encounter
with existentialism, her life with Jean-Paul Sartre, and her own process
of becoming a writer. The Force of Circumstance highlights Beauvoir's
A History o/Women PhilosopherslVolume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, 261-286.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
262
Simone de Beauvoir
life during the pre-war and war years, All Said and Done moves from
the war to the late sixties, Adieux: A Farewell to Sartre marks the years
preceding the death of Sartre. A Very Easy Death, written upon the
death of her mother, may well be one of Beauvoir's most enduring essays.
Among her highly acclaimed literary works are She Came to Stay, The
Blood of Others, All Men are Mortal, The Mandarins, which received the
Prix Goncourt, Les Belles Images, and The Woman Destroyed. Beauvoir's
best known theoretical works are The Ethics of Ambiguity, The Second
Sex, and The Coming of Age.
Early in her life Beauvoir decided that she wanted to be a writer,
and not a philosopher. Philosophy may build great systems that enable
one to consider oneself abstractly, from a perspective at once universal
and infinite. Philosophical reflection may bring a sense of peaceful calm.
Nonetheless, Beauvoir argues, there is but one reality and that reality can
be thought only from within the world of living people. Once one is
"beneath a real sky" philosophical systems are no longer of use. The
"metaphysical novel," a philosophical literary work that seeks to evoke
the living unity and ambiguity of the subjective and the objective, the
relative and the absolute, the historical and the eternal is, for Beauvoir,
the greatest accomplishment. When developed in an existential context,
the metaphysical novel refuses the consolations of abstract evasion and
by bringing readers to ourselves - to our loves, our revolts, our desires
- it brings us to the concrete difficulties of choice and action. l
Beauvoir's work sets forth a supple existentialism that honors experience in its fundamental ambiguity and safeguards the world of human
experience from objectifying philosophical systems and oppressive
political institutions. "Experience" is defined by Beauvoir as the "inward
experience of a subject," the "inwardly-experienced meaning" of our
being in the world. 2 Lived experience can be communicated from the
standpoint of each individual's uniqueness but it cannot be known as a
universal, philosophical concept. In Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter
Beauvoir shows her experience, for her, was always ambiguous. As a
child she desired to express neutral tints and muted shades, she felt that
there might be a gap between word and object, she was wary of the
assumption, encouraged by grownups, that the definition of a thing
expresses its substance:
Whatever I beheld with my own eyes and every real experience had
to be fitted somehow or other into a rigid category: the myths and
the stereotyped ideas prevailed. 3
Simone de Beauvoir
263
264
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
265
266
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
267
268
Simone de Beauvoir
She had dismissed at first Colette Audry's suggestion that she write
a book on women, but after World War II Beauvoir took up that project
with vigor.38 Whereas in The Second Sex Beauvoir wrote that women live
dispersed among males and lack the concrete means for organizing themselves into a group, some twenty years later she signed the Mani/este
des 343 and participated in the French feminist campaign for free
abortion. In 1972 she decided that socialism alone would not improve
women's situation. She named herself a militant feminist and joined
the women's liberation movement:
... where they [feminists] do differ from my book is on the practical plane: they refuse to trust in the future; they want to tackle their
problems, to take their fate in hand, here and now. This is the point
upon which I have changed: I think they are right. 39
When reconsidering her work in its entirety, Beauvoir noted,
... when I was young it would have upset me if my books were called
"women's books" and now, on the contrary, I am very happy to think
that my books particularly interest women because I feel a solidarity
with other women. 40
III. PHILOSOPHY OF THE SELF**
1. Background
Beauvoir asserted in her autobiography that the problem of the Other was
her issue, a point that can easily be seen in her first two novels, L'/nvitee
(She Came to Stay) and Le sang des autres (The Blood o/Others), as well
as in the work she is most famous for, The Second Sex. There she analyzes
woman's situation as that of Other. However, the problem of the Other
can be seen as complementary to the problem of self. It is a problem
that Beauvoir derived from two sources: (1) Hegel's conception of the
self, where the Other is presented as a negative definition of the self,
and (2) Sartre's interpretation of Husserlian phenomenology, which contrasted the self as "for-itself" and the self as ego. 41
The tradition in which Simone de Beauvoir wrote, that of existentialism or existential phenomenology (a term she uses occasionally in
The Second Sex), does not discuss the self in terms of criteria for personal
identity. The emphasis within existentialism, specifically Sartrean exis-
Simone de Beauvoir
269
270
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
271
272
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
273
an argument that is a radical addition to the existential-phenomenological ontology of Sartre that she began with, that is, the me-other
relationship is as indissoluble as the subject-object relationship.60 She
begins with the axiom that human subjectivity, the for-itself, is active,
moving toward a project. Thus, subjectivity is the starting point of every
project, and subjectivity by definition is a surpassing of itself, a transcendence. But, she adds to the Sartrean ontology two important notions:
subjectivity needs justification and it receives justification in the existence of other human beings. A weakness is that she does not provide
serious arguments for these points, but merely declares them. Her conclusion and "irreducible truth" is that the relation between one's self
and others is an indissoluble one. 61 Since self and other are bound together
onto logically, the willing of my own freedom, i.e., the for-itself's affirmatively taking on its own freedom, becomes the willing of the freedom
of others. 62 Thus, the ontological claim has merged with a moral one:
the ethics of ambiguity require that the for-itself will the disclosure of
being which it is, but which it may, in a positively moral attitude, will.
This willing of the disclosure of being is the willing of freedom, of
transcendence. 63 This willing of freedom is a willing of the freedom of
others as well as my own.
In the existentialist problematic called upon by The Ethics of
Ambiguity, the transcendence of the for-itself is tempered with its
facticity. An ontological system which rejects determinism and which
virtually equates the human being with freedom, as did Sartrean existentialism, must make at least some concession to the hindrances or
resistances which freedom encounters. These factors provide a "coefficient of adversity" to the freedom of the for-itself.64 They include: one's
place, one's body, one's past, general environment, other human beings,
and one's death.65
In Beauvoir's famous claim that "ethics is the triumph of freedom over
facticity ... ," Beauvoir meant to incorporate political issues into her
existentialist ethics, an incorporation seen in several of her novels as
well. 66 Those forces which deny human freedom also attempt to turn
the human being into mere facticity. Such "parties of oppression" who
perform this reduction of others to immanence, to pure facticity, use
that very reduction to claim that those they oppress are only facticity,
only immanence, to validate the torture or destruction they perform
against themY In making this point, Beauvoir uses the victims of the
Holocaust as well as colonialism in Algeria as examples of those who
are victimized by tyrannical attempts to reduce the for-itself to an in-self,
274
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
275
about herself but realized that the first question to come up was, "What
has it meant to me to be a woman?" She then turned to the project that
became The Second Sex. Later, discussing the book's reception, Beauvoir
said that upon its publication she became the object of sarcastic attack,
her sexuality publicly impugned, her morality questioned, her personhood supposedly "humiliated" by her writing, attacked by those she
would have expected and by those she never expected. She was flabbergasted at the strength of opposition the book unleashed and at the
personal nature of the attacks. 72
Published in two volumes in French, the entire work is initiated with
an Introduction, a classic in its own right by now, and ends with a
Conclusion, and each volume is organized into parts: four in the first
volume and three in the second volume. Within these parts, Beauvoir uses
a number of theoretical approaches. She mixes theories of human psychological development with theories of historical materialism,
anthropological theory, existentialism, phenomenology, and Hegelianism.
In the Introduction to The Second Sex, Beauvoir says that her perspective is that of existentialist ethics: "every subject plays its part ...
through exploits or projects that serve as a mode of transcendence; he
achieves liberty only through a continual reaching out toward other
liberties. 73
Though the notion of the self in The Second Sex follows closely in
some respects that within the earlier Ethics of Ambiguity, there are important additions. The for-itself is a free, surpassing, transcendent being,
a subjectivity which exists through projects and which is distinguished
from being-in-itself. This being-in-itself is an individual and as such is
sovereign, autonomous and unique.
The fundamental problem posed in The Second Sex touches directly
on the issue of the for-itself; woman, being human, is a subject. She is
being-for-itself. Thus, she is a sovereign, a unique individual, and she
carries the "essential" quality that all subjectivity carries. Her being is
freedom in the mode of negativity, in the mode of transcending. But
woman's situation makes her "inessential." The for-itself has been divided
according to gender. In the language of The Ethics of Ambiguity, the
freedom has been abridged, and facti city has been encouraged by "parties
of oppression" who maintain woman in a perpetual situation of oppression. Woman, being human, is a subject, i.e., a free and autonomous
existent with the ability to make choices. Yet, this transcendence in
woman is burdened with a situation which requires her to be a nonsubject, a nonautonomous existent. Compelled into immanence by men,
276
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
277
a relation of friendship, we could not account for any type of enslavement; but no, this phenomenon is a result of the imperialism of the
human consciousness, seeking always to exercise its sovereignty in
objective fashion ... Human Consciousness ... included the original
category of the Other and an original aspiration to dominate the
Other ... 80
Thus, Hegel is mixed here with history and anthropology; the oppression of woman is due to the characteristic nature of consciousness, to
its drive to "other-ize" an other consciousness. Never could woman's
278
Simone de Beauvoir
physical weakness nor indeed any empirical fact be reason enough for
such oppression. What stands behind empirical, historical oppression is
the very nature of consciousness, which is conflictual. Yet, Hegel's notion
of consciousness undergoes a bizarre change, as Beauvoir created her
own theory. The Hegelian dialectic, with its opposing poles of subjectobject, helps her describe the objectification of woman into a nonself,
a nonsubject, and nonessential being. But Hegel's dialectic permitted
the subject and object status to move from one person to another person.
Because of her analysis that consciousness is gendered, the Hegelian
dialectic freezes, in male-female relations. No movement to subject status
is possible for woman. "How is it, then, ... reciprocity has not been
recognized between the sexes, that one of the contrasting terms is set
up as the sole essential ... ?81
Underlying and locking up the reciprocal movement of Hegel's
dialectic lies, according to Beauvoir's analysis, the unmoving structure
of patriarchy, a foundation whereby males hold all significant power familial, religious, and political, and whereby the subject-self, if female,
is a non subject, a secondary, relative being, an other. By so stressing
the otherness of woman in The Second Sex, Beauvoir qualifies both the
existentialist perspective of subjectivity and the Hegelian perspective
of reciprocity, i.e., no longer a "freedom," the for-itself as woman is
Other, absolute Other, and, thus, never self. The simplicity of the distinction between the for-itself and the in-itself from The Ethics of
Ambiguity has now been greatly complicated. In The Second Sex, moving
on from Sartrean existentialism and with the help of Hegel and LeviStrauss, Beauvoir uncovers a "plot" in all history, we might say, to
objectify a for-itself - woman. Unlike other oppressed groups, woman
under the situation of patriarchy has been systematically forced into an
object, the category being that of otherness - into "the brutish life" of
things. 82
Woman is caught in a situation of oppression. In The Ethics of
Ambiguity, Beauvoir established that oppression is the denial of freedom,
and freedom is the being of the for-itself; therefore, oppression is the
denial of one's being. Thus, female-for-itself can't transcend, due not
to an internal problem, for example, bad faith - Sartre's famous case but to external conditions. Such an "evil," Beauvoir claims, is either a
moral fault, if the subject consents, or it is an oppression, if the subject
is constrained by others. It is this point that makes Beauvoir claim that
woman is doomed to immorality, for the same reason, nearly, that Mary
Wollstonecraft claimed that woman was doomed to immorality, yet, the
Simone de Beauvoir
279
moral fault was not hers but man's, due to his limitation of her opportunities and his oppression of her. 83
The constraints which woman suffers due to social and cultural oppression is a denial of choice, i.e., her own projects, through which the self
transcends itself. To be woman is to be other, but it is also still to be
subject, even given the subjection under which this particular subjectivity
usually functions, for this is never total enough to force the for-itself
to give up transcendence. 84 The result is immanence rather than transcendence, the being of the en-soi, not the pour-soi. Such is woman's
"drama," her conflict. And if she manages to overcome external maleimposed constraints, she is caught in internal conflict, because insofar
as she succeeds, she defeats her feminine self, as a subject-self.85 An
autonomous existence for woman conflicts with woman's "objective self,"
i.e., as Other, for to be feminine is to be nonautonomous passive. 86
This conflict in incarnated in the body. Within the existential phenomenological perspective where The Second Sex is written, the body
which the subject is, is not a thing; its existence is never merely factual.
... if the body is not a thing, it is a situation, as viewed in the perspective I am adopting - that of Heidegger, Sartre and Merleau-Ponty:
it is the instrument of our grasp upon the world ... 87
Directly related to the for-itself's existence-as-body is the body as
sexual, erotic existence. The contradiction which meets a female-self,
in that her success as self means the realization of transcendence, or
subjectivity, and at the same time means her failure as a female
(other/object), also meets the female-self in sexual experience, but doubly
so. According to Beauvoir, erotic experience itself intensely reveals the
ambiguity of the for-itself, both as subject and object for another. But the
female self begins by feeling itself as object. Hence, its subject status
is twice in question in sexuality.
Taking account of The Second Sex from one perspective, that of existentialist philosophy, one might say that Beauvoir's notion of the self
becomes flawed, philosophically, because of the emphasis she places
upon "situation" in that work. Reflecting on those twin existentialist
notions so fundamental to Sartrean philosophy, freedom and facticity, one
can say that whereas the existentialist philosophy in The Ethics of
Ambiguity stressed the use of one's freedom and the respect of the
freedom of others as the core of morality, the philosophy of The Second
Sex stresses facticity and shows that, in the historical, sociological, and
280
Simone de Beauvoir
Simone de Beauvoir
281
282
Simone de Beauvoir
IV. CONCLUSION**
Although she is commonly judged to be one of the foremost exponents
of French existentialism, Beauvoir's own philosophical creativity has
been overshadowed by her connection to Sartre. She was partially responsible for that; at numerous places in her autobiography, she denied her
own philosophical creativity and her interest in philosophy as her life's
work and insisted on Sartre's philosophical preeminence over her. She
also took up the defense of his ideas on more than one occasion, as in
"Merleau-Ponty et Ie pseudo-sartrisme," once describing it as a job that
"any Sartrean" could have done. Many scholars, biographers, and critics
of her work interpret her in that manner. Others, feminist scholars in
particular, have tried to establish a claim of her philosophical autonomy
from Sartre's thought, in spite of Beauvoir's own assertions. It is too soon
after her death (and his) to attempt substantially objective judgments
on the extent of her philosophical originality and autonomy from Sartre,
or on the influence of her thinking upon his; this latter is a point of
view on Beauvoir which most of her biographers and scholars have
ignored. Thus, the Beauvoir scholar is faced with what might be called
Beauvoir's "Sartrean exterior," particularly in her specifically philosophical writings.
That Beauvoir went beyond Sartrean philosophy, particularly in her
Ethics of Ambiguity and in The Second Sex is clear. And though they
are not the subject of this essay, the reader interested in Beauvoir would
do well to study also her novels and autobiography for two reasons:
first, because Beauvoir defined herself as a writer primarily, and second,
because as many of the French existentialists did, she used literary genres
to convey her philosophical analyses. Finally, her book, The Coming of
Age, should be investigated. In that work she presented a study of aging
Simone de Beauvoir
283
and the elderly that is analogous to the study of woman in The Second
Sex, by creating a theory founded in her own unique blend of empiricism and existentialism.
NOTES
1. "Simone de Beauvoir: An Interview," by Margaret A. Simons and Jessica
Benjamin, tr. Veronique Zaytzeff, Feminist Studies 5 (1979), 33~345, 338;
Beauvoir, L'Existentialisme et La sagesse des nations, 87, 100, 104; The
Ethics of Ambiguity, 158, 159.
2. The Coming of Age, 399.
3. Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter, 17.
4. The Ethics of Ambiguity, 9.
5. Ibid., p. 9.
6. The Second Sex, 38.
7. A Very Easy Death, 123.
8. The Second Sex, 4, 8, 10, 38; The Coming of Age, 13.
9. "Simone de Beauvoir: Witness to a Century," by Helene Wenzel, Yale
French Studies (Spring 1987). See also, The Second Sex, 41, 42, 47, 55,
57.
10. The Second Sex, 59, 61,63-65; The Ethics of Ambiguity, 20, 156.
11. The Second Sex, 287, 288.
12. "La Pensee de droit, aujourd'hui," Privileges, 195.
13. The Coming of Age, 2.
14. "Simone de Beauvoir: An Interview," by Margaret A. Simons and Jessica
Benjamin, 34~341.
15. The Second Sex, 288.
16. Brigitte Bardot and the Lolita Syndrome, closing pages, unnumbered.
17. The Coming of Age, 2.
18. "Simone de Beauvoir: An Interview," by Margaret A. Simons and Jessica
Benjamin, 340-341.
19. The Second Sex, xxxiii.
20. The Ethics of Ambiguity, 156; The Second Sex, xxxiii.
21. The Blood of Others, opening lines, unnumbered.
22. The Ethics of Ambiguity, 156.
23. L'Existentialisme et la sagesse des nations, 35.
24. The Ethics of Ambiguity, 154.
25. L'Existentialisme et la sagesse des nations, 86.
26. Ibid., p. 44.
27. "Simone de Beauvoir: Witness to a Century," by Helene Wenzel.
28. The Second Sex, 301. See also, All Said and Done, 449; Monique Witting,
"One is not born a woman," Feminist Issues 1 (1981), 47-54.
29. The Second Sex, 290.
30. Ibid., p. xxxv.
31. Ibid., p. xxvii.
32. Ibid., p. 288.
284
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
Simone de Beauvoir
Ibid., pp. xviii, xix.
Ibid., pp. xxi, xxxiii.
Ibid., pp. xix, xx, 64.
"Simone de Beauvoir: An Interview," by Margaret A. Simons and Jessica
Benjamin, 345; All Said and Done, 448, 449.
"Foreword," After the Second Sex, Conversations with Simone de Beauvoir,
9.
Simone de Beauvoir, un film de Josee Dayan et Maika Ribowska realise
par Josee Dayan, 43.
All Said and Done, 455. See also The Second Sex, xxii; All Said and Done,
444-448; After the Second Sex, Conversations with Simone de Beauvoir,
32.
"Interview with Simone de Beauvoir" by Hazel Rowley and Renate
Reismann, Hecate 7 (1981), 91.
However, she only directly argued for a particular concept of the self
when she defended Sartre against Merleau-Ponty in "Merleau-Ponty et Ie
pseudo-sartrisme," in Privileges (Paris: Gallimard, 1955), 203-272. This
was originally published in us Temps Modemes 10, nos. 114-15 (June-July
1955): 2072-2122.
Edmund Husserl, Ideas: General Introduction to Pure Phenomenology,
translated by W. R. Boyce Gibson (New York: Collier Books, 1962), 109,
223, and undoubtedly elsewhere in HusserI's opus. (Ideas was published
in German in 1913.)
The notion of intentionality had been taken over by HusserI from Brentano
for whom every mental phenomenon but no physical phenomenon had intentionality, i.e., a reference to a content; thus, "intentionality" became a
way to define mental phenomena: mental phenomena were those phenomena
which include an object intentionally within themselves.
Jean-Paul Sartre, The Transcendence of the Ego, translated and annotated
with an introduction by Forrest Williams and Robert Kirkpatrick (New
York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, undated), 93. The original French version
of this piece appeared in 1936-7).
She uses this designation in her second work of autobiography, The Prime
of Life, translated by Peter Green (New York: Meridian Books, 1966),
433.
Simone de Beauvoir, Pyrrhus et Cineas (Paris: Gallimard, 1944), 61-2.
Ibid., p. 63.
Simone de Beauvoir, The Ethics of Ambiguity, translated by Bernard
Frechtman (New York: Citadel Press, 1970). For her direct comments on
the circumstances of the writing of this and on her own evaluation of it,
see Simone de Beauvoir, Force of Circumstance, translated by Richard
Howard (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1964), 66-8. This was
originally published in France in 1963.
Ibid., p. 31.
Ibid., pp. 10-12, 33, et passim. See also Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and
Nothingness, translated by Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Washington Square
Press, 1966) 96 et passim.
Simone de Beauvoir
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
285
286
Simone de Beauvoir
Few who knew Simone Weil remained neutral towards her. Simone de
Beauvoir avoided her; her philosophy students revered her.! The coroner
claimed she starved herself to death; those who tended her found the
claim absurd. 2 De Gaulle thought her "crazy" and gave her a "make
work" task; scholars find the result of that "make work" a profound piece
of social-political philosophy.3 Some commentators call her "saintly";
others find her behavior merely maladaptive. These counter claims create
a perennial interest in Weil's personal life and many commentators
fashion her in mythic rather than descriptive terms.
1. BIOGRAPHY
Simone Adolphe Weil was born to Selma and Bernard Weil on February
3, 1909. At six months her mother suffered appendicitis and this affected
Simone who was being breast fed. By the end of her first year, Simone
was very ill. She recovered but remained sickly, susceptible to infections and unable to eat normally. Various illnesses and physical
indispositions were to plague her through out her life. 4
Simone's nuclear family included an older brother, Andre, and her
maternal grandmother. Many aunts and uncles lived in the region and
there was a profusion of cousins during family visits. Her father's family
had come from Alsace and most of the men were successful businessmen
or merchants. Her mother's family came from Galacia. lived a while
in Russia, and finally went to Belgium where Simone's grandfather
developed a leading import-export firm. Both families were Jewish but
Mme Weil's was not observant. Dr Weil's parents were religious but
he professed to be an agnostic. The children were raised without training
in the Jewish religion. Simone is said to have learned the meaning of Jew
A History o/Women PhilosophersIVolume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, 287-297.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
288
Simone Weil
and Gentile in school at the age of ten. Later, like many others, she
and her family were classified Jews by the Nazi's and she lost her job
under the laws proscribing employment for Jews. The Weil's emigrated
to America but Simone left for England where she joined the exiled community of Free French. 5
Simone resembled her father both in physical and emotional characteristics. Dr Bernard Weil, was small, thin and quite handsome. He was
taciturn and although he liked to joke he also was inclined to become
overwrought and nervous about small things. He was very frank, often
more so than the conventions of the day. In his youth he had been sympathetic to anarchist views but later gave his sympathies to the Radical
party. 6
Simone's mother was intelligent, ardent, generous and had a real
capacity for happiness. In her youth she had wanted to become a doctor
but her father would not allow it. As an adult she found the narrow,
fashionable life of the bourgeoisie inane and brought her children up
in ways not usual in middle class Parisian families. This was particularly true of Simone who she raised more in accord with the norms of
young boys than the restricted role of little girls. 7
As a child Simone's brother Andre became her ideal. Mme Weil wrote:
Simone has developed in an incredible fashion. She follows Andre
everywhere, takes an interest in everything he does, and feels, like
him, that the days are too short they have and excellent influence
on each other; he protects her, helps her crawl over the difficult
spots, and often gives way to her, while she, at his side from morning
to night, has become livelier, gayer, more enterprising. Whenever
the weather permits, we spend our days with them on the large open
fields surrounded by pine trees ... 8
Andre was a mathematical genius who later advanced mathematical
research and problem solving. This special mathematical gift was
apparent even in childhood when he taught himself to solve equations
of the first and second order without formal study.9 His intelligence
sparked Simone on. He taught her to read (the newspaper) as a surprise
for their father; together they explored literature memorizing the plays
of Racine at age 5, reading Cyrano, Balzac etc. 10
Nothing was spared in the education of the Weil children. Weil studied
at the Lycee Montaigne, the Laval and Lycee Fenelon. She spent 1925-28
at Henry IV and 1928-31 at Ecole Normale where she was known for
Simone Weil
289
290
Simone Wei!
Simone Weil
291
revealing, "If contradiction is what pulls, draws the soul towards the light,
contemplation of the first principles (hypotheses) of geometry and kindred
sciences should be a contemplation of the contradictions.,,21 A discussion
of mathematical reasoning is highlighted by, "Let us look for the general
characteristics of straight lines, of geometrical figures. Why would one
not use the branches of a cedar tree to do geometry?,,22
Weil's reflections on literature go to the "core" of each work to locate
the essential formes) of human relations it embodies. Although Weil is
sensitive to language she never engages in merely syntactical literary
criticism. Neither does she engage in the social determinism criticism
common to Marxists. Even in her "communist" phase Weil avoids the
mantle of dialectical materialism.
The Iliad or The Poem of Force is an excellent example of her
approach to literature. She goes beyond the mere "wrath of Achilles" and
unmasks basic forms of human relations embodied in the work and thus
reveals an entire culture's relation to force. The essay is both literary
and anthropological. It is also deeply moral. The whole discussion springs
from a fundamental stance about right relations. Weil begins the last
chapter with a comment on relations:
The relations between destiny and the human soul, the extent to which
each soul creates its own destiny, the question of what elements in
the soul are transformed by merciless necessity as it tailors the soul
to fit the requirements of shifting fate, and of what elements can on
the other hand be preserved, through the exercise of virtue and through
grace - the whole question is fraught with temptations to falsehood,
temptations that are positively enhanced by pride, by shame, by hatred,
contempt, indifference, by the will to oblition or to ignorance. 23
The chapter closes with Weil's enconium:
But nothing the peoples of Europe have produced is worth the first
known poem that appeared among them. Perhaps they will yet rediscover the epic genius, when they learn that there is no refuge from
fate, learn not to admire force, not to hate the enemy, nor to scorn
the unfortunate. 24
All Weil's moral discussions are permeated by an emphasis on forms,
on reality and on human relations. Consider, for example:
292
Simone Weil
The beautiful: that which we do not want to change it, in fact (nonintervention). The true: not to want to change it in one's mind (by
means of illusion).
The good - not to want to change what? My place, my importance in the world, limited by my body and by the existence of other
souls, my equals. 25
Duty, right, virtue and right action are second order moral concepts which
follow from the form of relations present in a situation.
The good is not to want (desire, impulse, imagination, passion) to
change that which we do not want (metaphysically) about my place,
my importance, my limit. Thus ethics involves "reading" each situation; reading the situation to see if it embodies those human relations that
are wanted because they express the reality of the appropriate forms;
co-existence, co-value and co-limit. Injustice is the absence of these
forms:
Human relations. All those which have something infinite about them
are unjust. Now, although everything connected with man is finite and
measurable, nevertheless, after reaching a certain degree, the infinite
comes into play.
e.g. if all the food two men have per day is in the one case 1 lb.
of bread and in the other case 18 oz., the difference is finite; if one
of them has 114 lb. and the other one 6 lb. the difference is infinite,
for what is everything for one is negligible for the other. 26
The arts are also present in Weil's work, especially the plastic
arts. These, too, center on grasping essential forms and their mutual
relations. Because much of Weil's use of the arts is illustrative or
parenthetical one is tempted to view them as merely incidental. If,
however, one takes the aesthetic as foundational to Weil's thought much
of what appears dichotomous and disordered takes on both order and
meaning.
2. Limit, Space, Time, Attention
Taking the aesthetic as foundational in Weil's work, also explains the
centrality she gives to certain themes; limit, space, time, necessity,
attention.
Every artist confronts limit. To find the bounds on one medium and
Simone Weil
293
one's own powers within that medium is a necessary condition for art.
The artist must grow and experiment but not to accept limit is to create
disorder. With such an explanation as background, Weil's statements take
on new significance. Consider again:
The beautiful: that which we do not want to change. The good: not
to want to change it, in fact (non-intervention). The true: not to want
to change it in one's mind (by means of illusion).
The good - not to want to change what? My place, my importance, limited by my body and the existence of other souls, my
equals. 27
Taking the aesthetic as foundational in her work also makes sense
of her repeated non-cosmological reflections about time, space and matter.
As the artistic stance gives rise to the exploration of limit, the exploration
of limit gives rise to reflections about time, space and matter. Finally, her
discussions of necessity become natural in this context.
There are two senses of necessity. In the first, necessity is like limit:
it is the boundary which one can not transgress and Weil evokes this
notion in her discussions of matter. However the artist is also aware of
a second aspect of necessity. When contemplating a work of art one is
struck by the necessity apparent in the relations between and among
the parts. To alter a single relation is to change the work and if it is a
great work, such alteration destroys its greatness. This second notion
of necessity permeates Weil's philosophy, especially her reflections on
right action.
Recognizing this second kind of necessity requires contemplation
rather than speculative thought, hence Weil's advocation of "attention".
Grasping this second form of necessity in things, in situations is, as some
popular psychologies would say a "right brain rather than left brain"
activity. Artists often speak of cutting away the unnecessary to reveal the
innate form of things and Weil does also. For Weil, non-intervention
amidst necessary forms or the removal of that which interferes with
true necessity is at the heart of all real work. But understanding the
necessary forms requires contemplative attention.
Although people seem unaware of it today, the development of the
faculty of attention forms the real object and almost sole interest of
studies ... If we have no aptitude or natural taste for geometry, this
does not mean that our faculty for attention will not be developed
294
Simone Weil
Simone Wei!
295
surely is death but death strung out over a whole lifetime: here, surely,
is life, but life that death congeals before abolishing. 30
After reading "The Love of God and Affliction," others have declared
that during their reading they trembled and were in turmoil because
here was some one who truly named their own experience; someone
who wrote meaningfully about questions and concerns which they had
walled up within themselves because no one seemed to address them
correctly.
And for those who have never experienced such dehumanization Weil
explains, "Those who have never had contact with affliction in its true
sense can have no idea of what it is, even though they may have suffered
a great deal. Affliction is something specific and impossible to describe
in any other terms, as sounds are to anyone who is deaf and dumb."31
However, she does not leave us without hope. One of the reasons one
should study is to acquire the discipline of attention, the attention which
makes it possible to leave imagination and desire aside so as to see the
world as it really is.32 This ability to attend makes one able to meet the
real need of those who are afflicted .
. . . The capacity to give one's attention to a sufferer is a very rare
and difficult thing; it is almost a miracle; it is a miracle. Nearly all
those who think they have this capacity do not possess it. Warmth
of heart, impulsiveness, pity are not enough 33 ...
The love of our neighbor in all its fullness simply means being able
to say to him: "What are you going through?" It is a recognition that
the sufferer exists, not only as a unit in a collection, or a specimen
from the social category labeled "unfortunate", but as a man, exactly
like us, who was one day stamped with a special mark by affliction.
For this reason it is enough, but it is indispensable, to know how to
look at him in a certain way.34
Weil's statements about the healing possible through personal relationships should not be construed as an abandonment of the political. Her
whole life with its action for and with workers and other dehumanized
people attests to her belief in political action. 3s She is wary of political
parties and political ideologies, however. Ideology leads to abstract
solutions and abstract solutions often result in greater oppression for
the poor. "One should only advise the oppressed to revolt if it can be
successful.,,36
296
Simone Wei!
It is at this point in her work that one sees Weil's move to the formal.
Always she joins her real solidarity with the oppressed with her
orientation to form. The whole purpose of sociology is to find out
which sort of society would be least oppressive in given social
conditions. 37
Weil's aesthetic orientation keeps her political philosophy grounded
in limit. She is no utopian; change must accept limit and appropriate
action must be grounded in the specific conditions of each situation.
The likelihood of one being able to read the specific situation aright
depends on ones ability to attend to the reality of this situation. The three
elements are present to her work; form, the lived experience of the
oppressed and attention. They exist in shifting patterns but always it is
attention which grounds the other two.
III. CONCLUSIONS
Simone Weil is a complex thinker. She combines several traditions: the
mystical, the social-political, the wide scope of the humanities and the
philosophical tradition of reason. 38 As a person she is multidimensional
but is grounded in a simplicity and singleness of orientation. Like many
intellectuals her daily habits were not very "down to earth." Perhaps if
she, like Karl Marx, had the benefit of a devoted spouse who insured
the practical, nurturing activities were accomplished, Weil would appear
less non-conformist. As it was she did not have such a helpmate, only
a mother who from time to time arrived to do such tasks as putting the
house in order, cooking nourishing meals and encouraging her daughter
to take a vacation or not be "robbed blind" by the help. For those
readers not blinded by controversies concerning her daily life, Weil
provides a wealth of insightful and original material which is particularly
useful to 20th century scholars trying to integrate global traditions,
rigorous scholarship and social concern.
NOTES
1. Simone de Beauvoir, Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter (New York: Harper
& Row, 1974) and Leslie Fielder "Introduction" in Waiting for God, translated by Emma Craufurd (New York: Harper & Row, 1986).
Simone Weil
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
Ibid.,
297
p. 492.
pp. 6-7.
Chapter 1.
p. 5.
pp. 4, 6, 20.
p. 9.
p. 10.
pp. 12-14.
Simone de Beauvoir, pp. 242-3.
Petrement, pp. 73-118.
Ibid., p. 30.
See: Petrement, Chapter 4 for a fine summary.
Petrement, pp. 411-2.
Ibid., Chapter 15.
Simone Weil, "Spiritual Autobiography" in Waiting for God, pp. 78-82.
Her Notebooks give evidence of the depth and breadth of this study.
Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy, translated by Hugh Price (Cambridge
University Press, 1978), Chapter 3 offers an excellent summary of these
critiques.
Petrement, p. 536.
Simone Weil, The Notebooks of Simone Weil, 2 vols. translated by Arthur
Wills (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956), 1: 34.
Simone Weil, Lectures on Philosophy, p. 79.
Simone Weil, The Iliad or The Poem of Force, translated by Mary McCarthy
(Wallingford, Pennsylvania: Pendle Hill Press, 1956), p. 35.
Ibid., p. 37.
Weil, Notebooks, I: 38.
Ibid., I: 34.
Ibid., I: 38.
Simone Weil, "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies with a
View to the Love of God," in Waiting for God, pp. 105-6.
Weil, Lectures on Philosophy, p. 98.
Weil, The Iliad or the Poem of Force, p. 8.
Weil, "The Love of God and Affliction", in Waiting for God, p. 120.
Weil, "Reflections on the Right Use of School Studies", pp. 112-3.
Ibid., p. 114.
Ibid., p. 115.
Petrement, Chapters 2, 7, 8.
Weil, Lectures on Philosophy, p. 140.
Ibid., p. 129.
nine women about whom brief profiles are here presented indeed deserve
a chapter of their own. It gives me some satisfaction to say what I could
not have said with respect to the earlier volumes in this series, namely
that there are simply too many women who made significant contributions to philosophy in this century to accord each a chapter of her own.
And even in this chapter of "also rans" I have had to cull and choose,
omitting some of the more recently-deceased such as Dorothy Emmet,
Pepita Haezrahi, Susanne Langer, and my own teacher May Brodbeck,
whose works are more accessible than the works of others. I have opted
instead, for inclusion of a wide range of generally now-forgotten women
philosophers who were well-known in their day, and whose interests in
philosophy were varied, as well as a number who are well known, but
not well known as philosophers. In addition, I have included a few who
published only one or two articles in philosophy, and in some sense
had a marginal role in its recent development. I have tried to give the
reader what I think is the flavor of women's presence in the professional field of academic philosophy, as well as in popular philosophical
writing outside the academy.
In the Appendix to this Volume is a list of those women who published philosophical writing during this century, whom I believe to be
deceased, and whom I have not profiled in this volume. In most cases,
their philosophical writings are listed in the Bibliography. In every
case, I have collected some archival information about them. Many
of the names can be found in Ethel Kersey's valuable work: Women
Philosophers, a Biocritical Source Book. The Appendix also includes
names of several Polish women philosophers whose names came to
my attention through Linda Lopez McAlister, the editor of the feminist
A History o/Women Philosophers/Volume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, 299-380.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
300
301
Sophie Bryant received a Doctorate in Sciences from London University before the turn of the century. She served as Headmistress of the
North London Collegiate School for Girls for many years. The title
page of her work, Moral and Religious Education (1920) identifies her
as "D.Sc., D.Litt. Late Headmistress of the North London Collegiate
School for Girls .... " Whether an honorary Doctorate in Literature
was conferred on her upon her retirement, or whether the second doctorate was an earned degree, I have not been able to ascertain. Similarly,
that title page also indicates that Bryant authored Educational Ends,
and Studies in Character. I have been unable to confirm the existence
of either publication. On the frontispiece, no mention whatsoever is made
of her other philosophical works: on logic and mathematics, 2 on metaphysics 3 and psychology.4 From a review of Bryant's written works in
philosophy we see her to have a primary interest in ethics, particularly,
in the area of moral education. Her interests in philosophy extended
beyond ethics and included such diverse subjects as the logic of algebra,5
and of mathematics' relation to logic,6 issues of moral psychology, philosophy of mind and theories of moral personality.7 Many of her early
publications were on the subject of moral character and the moral
emotions. 8 Bryant's "The Relation of Mathematics to General Formal
Logic," explores what she claimed was a good deal of the fruitfulness
of Boole's idea that the language of mathematics is the most perfect form
of the universal language of thought, and that general logic is a quantityless mathematics. Arithmetic, she describes as
... the pure synthetic science a priori, neither a condition of experience nor a consequence, but co-incident in origin with experience
as a mode of apprehension most powerful for the reduction of experience to system in a science of measurable relations. 9
Class logic, such as that of Venn, she describes as
. . . at the opposite extreme of experience. It is the whole of things
- the total concrete universe - and the operation is the selection from
it of things belonging to a given type. The result of the selection is
the class of things which, like the original subject-matter itself, is
an object surpassing apprehension, a concrete total to be analyzed. 10
After analyzing general symbols of algebraic operation, general and
special laws of algebraic operation, and symbolic propositional forms she
302
303
... although in one sense the grief survives the bodily reaction, it does
not survive as an actual emotion, but only as a predisposition to the
recurrence of the emotion on the lively memory of the circumstances
from time to time, and when the emotion does recur it is the bodily
disturbance that recurs, and it is as before. 17
Indeed, Bryant says later on, the sympathetic emotions are extensions
of our own emotional states to someone else, whose emotions we imaginatively substitute for and feel as our own. These views appear to be
a further development of her own views on sympathy and antipathy developed in a paper by that name and published in Mind that same year. IS
Still further in her criticism of James, Bryant argues that the more "objective" emotions, such as the experience of beauty, pathos, etc. are often
almost entirely intellectual in nature, unaccompanied by intense physical
states in one who experiences them. 19
In "Self-Development and Self-Surrender" she addresses the questions
whether self-development is a moral duty, and whether self-surrender
(self-abnegation) is a necessary means toward the fulfillment of that duty.
She argues that:
. . . instead of that idea of duty to self in which good people have
sometimes tried to believe, ... it is a duty to be and to keep one's
self in the highest possible state of [moral] efficiency. 20
It is a duty to society, owed by members. As such, there is a duty to "sur-
304
physical states).22 Second, there are the moral issues raised by these
and related questions. "What is the relationship between self-consciousness and moral responsibility?,,23 Is morality anything different than
character development? If so, how can moral behavior be taught?24 Her
book Moral and Religious Education 25 addressed the relationship between
religious indoctrination, devotional practice, and moral education. In
an article appearing in the precursor to the contemporary journal Ethics
Bryant addressed competing concerns about the idea that the teaching
of morality was a function of the virtuous state. Moral and Religious
Education is written, as the author indicates, "in the belief that, in order
to produce the best result over the widest area, the teaching of morality
through the development of religious faith and its teaching by direct
appeal to self-respect, reason, sympathy, and common sense are both
necessary."
Issues of political philosophy and the nature of the just state concerned Bryant also. In 1908 with "the great war" brewing in Europe,
Bryant, Stout and W. D. Ross gave a Symposium before the Aristotelian
Society on the subject of "The Place of Experts in a Democracy." Bryant's
contribution was a discussion of the platonic concept of aristocracy in
the modern state. 26 Over the course of her professional career, Bryant's
work became more and more applied: philosophy written for educators, or for political scientists.
Her 1923 work, Liberty, Law and Order Under Native Irish Rule27 was
reprinted nearly fifty years following its original issue. In it she synopsizes and analyzes the development of ancient Irish legal philosophy from
the Christian revision of the ancient Senchus Mor law under the guidance
of St. Patrick. Early in the work she analyzes the concept of "fosterage"
the appointment of a father responsible for the education and training
of the child. Bryant analyzes conflicts between duties of natural and foster
fathers towards children, and conflicting responsibilities of natural and
foster fathers for crimes committed by children while in "fosterage."
Bryant applies her analysis to how ancient Irish law might assist in
resolving contemporary issues. In this regard, she looks at landlord-tenant
law, women's rights to family business and to property created through
marriage, social contracts and concepts of competency to enter into
contracts, tribal rule, taxation, universal health care, community and
public property law, law of torts, and the educative function of law.
Bryant's view was that ancient Irish law was philosophically sound,
that it incorporated positive moral law, was itself morally praiseworthy
305
306
Helen Dendy was the child of the Unitarian minister the Reverend John
Dendy of Manchester. 31 She became a well educated woman, having
received the LL.D. at St. Andrews. Her interests included philosophy
of mind, logic, psychology, ethics, political philosophy and social theory.
These interests culminated in two full-length works on the family and
on social work. She read at least German and French well enough to
review philosophy books written in those languages and for many years
published reviews in Mind. 32 Dendy's interests in philosophy can best
be understood from a brief survey of the chronology of her few written
works in philosophy.
The earliest publication in philosophy by Dendy that we have identified is an article, "Recent Developments of the Doctrine of SubConscious Process," which appeared in Mind in 1893. In this article
she reviews recent developments in the newly emerging discipline of
psychology which was as yet not the research and treatment discipline
we know it as today. It still had close theoretical connections to work
then being done in philosophy of mind, logic, philosophy of language
and other sub-specialty areas in philosophy. In this respect, academic
psychology closely analyzed concepts of consciousness, of personal
identity, of self-awareness, of the nature of sensory experience, memory,
etc. In this article, Dendy examines three different emerging theories
of personality, all of which assume that a single consciousness, a person,
is a plurality of distinct personalities. This school of personality theories
was suggested by the immensely popular "psychical" research of the time
that investigated empirical psychological data. First, she says are theories
that personality
... appears to be identical with a "chain of memory"; and again it
is implied, if not assumed, that a "primary," "secondary," or "subjacent" consciousness is equivalent to a distinct and independent
personality. 33
But, she criticizes, this form of personality theory is not sufficiently
well thought out, and fails to argue, as she says it must, in support of
the claim that consciousness is identical to a chain of memory.
She then addresses a second version of the theory. On this account,
she says, personality
307
308
309
310
311
Jane Addams was born September 6, 1860 and lived 74 years. 55 More
appropriately she is considered a social activist and sociologist, nevertheless some of her works are rightly considered to be works of social
philosophy. Addams follows in that tradition of American women like
Catherine Ward Beeche~6 who attempted to reconcile their analyses of
philosophical ethics with their social situation as women. Like Beecher
and other feminists and pacifists, Addams employed the concept of "righteousness" as a standard not only of personal morality, but of social
morality. As such, several of Addams' many works deserve merit as
examples of turn-of-the-century American social and political philosophy.
On Jane Addams' view, "righteousness" required that we go beyond
the mere concerns that in our personal life we uphold the moral law,
but seek outside our personal, familial and immediate social circles
that which "the time" demands. Thus, a righteous individual looks
312
313
are on the duty to be just when one lives in inherently unjust and oppressive circumstances. The location is a Chicago Ward. The neighborhood
is multicultural and therefore morally pluralistic with respect to values.
The system of law is profoundly corrupt and the social conditions are
profoundly impoverished and oppressive. There is neither social cohesiveness nor significant experience in self-government. The politicians
are corrupt through and through. Addams asks how either moral virtue
or the extent of the responsibility to obey the law can be assessed under
such circumstances. Dismissing assessment of blameworthiness as
besides-the-point, Addams focuses instead on the duty of the virtuous
(herself, in particular!) to inculcate virtue and respect for law while
respecting the plurality of values within the community and taking into
account conditions that to some degree may be morally exculpatory.
Addams also had well-articulated views on women and morality.
Like Beecher before her, she held that women naturally tend to be
caring and nurturant, and that they have moral obligations to set an
example of virtuous behavior. In The Long Road of Woman's Memory60
she urges women to overcome the past myths about women and to strive
for self-determination. In her view, women, as victims of social and political oppression, but also as shapers of the consciences of men an? of
children were uniquely situated and therefore had a unique duty to influence the development and implementation of social ethics. These views
are further developed in "Why Women Should Vote,,,61 "Why Women are
Concerned with the Larger Citizenship,,,62 and in "The World's Food
Supply and Woman's Obligation.,,63 In "The College Woman and the
Family Claim" (1898) she argued forcefully for recognition of women's
rights to college education supported by a social recognition that the
educated woman cannot be considered to be shirking her moral duties
towards her family if she chooses instead to put her education to use
for social good.64
An early work, Philanthropy and Social Progress 65 (1893) argued
that in order to assure that individuals had opportunities to pursue
their own interests, society, in the form of philanthropic and government efforts, needed to establish conditions of free inquiry. This meant
the provision of safe living conditions, fair working conditions, protective legislation for women and children,66 and life-long educational
opportunities in formal school settings for children and through adult
education.
Jane Addams' social philosophy applied far beyond the urban domestic
spheres of social work. She was an ardent, committed pacifist. Newer
314
315
According to Kersey, Haldane received recognition for her commitment to the fields of social welfare, nursing services as well as for
founding the Auchterarder Institute and library.75 Haldane's autobiography, From One Century to Another: The Reminiscences of Elizabeth
S. Haldane 76 was published in 1937, the year she died.
316
to differ, almost with violence, from those for whose accomplishment you have the profoundest admiration. You cannot help feeling
that it would be safer to share some splendid error with Samuel
317
318
319
All the same, there is nothing in his theory which can be used as
a refutation of idealism. For idealism each "observer" will carry with
him his own space-time system based on his personal perspective;
his body of reference will itself be part and parcel of his consciousness; and his consciousness will only not appear in the equation
because it already contains the equation and its terms. 91
May Sinclair distinguishes two forms of consciousness, primary consciousness and secondary consciousness. If I understand Sinclair
correctly, primary consciousness is tantamount to what we mean by
"being conscious," while secondary consciousness begins with "being
conscious of" and all subsequent operations of the mind upon the objects
in the domain of consciousness.92 Primary consciousness is defined in
the article "Primary and Secondary Consciousness" as:
... all that is present to the subject from moment to moment in one
unitary block, or it is the continuous succession of such presences,
before reflection, judgment or reasoning have set in; before there is
any consciousness of consciousness. 93
Secondary consciousness is therefore dependent upon primary consciousness. If Space-Time holds the universe together, what, Sinclair asks,
holds Space-Time together?94 The answer for her is "ultimate consciousness," God. God unites the personal perspectives of the finite
selves, it is only for God that being and knowing are the same. Sinclair
suggests a revised pantheism, complaining about the poor press philosophy has given Deistic concepts:
Philosophers have created strange Absolutes. They have seen God
as the parish beadle, as the President of the Ethical Society, as a
mathematician geometrizing eternally, as a company of snow-white
categories. Sir Isaac Newton thoughtfully provided him with the
comfort of a sensorium - all space - much as he provided a big hole
in the door for his cat and a little one for her kitten. Other philosophers have left God very poorly off in this respect. 95
May Sinclair argues for a new pantheism, one that avoids the problem
of attributing omnipotence and omniscience to God at the expense of
attributing moral responsibility to us. She notes that it is difficult to accept
that God is manifested in each of us. It is much easier to look at persons
as the physicists do: as bits of Space-Time:
320
321
322
323
324
Emma was sixteen years old she emigrated (with an older half-sister)
to Rochester, New York where she joined another, married, sister.
The press coverage of the 1886 Haymarket bombing in Chicago,
coupled with her own exploitation as a factory worker stimulated
Goldman's interest in the various activities of labor organizations and
trade unions, whose efforts to secure an eight-hour workday were at
that time considered radical. Although the identity of the person whose
bomb killed several policemen in the Haymarket was never known, the
press labelled participants "anarchists," probably because the German
anarchist Johann Most had several years earlier recommended violence
as an appropriate means of dealing with the exploitation of labor by
employers. After the Haymarket affair, Goldman began attending socialist
worker meetings in Rochester and began to read Most's newspaper Die
Freiheit. That then, was her formal introduction into anarchist activism.
After marrying, divorcing, remarrying and re-divorcing a family friend,
the Ukranian Jacob Kersner, Goldman moved to New York. There she
met Johann Most in 1889.
Most was one of the leading figures of the Social Democratic party
(from which he was expelled by the more-powerful Karl Marx) who supported the assassination of Czar Alexander II. He had been among those
imprisoned for supporting violence in the Haymarket riots. Most had
the poor judgment to reprint a half-century old essay in support of political assassination the day before the assassination of President McKinley
(1901) and was re-imprisoned for that. Johann Most fostered Goldman's
speaking career, urging her to go on a lecture circuit among radical
political groups across the United States. The two became sexually
involved, and it was Most's views of Goldman as an obedient mistress
and disciple that eventually disillusioned her. However, she continued
as a public speaker (in Yiddish) to advocate anarchist causes, and played
a large role in planning the assassination of the American millionaire
Henry Frick. Following a year's imprisonment for inciting to riot,
Goldman studied nursing and English, mastering the language sufficiently
to begin lecturing in English throughout the United States. She had
founded, in 1906 Mother Earth magazine to provide a forum for anarchist views.
Goldman believed that along with political liberation must come sexual
freedom. In 1908, Goldman was lecturing and providing information
on birth control in support of Margaret Sanger's crusade. Shockingly,
for the time, Goldman argued that contraceptives were as necessary for
single women as they were for married women. She believed that working
325
326
327
328
an authority on Anglican theology, a poet, a spiritual leader and philosopher of mysticism especially the neoplatonic mystical writers. This
discussion will focus on her more philosophical writings. However, it
is relevant to include in the Bibliography to this volume those of her
works that may be considered devotional in nature.
Underhill's writings focused on two main subjects, God and the Soul.
In her writings about God, Underhill emphasized the reality, the
supremacy and accessibility of God. She never anthropomorphized God
by blurring the distinction between divine and human nature. To
Underhill, God was real, an eternal self-substantiating, self-sufficient
being. She emphasized both God's transcendence and immanence in
mystical experience. She defined mysticism as a practice of the art of
union with the ultimate reality of God. 123 Many of Underhill's poems,
including "His Immanence" and "Veni Creator," reflect her account of
knowledge of the truth of God's immanence.
Underhill's first great work is titled simply Mysticism. 124 It first
appeared in 1911, was reprinted ten times, revised for the twelfth edition
and again repeatedly reprinted. The original edition was very positively
reviewed by Alfred E. Taylor.12s It remains one of the fundamental philosophical analyses of mysticism. Mysticism has two parts, the first and
most philosophical analyzes several epistemological and metaphysical
issues. For example, she addresses the relationship of mystical experience to the search for ultimate truths, the nature of the self, the nature
of sensory perception and the unreality of the sensory illusion, the distinction between emotional and spiritual experience and the knowledge
claims of both, the limits of naturalism, vitalism, idealism, and the failure
of philosophical systems to provide an adequate account of the mystical
aspects of suffering, beauty and their relationship to religious certainty.
In her discussion of vitalism, she explores the contributions of Bergson
and others to the analysis of the spiritual, physical and psychological
characteristics of vitalism. In particular, she examines Bergson's theory
of the nature of the intellect and of perception and explores the relationship of his theory to mysticism. She inquires also into the nature
of reality, of intuitive knowledge, of transcendence and divine immanence. In a chapter on mysticism and psychology she examines the nature
of emotion, of intellect and the demand of the intellect and will for
absolute truth. She takes care to distinguish mysticism from hysteria
and from genius. The role and purpose of mystical experience is
to experience direct communion with transcendent reality. She cites
the work of Julian of Norwich,126 Mechthild of Magdeburg,127 Philo,
329
Augustine and others and addresses the role that love of the divine
plays in mystic contemplation.
In The Mystic Way,128 (1914) Underhill analyzed mysticism and
its relationship to the modernist view of the Gospels which Liberal
Protestantism had made popular. The Essentials of Mysticism 129 written
in 1920 is an attempt to strip the concept of mysticism of all accidental
and cultural attributes and reveal its essential characteristic. The "central
fact" of the mystical experience is an overpowering experience of
the presence of the divine who is communicating directly with the
mystic's soul. The mystic is conscious of apprehending some essential
truth. The experience is one of a feeling of receiving divine love and
a sense that the mystic has only experienced a portion of what ultimately could be experienced. The experience of this love creates the
desire to return the love by loving the divine. There is a sense of a
process, steps that must be taken to achieve the full experience. First,
the mind or soul must learn to purify itself so that it is prepared for
the promised illumination. Second, illumination or enlightenment must
occur. Finally, there is a sense of physical, mental and spiritual union
with God.
Following a conversion to Catholicism, Underhill wrote The Life
of the Spirit and The Life of Today130 (1922), and The Mystics of the
Church 131 (1925). In the latter work, Underhill functions as a historian
of religious mystical philosophy and describes the mystical experiences
and writings of many church mystics, including several women who
are discussed in Volume 2 of this series: Hildegard von Bingen, Julian
of Norwich, Catherine of Siena and Teresa of Avila.
In the last four years of her life, Underhill participated in a series of
talk shows, which were titled "The Spiritual Life." In these broadcasts,
Underhill outlined the main structure of the human soul. 132
Underhill's life and works are clearly focused on analyzing and
explaining what for her was the reality, supremacy and accessibility of
God through human consciousness. Although many of her writings are
devotional 133 even these are analytical. Underhill must be understood
as a philosopher of religion, whose primary interests were in religious
epistemology and metaphysics: the knowledge of God, the achievement
of truth and certainty through the physical and spiritual experience of and
communion with the deity. Through spiritual consciousness, Underhill
believes we can know God for what He is, and live in the manner in
which He created us to live. Although she claims not to be a philosopher, many of her writings are clearly philosophical in nature and amply
330
331
332
... the mental and bodily phenomena whose empirical correlation sets
us our problem are not phenomena belonging to two distinct orders
of nature, but phenomena which actually are, and only can be, individuated and classified by common principles. Both the bodily
correlates of mental processes, and the mental processes themselves,
are individuated as phenomena only on the basis of their function in
adjusting the individual to his environment. 154
Two months later, in "Dualism in Animal Psychology,,,155 she offers a
scathing criticism of philosopher-psychologist Margaret Floy Washburn's
The Animal Mind. 156 Washburn defended herself and De Laguna issued
a rejoinder. 157 De Laguna can best be described as a behaviorist who
understood emotion and perception to be correlated, but denied that
it can be proven that sensory perception is the sole causal factor in
generating emotional response. Rather, complex discriminating and integrating processes contribute to the response. 15S Metaphysical interests
also absorbed De Laguna. In a discussion of two of pragmatism's
competing doctrines on the nature of reality, instrumentalism and immediatism (a form of empiricism), De Laguna sides with the former claiming
that both Hegelian idealism and immediatism have failed
... to recognize that a general definition of reality can be given
only in functional terms .... [R]eality means just that content which
is regarded as unchanged by the process [of knowing]. 159
For the better part of a century, Grace De Laguna taught philosophy to
young women and herself inquired into the nature of reality and the
potential for philosophy to contribute to the development of the theoretical foundations of the social sciences.
333
334
335
336
of the philosopher James Ward, psychiatrist Sigmund Freud and biologist Richard Semon. What she wants to determine is does "the faculty
of memory imply the existence of conation as a specific mental
function?,,182 In this question,
. . . "faculty" belongs to the scheme of terms for analysing and
describing minds, "function" to the scheme for analysing and describing
experience. 183
In the end, she supports Freud's view:
In conclusion, what answer shall be returned to the question as
to the faculty of memory and conation? In accordance with Dr.
Freud's theories, it is not memory which implies a specific function of conation, but unconscious conation which implies memory
and the laws of unconscious conation which determine many of its
manifestations. 184
In "The Structure of Mind,,185 Edgell gives philosophers a history of
two branches of psychology, "structural" and "functional," labels which
would be quite misleading to contemporary philosophers unfamiliar with
the history of late nineteenth and early twentieth century psychology. The
structural branch of psychology would perhaps be better described in contemporary terms as that part of philosophy of mind which includes
philosophical psychology: the reduction of laws of the connection of
mental processes to their simplest components. As an example of a branch
of functional psychology, on the other hand, Edgell mentions a school
of psychology in America from which " ... there has arisen that extreme
left wing - Behaviourism without a "u" (and also without an "1")."186
After describing the major schools of both types of psychology and
their relative inabilities to account for perception, recognition, meaning
and thought, she urges closer collaboration between the schools and,
therefore, greater interaction between philosophical psychology, philosophy of mind and clinical psychology.
In the symposium on "Immediate Experience," Edgell criticizes G.
Dawes Hicks' account of immediate experience as feeling. According
to Edgell, Hicks fails to show what he set out to show: first, that immediate experience as experience is a subjective state that varies in intensity
from pleasure to pain. Second, Hicks uses "content" to refer to the character of an act, but he also uses "content" to refer to that which is
337
apprehended. Third, she claims that Hicks' thesis that immediate experience is entirely devoid of cognition is inconsistent with his views on
self-knowledge. Finally, she criticizes Hicks on grounds that his account
of immediate experience precludes the knowing subject having any
awareness of change thereby rendering his account of continuity of person
and unity of the self unintelligible. 187
In 1930 Beatrice Edgell received one of the highest professional
honors ever accorded to a woman philosopher. Twelve years earlier, in
1918, Mary Whiton Calkins had been elected President of the American
Philosophical Association. In 1930, Beatrice Edgell became the first
woman to be elected President of the Aristotelian Society. On November
10, 1930 she delivered the Presidential Address: "Images." Discussants
included Brown, Dawes Hicks, Ross, Hannay, Nott and Stebbing. 188 In
her address, Edgell analyzed the concept "image" in the light of recent
developments in psychology and philosophy. After careful analysis of
various versions of the "trace" theory of image,189 Edgell explores the
possibility that Freud's theory of the unconscious may provide a solution
to the problems of retention, imagery and association of ideas. She
acknowledges the apparent treatment successes of Freudian and later psychoanalytic theory and concludes that theories of unconscious imagery
fail to account for the actual imagery-forms of memory and imagination.190 And then she deplores the "ungracious task" of having offered
destructive criticism in the absence of some constructive suggestion.
All she has to offer, she claims, is a suggestion of the direction that
psychology should be reoriented towards. That direction is toward a
"genetic" concept of mind in which memory processes are understood
in relation to the processes of sense perception; in which memory is
understood as awareness of something other than the image, and (following Stout) in which patterns of sensory perception are regarded as
events in the life-story of an individual.
These events bring the individual into communication with the patterns
of the world external to his organism. Images will be events in the
same sense; they are the patterns determined by past pattern-making,
but patterns for which the epistemological implication of the term
"reproductive" has no relevance. 191
Beatrice Edgell presided over many of the Aristotelian Society meetings
that year and through 1931 and was a discussant of Joad's "Modern
Science and Religion," of MacMurray's "The Conception of Society,"
338
and of Helen Knight's "Sensation in Pictorial Art." Edgell's final publication was an essay written in honor of her deceased colleague Lizzie
Susan Stebbing. In "The Way of Behavior"192 Edgell again urges that philosophy of mind, philosophy of logic and philosophy of psychology
jointly seek an account of the logic and psychology of thought.
We need a psychology of thinking which shall be a basis for the
logic of thought. Without recognition of the subject - object relationship as fundamental for cognition, and as other than the causal
relationship, such a psychology seems to me an impossibility. The
three old laws of thought, A is A, A is not not-A and A must be
either A or not-A, embody profound psychological truth. They are
the acknowledgment that sameness can be found and discriminated
from differences, that in the progress of knowledge patterns are
built up, oppositions and incompatibilities determined. To regard
such patterns not as ideas but as ways of behaving, closely as the
latter may be associated with pattern formation, is to cut away from
the psychology of thinking the character upon which Professor
Stebbing declared the ability to think depends, "the power of seeing
connexions." 193
15. F. Rosamond Shields: fl. 1913
Very little is known about F. Rosamond Shields. According to membership lists of the Aristotelian Society she received her M.A. in 1910,
but it is not clear from what school. Shields, Hilda Oakeley and Lizzie
Susan Stebbing were discussants at an Aristotelian Society meeting on
April 2, 1917. The topic was "Our Knowledge of Value."
Shields wrote an article titled, "The Notion of the Common Good"
which appeared in the Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society in 1913. 194
In this article Shields argued that the good is a common good. She
analyzed two reasons for the non-acceptance of the common good. Firstly,
Shields investigated the notion that the good of different individuals is
conflicting. Secondly, Shields discussed the two opposing positions: 1)
The Good is common, and 2) Whatever is, is right. Shields criticized
the view that the common good is a slow process of realization. She
states,
On this theory, the common good would be simply the goal, and not
in any sense the presupposition of ethical endeavor. 195
339
340
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
341
342
Gilbert had decidedly less sympathy for the views of Benedetto Croce
than she had for those of Aristotle, or even Plato. Croce, she felt, despite
occasional gifted insights into the nature of beauty, espoused a theory
of aesthetics that lacked coherence. Croce, she says:
... furnishes us a collection of apercus and images rather than a
system of ideas. If "philosophy, like all other genuine sciences, has
passed beyond the stage of the merely striking or suggestive treatment
of problems, and aims not at an interesting or picturesque results,
but at the systematic organization of the facts with which it deals
according to some general principle," then Croce belongs rather to the
company of those who make the world interesting than to the company
of those who satisfy the mind's demand for intelligibility.213
In the posthumously published Aesthetic Studies: Architecture and
Poetry214 Gilbert offers an anthology on the relationship between the
poetic and the structural imagination. Katherine Gilbert's works in aesthetics are too numerous to review in detail here. The reader is urged
to consult the Bibliography for this volume for a fuller listing of her
books, articles and book reviews, and to consult the complete bibliography of her works (compiled by LuLu C. Erwin) in Gilbert's Aesthetic
Studies: Architecture and Poetry. For fuller commentary literature, see
works by Ames, Boas, and by Nahm, also in the Bibliography.
17. Una Mirrieless Bernard Sait: 1886-?
Sait earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University, New York, as World
War I was breaking out. She studied under Dewey, but her primary philosophical interest was in the philosophy of Henri Bergson. While a student
at Columbia she participated in an extensive Bergson project and prepared
a bibliography of Bergson primary and secondary sources. Her doctoral
dissertation, written prior to World War I was published as: The Ethical
Implications of Bergson's Philosophy215 by the Archives of Philosophy
of Columbia University in 1914. Sait later was a professor at Claremont
Colleges.
Sait tries to demonstrate the way in which Bergson's philosophy is
consistent with moral idealism. In particular she attempts to derive from
Bergson's principles an objective definition of good and evil, and of right
and wrong. According to a review by H. Wildon Carr (who would shortly
thereafter assume the presidency of the Aristotelian Society) Sait is not
343
344
345
can largely be traced to the tensions that high birth rates create for women
and their families. In addition to birth control, Sait advocates that sex
education in childhood as well as adulthood be used to promote marriage
as a mature partnership. In such a partnership, the spouses have an
emotionally mature understanding of themselves and of one another
and of the realities of their mutual relationship. This results in "The
Emergence of a Cooperative Family,,221 in which individuals marry freely,
for love and companionship, entering into a partnership in which childrearing is viewed as a rewarding, important, mutual undertaking and in
which friendships with members of the opposite sex pose no threat to
the mutual, (in her view, ideal) monogamous commitment.
Sait precedes a long section on what would otherwise be called "home
economics" with a section on home life. In it she urges the social
liberation of both men and women from pre-conceived beliefs about
"women's work" and "men's work." Unless the segregation of those
traditional occupations can be demonstrated to be scientifically valid, Sait
claims, any restriction is premature. Subsequent chapters cover family
economic issues such as savings, investments, budgeting, as well as
general health and nutrition. She advocates making domestic service a
skilled, standardized vocation with contracts covering wages, conditions of working, etc. Sait suggests that such "far reaching changes"
will remove the stigma from housework and raise the status of household workers. 222 Families, however, should work out their own ways of
managing housework, and to this end she urges labor-saving machinery,
electrical appliances, part-time household help and systematic cooperation in housework on the part of all the family members. 223 Such
cooperation is both part of children's education, and a necessary prerequisite for social growth.
The Epilogue which bears the same title as the book notes that
The family has survived through its ability to adjust itself to changing
social conditions .... But the recent acceleration of social change
has subjected the ... family to such unprecedented strain that its
fabric has been torn asunder. From this disruption has emerged a
new appreciation of the potential values of family life .... For the
first time ... it becomes possible to view the family from a scientific and experimental point of view; deliberately to plan a family
pattern designed to facilitate the performance of the family's essential functions, while remaining always alert to modify this pattern
on the basis of results and in the light of newer knowledge. 224
346
347
348
349
350
351
Phyllis Ackerman lived in New York City at the turn of the century
and to my knowledge she taught at Brown 243 and published only one
article in philosophy, "Some Aspects of Pragmatism and Hegel," in the
Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods. 244 In this
article, Ackerman looks at the conceptual and methodological differences
between pragmatism and idealism as represented by Hegelianism. She
attempts to save pragmatism and idealism as well from shortcomings
in their epistemic views .
. . . knowledge is a thoroughly active process in which each part
acts on every other to create a whole, but the whole, since that is
what gives meaning to the parts, is prior to the parts even while it
is being created. And because knowledge is a completely active
process the paradoxical character of it is best exemplified in the
judgment of action, the practical judgment. For when we say that
we ought to do something our intention determines what we will do,
but the act of doing it has to create the fact and modify it. Again whole
and parts are mutually prior and constitutive. 245
This is where pragmatism ends. It leaves the world in the course of
being created into a continuous whole in a series of steps by purposive minds so acting that they can cooperate to construct a transindividual world. 246
But how can there be the constructive series without some background
of fixed determinate structure? ... To attempt to establish logical relations presupposes that the world is built on a system of logical
relations. Professor Dewey's own commentary on the question has
only to be generalized to the whole search for knowledge to make
the necessary supplementations to the pragmatic theory.247 . . . The
process that pragmatism discusses then, presupposes the already real
whole that it tries to deny.
. . . Certainly pragmatism must admit determinism for it admits the
continuity of knowledge. This continuity is basic to the notion of its
process. You dive into the future from the springboard the past has
made. 248
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
sense of the word, a causal sequence of events connecting the two sets
of changes. We can glance quickly backwards and forwards from a
mirror to the room and notice the similarity between the real bee,
buzzing in a vase of flowers, and its reflection in a mirror. If it moves
from one flower to another, there is the reflected movement from
one mirror flower to another, but this similarity is for a spectator
who is watching the two sets of happenings and noting their correlation. If we are using the mirror metaphor, it is to explain not the
similarity of changes for a spectator, but what we should call the
correlation of real changes between real events. It is intended to offer
us a picture of what happens, for instance when steel is drawn to a
magnet. The metaphor is applicable in the sense that changes in one
place lead us to expect changes in another place, but it is unsuitable
in that mirroring leads us to expect a duplication of appearances in
two places, while the state of affairs in the magnet is not duplicated
by the state of affairs in the steel. 299
The mirror metaphor creates other problems for Leibniz, Saw says.
The fact of the matter appears to be that Leibniz never put together
his view of the simple substances mutually mirroring one another, and
his view of their possession of properties. If he had, he would have
seen that the notion of simple properties, all of them mutually compatible, will not do when we think of them as belonging to unique
individuals which together form a series. Simple properties can
form nothing but a collection, but a mere collection of properties
cannot belong to a subject uniquely determined by its position in a
series. 3OO
Saw reportedly later contributed sections on Ockham and Leibniz to
a volume called A Critical History of Western Philosophy, but I have
been unable to verify this.
By the late 1950's Ruth Saw's interests in philosophy again took a
turn, this time towards aesthetics. The publication of three articles on
aesthetics in the early 1960's coincided with her appointment as Professor
of Aesthetics at the University of London, and her founding of the British
Society of Aesthetics. Saw's views on aesthetics were influential and
were discussed by Smart and Margolis, among others. In "What is a
'Work of Art' ?"301 Saw addresses conventions for identifying something as a "work of art" or a person as an "artist," and explores the
362
363
Ivy MacKenzie was granted her B.Sc., M.A. and M.D. She was a member
of the Aristotelian Society. Her interest in medicine is reflected in her
two philosophical articles. "Sensation and Attention" explores the nature
of organisms which possess sensory organs and react to environmental
stimulation. MacKenzie questions the the capacity for sensation as we
humans understand it in these organisms. 310 "The Biological Basis of
the Sense of Time" discusses the conception of time and space as it is
related to theories of memory and evolutionary biology. MacKenzie
attempts to look toward the origin of the ideas of time and space. 311
MacKenzie's writings focus on scientific examples and less on philosophical investigations.
27. Margaret Masterman Braithwaite: fl. 1905
364
365
366
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
367
368
33.
34.
35.
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
369
370
69. Addams, Jane, "Patriotism and Pacifists in War Time," Chicago: City Club
Bulletin 10:9 (6116117).
70. Haldane, Elizabeth S. and Simpson, Frances (transl.), Georg W. Hegel:
Lectures on the History of Philosophy, 3 Vols. London: K. Paul, Trench,
Trubner & Co., 1892-1896.
71. Haldane, Elizabeth S., Descartes: His Life and Times. London: Murray,
1905.
72. Haldane, Elizabeth S. and G. R. T. Ross, The Philosophical Works of
Descartes, in two volumes. Cambridge: The University Press, 1912.
73. Taylor, A. E., Review of The Philosophical Works of Descartes, by E.
S. Haldane and G. R. T. Ross, Mind 22 (1913), p. 406.
74. Haldane, Elizabeth S., "Notes on a Criticism," Mind 21 (1912), pp. 145147.
75. Kersey, E., op. cit., s.v. "Haldane."
76. Haldane, Elizabeth, From One Century to Another: The Reminiscences
of Elizabeth S. Haldane. London: A. Maclehose & Co., 1937.
77. Zegger, Hrisey D., May Sinclair. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976, p.
18. Quoting Beale in Raikes, E., Dorothea Beale of Cheltenham. London:
1908, pp. 389-390.
78. Sinclair, May, "The Ethical and Religious Import of Idealism," The New
World 2 (December 1893), pp. 694-708.
79. Sinclair, May, Feminism. London: The Women Writer's Suffrage League,
1912.
80. Sinclair, May, "The Ethical and Religious Import of Idealism," The New
World 2 (December, 1893), pp. 694-708.
81. Sinclair, May, "Primary and Secondary Consciousness," Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society 23 (1922-1923), pp. 111-120.
82. Sinclair, May, "Gitanjali of Sir Rabindranath Tagore," The North American
Review, 1913.
83. Op. cit.
84. Laird, John, Review of The New Idealism, by May Sinclair, in Mind 32
(1923), pp. 116-117.
85. Sinclair, May, A Defence of Idealism, vi [material in square brackets
supplied].
86. Op. cit., pp. vi-vii.
87. Op. cit., p. ix.
88. Op. cit., p. xv.
89. Op. cit., p. viii.
90. Sinclair, May, The New Idealism. London: Macmillan & Co., 1922.
91. Op. cit., p. 243.
92. Op. cit., pp. 274-294.
93. Sinclair, May, "Primary and Secondary Consciousness," Proceedings of
the Aristotelian Society 23 (1922-1923), p. 112.
94. Sinclair, May, The New Idealism, op. cit., p. 297.
95. Op. cit., pp. 302-304.
96. Op. cit., p. 305.
97. Op. cit., pp. 305-306.
371
372
124. Underhill, Evelyn, Mysticism. London: Methuen & Co., Ltd., 1911.
125. Taylor, A. E., Review of Mysticism by Evelyn Underhill, Mind 22 (1913),
pp. 122-130.
126. See, Evasdaughter, E., "Julian of Norwich," in Waithe, M. E. (ed.), A
History of Women Philosophers Vol. 2. Dordrecht, Boston & London:
Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989, pp. 191-222.
127. See Gibson, Joan, "Mechtild of Magdeburg," in Waithe, M. E. (ed.), A
History of Women Philosophers Vol. 2, op. cit., pp. 115-140.
128. Underhill, Evelyn, The Mystic Way: A Psychological Study in Christian
Origins. London: J.M. DentlNew York: E.P. Dutton, 1914.
129. Underhill, Evelyn, The Essentials of Mysticism. New York: E. P. Dutton,
1960.
130. Underhill, Evelyn, The Life of the Spirit and the Life of Today. New
York: E.P. Dutton, 1922.
131. Underhill, Evelyn, The Mystics of the Church. New York: Schocken Books,
1964.
132. See Menzies, op. cit., p. 17.
133. See Bibliography for a full listing of Underhill's works.
134. Knight, Helen, "Sense-Form in Pictorial Art," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 3 (1902-1903), pp. 143-160, and "The Use
of 'Good' in Aesthetic JUdgments," Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society,
New Series 3 (1902-1903), pp. 207-223.
135. Knight, Helen, Review of Psychologie de ['Art. Essai sur l'Activite
Artistique by Henri Delacroix, Mind 37 (1928), pp. 119-120.
136. Knight, Helen, Review of Grundlegung einiger aestetischen Werttheorie
Band I, Das asthetische Werterlebnis by Rudolf Odebrecht, Mind 37
(1928), p. 248.
137. Knight, Helen, "Sensation in Pictorial Art," Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society 31 (1931), p. 137.
138. Knight, Helen, "Symposium: The Limits of Psychology in Aesthetics,"
Aristotelian Society Supplement 11 (1932), pp. 168-215. Papers by Louis
Arnaud Reid, Helen Knight (186-199) and C. E. M. Joad.
139. Knight, Helen, "Philosophy in Germany," Philosophy 11 (1936), pp.
91-94; 340-344.
140. Knight, Helen, "Symposium: Is Ethical Relativity Necessary," Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 17 (July 1938), pp. 183-194.
141. Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 46 (1945-1946),
p.263.
142. Personal Communication, 1992.
143. De Laguna, Grace Mead Andrus, "The Mechanical Theory in Pre-Kantian
Rationalism," Dissertation, Cornell University, 1906.
144. De Laguna, Grace Mead Andrus and Theodore De Laguna, Dogmatism
and Evolution. New York: Macmillan, 1910.
145. De Laguna, Grace Mead Andrus, "The Limits of the Physical," in
Philosophical Essays in Honor of James Edwin Creighton. New York:
Macmillan Press, 1917, pp. 175-183.
146. De Laguna, Grace Mead Andrus, "The Empirical Correlation of Mental
147.
148.
149.
150.
151.
152.
153.
154.
155.
156.
157.
158.
159.
160.
161.
162.
163.
164.
373
374
165.
166.
167.
168.
169.
170.
171.
172.
173.
174.
175.
176.
177.
178.
179.
180.
181.
182.
183.
184.
185.
186.
187.
188.
189.
190.
375
376
377
378
379
380
307. Best, David, "Mind, Art and Philosophy," Journal of Aesthetics and
Education 20 (Fall 1986), pp. 5-17; and "The Limits of Art," Philosophy
61 (October 1986), pp. 532-533.
308. Saw, Ruth L., "Art and the Language of the Emotions," Symposium,
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society Supplement XXXVI (1962), pp.
235-246.
309. Saw, Ruth L., "The Logic of the Particular Case," Proceedings of the
Aristotelian Society 66 (1966), pp. 1-14.
310. MacKenzie, Ivy, "Sensation and Attention," Aristotelian Society
Supplement (April 1927), pp. 243-290.
311. MacKenzie, Ivy, "The Biological Basis of the Sense of Time," Aristotelian
Society Supplement 5 (1925), pp. 64-102.
312. Symposium - "Causal Laws in Psychology," Aristotelian Society
Supplement (Mr. B. A. Farrell, Ms. Margaret Masterman (45-60) and
Professor C. A. Mace) 23 (1949), p. 47.
313. Personal communication from Professor Alice Ambrose to Professor Mary
Ellen Waithe.
314. Ambrose, Alice (ed.), Wittgenstein's Lectures, Cambridge, 1932-1935
(From the notes of Alice Ambrose and Margaret MacDonald). Totowa, NJ:
Rowman and Littlefield, 1979.
315. Ibid.
316. Ibid.
317. MacDonald, Margaret, "Verification and Understanding," Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 34 (1933-1934), p. 143.
318. Kersey,op. cit., s.v. "MacDonald, Margaret."
319. Ibid.
320. MacDonald, Margaret, "The Philosopher's Use of Analogy," Proceedings
of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 38 (1937-1938), p. 291.
321. MacDonald, Margaret, op. cit, p. 312.
Appendix
Entries marked * appear in Ethel Kersey, Women Philosophers: A BioCritical Source Book. Those marked ** were brought to my attention
by Professor Elzbieta Pakszys of A. Mickiewicz University, Poznan,
Poland.
Susanne Knauth Langer*
Elizabeth Lane Beardsley
Thelma Lavine
Eugenia Ginsberg Blauasteinowa**
May Brodbeck*
Cornelia Geer LeBoutillier
Lucinda Pearl Boggs
Dorothy Lee
Sarah H. Brown
Anna Forbes Liddell
Janina Hosiasson-Lindenbaumowa**
Mary Lowell Coolidge*
Maria Kokoszynska-Lutmanowa**
Isabel Payson Creed
Helen Merrel Lynd
Agnes Cuming
Millicent Mackenzie
Adela Curtis
Flora I. MacKinnon
Izydora Dambska**
Margaret McFarlane
Margaret Drummond
Susan Miles
Nathalie Duddington
Maria Niedzwiecka Ossowska**
Savilla Alice Elkus
Miss C. E. Plumptre
Dorothy Emmet
Irena Filozofowna**
Seweryna Liszczewska-Rohmanowa**
Mary Gilliland
Halina Sloniewska**
Ethel Sabin Smith
Kate Moore Gordon
Ella Harrison Stokes
Daniela Tennerowna Gromska**
Marie Collins Swabey*
Pepita Haezrahi
Anna Tumarkin
Olga Hahn
Dorothy Walsh
Frances Hamblin
Margaret
Floy
Washburn
Louise Robinson Heath
Marie Williams
Anna T. Kitchel
A History of Women Philosophers/Volume 4, ed. by Mary Ellen Waithe, 381-382.
1995 Kluwer Academic Publishers.
382
Appendix
Augusta Klein
Martha Kneale
Janina Korarbinska**
Mary Shaw Kuypers
Helen Wodehouse
Mary Hay Wood
Helen Zimmern
Bibliography
384
Bibliography
--. Newer Ideals of Peace. New York: The Chautauqua Press, 1907.*
--. "The Public School and the Immigrant Child." Journal of the National
Education Association of the U.S. (1908): 99-102. *
- - . "The Home and the Special Child." Journal of the National Education
Association of the U.S. (1908): 1127-1131.*
--. The Social Application of Religion. New York: Eaton & Mains/Cincinnati:
Jennings and Graham, 1908.*
--. The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets. New York: Macmillan, 1909.*
- . "Hull-House, 1889-1909." Chicago: Hollister Press, 1909. *
- . "Child Labor in the South." 1911. *
--. A New Conscience and An Ancient Evil. New York: Macmillan, 1912.*
- - . "Why Women Should Vote." New York: National American Women's
Suffrage Association, 1912.*
--. "Why Women Are Concerned with the Larger Citizenship." Women and
The Larger Citizenship 1 (1913-1914): 2123-2142.*
--. The Overthrow of the War System. Edited by Lucia Ames Mead. Boston:
Forum Publications, 1915.*
--. Women at the Hague; the International Congress of Women and its Results.
New York: Macmillan, 1915.*
--. The Long Road of Woman's Memory. New York: Macmillan, 1916.*
--. "Patriotism and Pacifists in War Time." City Club Bulletin 10, 9 (June
16, 1917).*
--. "The World's Food Supply and Woman's Obligation." Journal of the
National Education Association of the U.S. (1918): 108-113. *
--. The Excellent Becomes the Permanent. New York: Macmillan, 1922.*
--. Peace and Bread in Time Of War. New York: Macmillan, 1922.*
--. The Child, the Clinic, and the Court. Papers by Jane Addams, C. Judson
Herrick, A. L. Jacoby, et al. New York: New Republic Inc.lWeiboldt
Foundation, 1925.*
--. Democracy and Social Ethics. New York: Macmillan, 1932.
- . My Friend, Julia Lathrop. New York: Macmillan, 1935.*
--. Forty Years at Hull-House; Including Twenty Years at Hull-House and The
Second Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan, 1935.*
--. "Jane Addams Speaks," Fairmont, Indiana: L.S. Kenworthy, 1945.*
- - . Democracy and Social Ethics. Edited by Anne Firor Scott. Cambridge:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1964.*
- . The Social Thought of Jane Addams. Edited by Christopher Lasch.
Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1965.*
- - . Jane Addams on Education. Edited by Ellen Condliffe Lagemann. New
York: Teachers College Press, 1985.
Advertisement of Welby Prize. Mind 5 (1896): 583.
Akselrod, Liubo Isaakovna. 0 "Problemakh Idealizma". Odessa: Bureviestnik,
1905.
--. Protiv Idealizma: Kritika Nekotorykh Idealist Cheshikh Techenii Filosofskoi
Mysli. Moscow: Gos. Izd-vo, 1924.
--. Karl Marks kak FilosoJ. Kharkov: Put Prosveshcheniia, 1924.
Bibliography
385
386
Bibliography
Bibliography
387
--. "Unser Anteil an Dostoevski und Tolstoi." Vossische Zeitung (July 23,
1920).
- . "Narzismus als Doppelrichtung." Imago 7 (1921).
- . "Russische Romantik." Romantik 5 (1921).
--. "Tendenz und Form russischer Dichtung." Das Literarische Echo (January
1, 1922).
--. Der Teufel und seine Grossmutter. Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1922.
- - . Die Stunde ohne Gott und andere Kindergeschichten. Jena: Eugen
Diederichs, 1922.
--. Rodinka: Russische Erinnerung. Jena: Eugen Diederichs, 1923.
--. Rainer Maria Rilke. Leipzig: Insel-Verlag-, 1928.
--. "Rilke in Russland." Russische Blatter (October 1928).
--. Mein Dank an Freud: Offener Brief an Professor Sigmund Freud zu seinem
75. Geburtstag. Vienna: Internationaler Psychoanalytischer Verlag, 1931.
--. Rainer Maria Rilke/Lou Andreas-Salome Briefwechsel. Edited by Ernst
Pfeiffer. Zurich: Max NiehanslWiesbaden: Insel-Verlag, 1952.
--. "The Dual Orientation of Narcissism." Translated by Stanley A. Leavy.
The Psychoanalytic Quarterly 31, 1 (1962).
--. The Freud Journal of Lou Andreas-Salome. Translated by Stanley A. Leavy.
New York: Basic Books Inc., 1964.
--. Lebensruckblick: Grundriss einiger Lebenserinnerungen. Zurich: Max
Niehans, 1951IWiesbaden: Insel-Verlag/Frankfurt am Main: Insel-Verlag,
1968.
--. Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome Letters. Edited by Ernst Pfeiffer.
Translated by William and Elaine Robson-Scott. New York: Harcourt Brace
Jovanovich Inc., 1972.
--. L'Amour du Narcissisme: Textes Psychoanalytiques. Traduit de l'allemand
par Isabelle Hildenbrand. Preface de Marie Moscovici. Paris: Gallimard,
1980.
--. Eros. Traduit de l'allemand par Henri Plard avec un avant-propos d'Ernst
Pfeiffer, 1984.
--. Ibsen's Heroines. Connecticut: Black Swan Press, 1985.
--. Freud. Connecticut: Black Swan Press, 1986.
--. Nietzsche. Connecticut: Black Swan Press, 1986.
Anthony, Susan B. "Spiritual Deterrence in the Nuclear Age." Thought 59 (March
1984): 64-77.
Aquinas, Thomas. De Ente et Essentia C. 3: In VII Met., 5,1379; In I Sent.,
23,1,1.
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. New York: Harcourt, Brace,
1951.*
--. The Human Condition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1958.*
- - . Origins of Totalitarianism (2nd revised edition). New York: Harcourt,
Brace & Co., 1958.
--. Between Past and Future: Six Exercises in Political Thought. New York:
Viking Press, 1961. *
- - . Politische Ordnung und Menschliche Existenz. Hrsg. von A10is Dempf,
Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Engel-Janosi. Mtinchen: Beck, 1962.
388
Bibliography
Bibliography
389
390
Bibliography
Bibliography
391
392
Bibliography
Bibliography
393
394
Bibliography
Bibliography
395
396
Bibliography
Bibliography
397
398
Bibliography
Bibliography
399
400
Bibliography
Bibliography
401
402
Bibliography
Bibliography
403
404
Bibliography
Bibliography
405
406
Bibliography
Bibliography
407
408
Bibliography
Bibliography
409
--. "Ueber Sinn und Bedeutung," Zeitschrift for Phil. und phil. Kritik 100
(1892).
--. Grundgesetze der Arithmetik, begriffsschriftlich abgeleitet. Jena, 1893.
Freud, Sigmund. Sigmund Freud and Lou Andreas-Salome: Letters. Edited by
Ernst Pfeiffer. Translated by William and Elaine Robson-Scott. New York:
Harcourt, Brace & Jovanovich, 1972.
Friedman, Maurice. "Language and Living Speech." Philosophy Today 13
(Spring 1969): 43-47.
Furumoto, Laurel. "Mary Whiton Calkins (1863-1930)." Psychology of Women
Quarterly 5 (Fall 1980): 55-68.
Gaboriau, Florent. "Edith Stein Philosophe." Revue Thomiste 88 (January/March
1988): 87-107.
- . "Edith Stein Philosophe." Revue Thomiste 88 (ApriVJune 1988): 256-277.
- - . "Edith Stein Philosophe." Revue Thomiste 88 (July/September 1988):
440-459.
--. "Edith Stein Philosophe." Revue Thomiste 88 (OctoberlDecember 1988):
589-619.
Gagnebin, Laurent. Simone de Beauvoir, ou le Refus de l'lndifference. Preface
de Simone de Beauvoir. Paris: Editions Fischbacher, 1968.
Garvey, Sister Mary Patricia. Saint Augustine: Christian or Neo-Platonist? From
His Retreat at Cassiciacum Until His Ordination at Hippo. Milwaukee,
Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 1939.
--. Saint Augustine Against the Academicians. Contra Academicos. Milwaukee,
Wisconsin: Marquette University Press, 1943.
Geiger, L. B. Review of Endliches und Ewiges Sein, by Edith Stein. Revue des
sciences philosophiques et theologiques XXXVIII (1954): 275-277.
Ghosh, Ranjan K. "Susanne K. Langer's Aesthetics of Painting and Some Indian
Art." Indian Philosophical Quarter 4 (April 1977): 297-304.
--. "The Alleged Duality in Susanne Langer's Aesthetics." Indian
Philosophical Quarterly 7 (July 1980): 501-511.
Gilbert, Katherine. "Hegel's Criticism of Spinoza." In Philosophical Essays in
Honor of James Edwin Creighton New York: Macmillan, 1917.*
--. "The Mind and its Discipline." The Philosophical Review 27 (July 1918):
413-427.*
--. "The Philosophy of Feeling in Current Poetics." Journal of Philosophy
20 (November 1923): 645-653. *
--. "The Principles of Reason in the Light of Bosanquet's Philosophy." The
Philosophical Review 32 (November 1923): 599-611.*
- . Maurice Blondel's Philosophy of Action. Chapel Hill: University of North
Carolina Press, 1924. *
- - . "James E. Creighton as Writer and Editor." Journal of Philosophy 22
(May 1925): 256-264. *
- . "Hardy and the Weak Spectator." The Reviewer (July 1925): 9-26.*
- - . "The One and the Many of Croce's Aesthetics." The Philosophical Review
34,5 (September 1925): 443-456.*
410
Bibliography
Bibliography
411
--. The Living of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. New York: D. Appleton Century
Company, 1935.*
--. Women and Economics. New York: Harper & Row, 1966.*
--. The Yellow Wallpaper. Brooklyn: The Feminist Press, 1973.*
Gladstein, Mimi Reisel. The Ayn Rand Companion. Westport: Greenwood Press,
1984.
Glenn, R. "A Discussion of the Theory of International Relations." Journal of
Philosophy 42 (August 1945): 491-493.
Glucker, Yochanan. "On Imperfect Being." Iyyun 25 (October 1974): 247311.
Goldman, Emma. "Anarchy." Labor Leader 21 (June 5, 1897): 19.*
--. What I Believe. New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1908.*
- . A Beautiful Idea. Chicago: J.C. Hart & Co., 1908.*
--. The White Slave Traffic. New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association,
1909.*
--. The Psychology of Political Violence. New York: Mother Earth Publishing
Association, 1911. *
--. "Die Masse." Der Sozialist (Berlin): (August I, 1911).*
--. Anarchism: What it Really Stands For. New York: Mother Earth Publishing
Association, 1911. *
--. Syndicalism Microform: The Modern Menace to Capitalism New York:
Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1913. *
--. La Tragedie de L'Emancipation Feminine. Saint Joseph, Orleans, France:
La Laborlease, 1914. *
- - . Marriage and Love. 2nd Edition. New York: Mother Earth Publishing
Association, 1914.*
--. The Social Significance of the Modern Drama. Boston: Richard G. Badger,
1914. *
--. Preparedness: The Road to Universal Slaughter. New York: Mother Earth
Publishing Association, 1916. *
--. Philosophy of Atheism and the Failure of Christianity. New York: Mother
Earth Publishing Association, 1916. *
--. Anarchism and other essays; with biographic sketch by Hippolyte Havel.
New York: Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1917.*
--. Trial and Speeches of Alexander Berkman and Emma Goldman in the
United States District Court, in the City of New York, July 1917. New York:
Mother Earth Publishing Association, 1917. *
--. The Truth about the Bolsheviki. New York: Mother Earth Publishing
Association, 1918.*
--. A Fragment of the Prison Experiences of Emma Goldman and Alexander
Berkman. New York: Stella Comyn, 1919.*
- . "Russia." New York World (March 26-April 4, 1922).*
--. "Bolsheviks Shooting Anarchists." London: Freedom Press, 1922. *
--. The Crushing of the Russian Revolution. London: Freedom Press, 1922.*
--. Dos Alios en Russia. New York: Aurora, 1923.*
--. My Disillusionment in Russia. 1925. Reprint. New York: Crowell, 1970. *
412
Bibliography
Bibliography
413
--. The Place for the Individual in Society. Chicago: Free Society Forum.
1940.*
- - . "Letters from Prison." The Little Review Anthology. Edited by Margaret
Anderson. New York: Hermitage Press, 1953.*
- - . "Patriotism: A Menace to Liberty." In Freedom, Feminism, and the State.
Edited by Wendy McElroy. Washington: Cato Institute. 1982.
Goldman, Michael. "Capitalism, Socialism. Objectivism." Philosophy Research
Archives 12 (1986-1987): 143-154.
Gooch, Augusta Spiegelman. "Metaphysical Ordination: Reflections on Edith
Stein's Endliches und Ewiges Sein" Ph.D. Dissertation. University of Dallas.
1982.
Goodman, Edward. A Study of Liberty and Revolution. London: Duckworth.
1975.
Gordon. Kate. The Psychology of Meaning. Ph.D. Thesis at University of
Chicago, 1903. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1903.
- - . "The Relation of Feeling to Discrimination and Conception." Journal of
Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods 2. 23 (1905).
- - . "Feeling and Conception." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific
Methods 2, 24 (1905).
- - . "Feeling as the Object of Thought." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and
Scientific Methods 3, 5 (1906).
- - . "Metaphysics, Science or Art." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and
Scientific Methods 3, 23 (1906).
- - . "Metaphysics as a Branch of Art." Journal of Philosophy, Psychology
and Scientific Methods 3, 14 (1906).
- . Esthetics. New York: H. Holt & Co., 1991. (Microfilm) Original publication: 1909.
- . Educational Psychology. New York: H. Hall & Co., 1917.
--. Studies in the Theory of Imagination. Los Angeles: Stanford University
Press, 1941.
--. Chapters on the Theory of Imagination. Los Angeles: Moore, 1949.
--. In Search of Psyche. Los Angeles: Ward Ritchie Press, 1962.
Gordon, Kate and H. B. Thompson. "A Study of After-Images on the Peripheral
Retina." Psychological Review 14, 2 (1906).
Gordon. W. Terrence. "Significs and C. K. Ogden: The Influence of Lady
Welby." In Essays on Significs: Papers Presented on the Occasion of the
150th Anniversary of the Birth of Victoria Lady Welby (1837-1912). Edited
by H. Walter Schmitz. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins
Publishing Co . 1990.
Graef. Hilde. The Scholar and the Cross: The Life and Work of Edith Stein.
Westminster. Maryland: Newman Press, 1955.
Grant, Cecily. Edith Stein. London: Catholic Truth Society. 1957.
Grattan-Guinness. I. Dear Russell-Dear Jourdain. New York: Columbia
University Press. 1977.
Gray. J. Glenn. The Warriors: Reflection on Men in Battle. Introduction by
Hannah Arendt. New York: Harper & Row, 1970.
414
Bibliography
Bibliography
415
416
Bibliography
Bibliography
417
418
Bibliography
Bibliography
419
420
Bibliography
Bibliography
421
422
Bibliography
Bibliography
423
424
Bibliography
Bibliography
425
426
Bibliography
Bibliography
427
MacKinnon, John Edward. "Boris Pasternak's Conception of Realism." Philosophy and Literature 12 (October 1988): 211-231.
MacMurray, J. and Hilda D. Oakeley. "Symposium: The Principle of Personality
in Experience." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 29
(1928-1929): 301-315.
MacNiven, C. D. "Analytic and Existential Ethics." Dialogue 9 (June 1970):
1-19.
Madden, S. Anselm Mary. "Edith Stein and the Education of Women:
Augustinian Themes." Ph.D. Dissertation, St. Louis University, 1962. Ann
Arbor, Michigan: University Microfilms, 1962.
Madsen, Axel. Hearts and Minds: The Common Journey of Simone de Beauvoir
and Jean-Paul Sartre. New York: Morrow, 1977.
Magg, P. "Homage to Susan Stebbing." The Personalist 27 (1946): 165-172.
Mangiagalli, Maurizio. "Intellettuali e Guida della Societa Politic a un Saggio
di Edith Stein (L'Intelletto e gli Intellettuali)." Riv. filosof Neo-Scolas. 75
(OctoberlDecember 1983): 623-634.
Mannoury, Gerrit. "A Concise History of Significs." In What is Meaning? Studies
in the Development of Significance by Lady Victoria Welby. Reprint of the
London Edition of 1903. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins Pub.
Co., 1983.
Mansfeld, J. and L. M. de Rijk (editors). Kephalaion: Studies in Greek Philosophy and its continuation offered to Professor c. J. de Vogel. Assen:
Van Gorcum, 1975.
Manshausen, Udo Theodor. Die Biographie der Edith Stein. Frankfurt, Bern:
Peter Lang, 1984.
Marcel, Gabriel. "An Essay in Autobiography." In The Philosophy of
Existentialism. New York: Citadel Press, 1956.
Margolis, Joseph. "Art as Language." Monist 58 (April 1974): 175-186.
--. "On the Semiotics of Music." In What is Music. Edited by Philip Alperson.
New York: Haven Publications, 1987.
Maritain, Jacques. The Person and the Common Good. Translated by J. J.
Fitzgerald. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1966.
Marks, Elaine. Simone de Beauvoir: Encounters With Death. New Brunswick,
New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 1973.
Marsh, Margaret S. Anarchist Women 1870-1920. Philadelphia: Temple
University Press, 1981.
Martin, E. W. "Existentialism: Simone Weil and Existential Commitment."
Hibbert Journal 63 (1964): 9-12.
Martin, Jane Roland. "Martial Virtues or Capital Vices: William James' Moral
Equivalent of War Revisited." Journal of Thought 22 (Fall 1987): 32-44.
Mascall, Eric Lionel. Existence and Analogy: A Sequel to "He Who Is." New
York: Longman's Green, 1949.
Masterman, Margaret (M. M. Braithwaite). "The Psychology of Levels of Will."
Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 48 (1947-1948): 75110.
- - . "Words." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, New Series 54
(1953-1954): 209-232.*
428
Bibliography
Bibliography
429
430
Bibliography
Bibliography
431
432
Bibliography
5.
--. The Ominous Parallels New York: Stein and Day Publishers, 1982.
- - (editor). The Early Ayn Rand. New York: New American Library,
1984.
Pelletier, Madeleine. Philosophie Sociale. Paris: Giard et Briere, 1913.
Penn, Maria Teresa. "Edith Stein, esempio di umilta intellectuale e practica nella
Bibliography
433
line di S. Tommasso." Tommasso d'Aquino nella storia del pensiero. RomaNapoli: Atti del Congresso Internazionale, 1974.
Peroli, Enrico. "Cornelia de Vogel fra Vecchio e Nuova Paradigma Errneneutico
nell'Interpretazione di Platone." Rivista di Filosofia Neo-Scolastica 81, 3
(July/September 1989): 347-392.
Peters, H. F. My Sister, My Spouse: A Biography of Lou Andreas-Salome. New
York: Norton, 1962.
Petrement, Simone. Simone Weil, A Life. Translated by Raymond Rosenthal. New
York: Pantheon Books, 1976.
Pfeiffer, Ernst (editor). Sigmund Freud/Lou Andreas-Salome Briefwechsel.
Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1966.
- - (editor). In der Schule bei Freud. Zurich: Max Niehans, 1958.
(editor). Friedrich Nietzsche, Paul Ree, Lou von Salome: Die Dokumente
ihrer Begegnung. Frankfurt am Main: S. Fischer, 1966.
Philosophical Studies; Essays in Memory of L. Susan Stebbing. Foreword by
John Wisdom. Published for the Aristotelian Society. London: George Allen
& Unwin, 1948.
Piscione, Enrico. "Stato, Etnicita e Religione in Edith Stein." Sapienza 38
(ApriVJune 1985): 199-206.
Pitt, Jack. "Russell and the Cambridge Moral Sciences Club." Russell: 1,2
(Winter, 1981-1982): 103-118.
Playne, Caroline Elisabeth. "Bergson and Free Will." Peace and Freedom
Pamphlets 9 (1915).*
--. The Neuroses of The Nations. New York: Thomas Seltzer, 1925.
- . "The Pursuit of Peace." Memoir presented to 32nd Congres Universel de
la Paix and based on Adventures of Ideas by Professor A. N. Whitehead.
Printed in The Report Paris (August 1937): 106.*
Plumptre, Miss C. E. "The Rise and Development of Philosophy during the
Renaissance." Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Old Series 1 (1888):
76-77.
Podach, Erich F. Friedrich Nietzsche und Lou Salome: Ihr Begegnung 1881.
Zurich, Leipzig: 1938.
Posselt, Teresa Renata de Spiritu Sancto. Edith Stein. Translated by C. Hastings
and D. Nicholl. New York: Sheed and Ward, 1952.
Przywara, Erich. "Edith Stein et Simone Weil, essentialisme, existentialisme,
analogie." Translated by Henri Leroux. Les etudes philosophiques IX, n.s.
(1956): 458-472.
Puffer, Ethel D. The Psychology of Beauty. Boston and New York: Houghton,
Mifflin & Co., 1906.
Rahner, Karl. Spirit in the World. New York: Herder & Herder, 1968.
Raikes, E. Dorothea Beale of Cheltenham. London: 1980.
Rand, Ayn. Night of January 16. New York: Longmans, Green, 1936/New York:
World Publishing Company, 1968/New York: New American Library, 1971.
- . We the Living. New York: The Macmillan Company, 19361London: Cassell,
1937/New York: Random House, 1959. Paperback: New York: New American
Library, 1959.
434
Bibliography
7.
4.
Bibliography
435
436
Bibliography
Bibliography
437
438
Bibliography
Bibliography
439
440
Bibliography
Bibliography
441
- . "Symbolism and Sublimation I." Medical Press and Circular 153 (August
1916): 119-122.
--. "Symbolism and Sublimation II." Medical Press and Circular 153 (August
1916): 142-145.
- - . A Defence of Idealism: Some Questions and Conclusions. London & New
York: Macmillan Company, 1917.
--. "Introduction." In The Closed Door by Jean de Bosschere. London: John
Lane, 1917.
--. The Three of Heaven. London: Cassell, 1917/New York: Macmillan, 1917.
--. "Prufrock and other Observations." The Little Review 4 (December 1917):
8-14.
--. "The Novels of Dorothy Richardson." The Egoist (April 1918): 57-59; The
Little Review 5 (April 1918): 3-11, reprinted as "Introduction" to Pilgrimage
by Dorothy Richardson. New York: Knopf, 1919.
--. Mary Olivier: A Life. London: Cassell, 1919/New York: Macmillan,1919.
- . "The Reputation of Ezra Pound." English Review 30 (April 1920): 326-335;
North American Review 211 (May 1920) 658-668.
- . "Worse than War." English Review 31 (August 1920): 147-153.
- . The Romantic. London: Collins, 1920/New York: Macmillan, 1920.
- . "The Poems of F. S. F1int." English Review 32 (January 1921): 6-18.
- . "The Future of the Novel." Pall Mall Gazette (January 1921): 7.
- - . "The Poems of Richard Aldington." English Review 32 (May 1921):
397-410.
- . Mr. Waddington of Wyck. London: Cassell, 1921/New York: Macmillan,
1921.
- . "The Poems of H.D." The Dial (February 1922): 203-207.
- . "The Novels of Violet Hunt." English Review 34 (February 1922): 106-118.
- . "The Man From Main Street." New York Times Book Review (September
1922): 1. Review of Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis.
- . Life and Death of Harriett Frean. London: Collins, 1922/New York:
Macmillan, 1922.
- . The New Idealism. London & New York: Macmillan & Co., 1922.
- . Anne Severn and the Fieldings. London: Hutchinson, 1922/New York:
Macmillan, 1922.
- . "Primary and Secondary Consciousness." Proceedings of the Aristotelian
Society, New Series 23 (1922-1923): 111-120.
- . Uncanny Stories. London: Hutchinson, 1923/New York: Macmillan, 1923.
- - . Arnold Waterlow: A Life. London: Hutchinson, 1924/New York: Macmillan, 1924.
- . A Cure of Souls. London: Hutchinson, 1924/New York: Macmillan, 1924.
- - . The Dark Night: A Novel in Verse. London: Cape, 1924/New York:
Macmillan, 1924.
- . The Rector of Wyck. London: Hutchinson, 1925/New York: Macmillan,
1925.
- . Far End. London: Hutchinson, 1926/New York: Macmillan, 1926.
- . History of Anthony Waring. London: Hutchinson, 1927/New York: Macmillan, 1927.
442
Bibliography
Bibliography
443
444
Bibliography
Bibliography
445
446
Bibliography
Bibliography
447
448
Bibliography
Bibliography
449
Unna, Sarah. "Bertrand Russell - Then and Now." The Journal of Philosophy,
Psychology and Scientific Methods 16, 15 (1919): 393-403.
Valentine, C. W. Review of Psychological Studies from the Psychological
Laboratory of Bedford College. Edited by Beatrice Edgell. Mind 26 (1917):
237-238.
Van Lier, Henry. "Edith Stein." Revue nouvelle XX (1954): 236-243.
Vanni Rovighi, Sofia. "La Figura et l'opera di Edith Stein." Studium LX (1954):
554-568.
Veto, Miklos J. "Simone Weil and Suffering." Thought 40 (June 1965): 275-286.
Vidal, Jacques. "Phenomenologie et Conversions." Archives de Philosophie
35, 1972.
Vigone, L. "ltorno ad Edith Stein." Rivista difilosofia neoscholastica L (1958):
77-82.
Vogel, Cornelia J. de. Een keerpunt in Plato's denken. Een historischphilosophische studie. Amsterdam: 1936.
--. Newman's gedachten over de rechtvaardiging. Hun zin en recht t.O.V.
Luther en het protestantse Christendom. Wageningen: 1939.
--. Ecclesia catholica. Redelijke verantwoording van een persoonlijke keuze.
Utrecht: 1946; 3rd edition: 1948.
--. Athanasius, Redevoeringen tegen de Arianen [dated 1943]. Translation,
introduction and notes. Utrecht: 1948.
--. "La Derniere Phase du Platonisme et l'Interpretation de M. Robin," Studia
Vollgrajf, Amsterdam (1948): 165-178.
--. "L'Idee de l'Unite de Dieu une Verite rationelle," Melanges philosophiques
(offered to the members of the Xth International Congress of Philosophy held
at Amsterdam, 1948), Amsterdam (1948): 24-39.
--. "Problems concerning later Platonism." Mnemosyne Supplement IV, 2
(1949): 197-216, 299-318.
- . "Plato en het modeme denken," Tijdschrift voor Philosophie 12 (1950):
453-476.
- - . Greek Philosophy. Texts with notes and explanations. Vol. I, Thales to
Plato. Leiden: 1950; 2nd ed. 1957; 3rd ed. 1963; 4th ed. 1969.
- - . "Avicenna en zijn invloed op het West-Europese denken," Alg. Ned.
TijdschriJt voor Wijsbegeerte 44 (1951): 3-16.
--. "Examen critique de l'interpretation traditionelle du Platonisme," Revue de
Meraphysique et de Morale 56 (1951): 249-268.
- - . "Une nouvelle interpretation du probleme socratique." Mnemosyne
Supplement iv, 4 (1951): 30-39.
--. "L'histoire de la philosophie en quel sens fait-elle partie de la philosophie?" Actes du Congres des Societe de Phil. de languefranraise. Strasbourg
(1952): 359-362.
--. "Ret totalitarisme van Plato's Staat en het totalitarisme van de Katholieke
Kerk." Annalen van het Thymgenootschap 40 (1952): 173-197.
--. Review of D. H. Th. Vollenhoven, Geschiedenis der Wijsbegeerte voor
Plato en Aristoteles. Mnemosyne Supplement IV,5 (1952): 155-156.
450
Bibliography
Bibliography
451
452
Bibliography
--. "Encore une fois: Ie Bien dans la Republique de Platon." Zetesis. Bijdragen
op het gebied van de klassieke filologie, filosofie, byzantinistiek, patrologie
en theologie door collega's en vrienden aangeboden aan Prof dr. Emile de
Strycker. Antwerpen-Utrecht (1973): 40-56.
--. "Two major problems concerning Socrates." Theta-Pi 2 (1973): 18-39.
--. Aetema veritas. Utrecht: 1974.
--. "Platonisches und Aristotelisches in drei Friihschriften des Aristoteles."
Friihschriften des Aristoteles, Wiss, Buchges. Darmstadt (1975): 276-311
(Translated from Archiv Gesch. Philos. 1965).
- . "Die Eucharistielehre heut." Zeitschrift for Katholische Theologie (1975):
391-414.
--. "Problemes actuels de l'Eglise." Scripta Theologica Pamplona (Universidad
de Navarra) 1975: 769-786.
--. "L'Ethique d' Aristote offre-t-elle une base appropriee a une ethique chretienne?" Procedes du Congres Thomiste. Rome: 1974. n.p.d.
--. Carta a los catolicos de Holanda, a todos. Ed. Eunsa, Pamplona, 1975.
- . "Plotinus' Image of Man." Images of Man, Studia Verbeke. Leuven (1976):
147-168.
--. "L'ethique d' Aristote offre-t-elle une base appropriee a une ethique chretienne?" Atti del Congresso Intemazionale, Edizione Dominicane Napoli
(1977): 135-143.
- . "Some Reflexions on Phillip I 23." Novum Testamentum. Leiden (1977):
No.4.
--. "Neuere philosophische Denkformen und ihre Wirkung in der heutigen
Theologie." Miinchener Theologische Zeitschrift 1977-1978.
- - . "W. Pannenberg over de opname van het filosofische Godsbegrip door
het vroeg-christelijk denken." Kerk en Theologie (1978), No.2.
--. De Grondslag van onze zekerheid. Over de problemen van de Kerk heden.
Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981.
--. Tijdproblemen. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1981.
--. "Greek Cosmic Love and the Christian Love of God." Vigiliae Christianae
35 (1981): 57-81.
--. "The Soma-Serna Formula: Its function in Plato and Plotinus compared
to Christian Writers." In Neoplatonism and Early Christian Thought, Essays
in Honour of A. H. Armstrong. London: Variorum Publications, 1981: 7985.
--. "Deus Creator Omnium. Plato and Aristotle in Aquinas' Doctrine of God."
Graceful Reason, Essays presented to Joseph Owen. Toronto (1983): 203227.
- - . "Der Sog. Mittelplatonismus, uberwiegend eine Philo sophie der Diesseitigkeit?" Platonismus und Christentum, Festschrift Dorrie. Munster (1983):
277-302 (= Jahrbuchfor Antike und Christentum. Erganzungsband 10, 1983).
--. "Boethius." Gestalten der Kirchengeschichte, Band. 2, Alte Kirche II.
Stuttgart: Kohlhammer. 1984: 252-261.
- - . "Selbstliebe bei Platon und Aristoteles, und der Charakter der aristotelischen Ethik." Aristoteles Werk und Wirkung. Paul Moraux gewidmet, Erster
Band: 393-426. Berlin and New York: De Gruyter, 1985.
Bibliography
453
454
Bibliography
Bibliography
455
Paul. The Philosophy of Bertrand Russell, 3rd edition. New York: Tudor
Publishing Company, 1951.
Welby, Victoria. A Young Traveller's Journal of a Tour in North and South
America During the Year 1850. London: T. Bosworth, 1852.
Welby, Victoria Lady. Links and Clues, 2nd Edition. London: Macmillan &
Co., 1883.
- . Witnesses to Ambiguity: A Collection. Grantham: W. Clarke, 1891.
- . "The Significance of Folk-Lore." The International Folk-Lore Congress,
1891. Papers and Transactions. Edited by Joseph Jacobs and Alfred Nutt.
London: David Nutt, 1892.
- . "Meaning and Metaphor." The Monist 3, 4 (1893): 510-525.
- . A Selection of Passages from "Mind" (January, 1876, to July, 1892).
456
Bibliography
Bibliography
457
458
Bibliography
Bibliography
459
Young-Bruehl, Elisabeth. Hannah Arendt, For Love a/the World. New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1982.
Zegger, Hrisey D. May Sinclair. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1976.
Zephir, Jacques J. Le neo-feminisme de Simone de Beauvoir: trent ans apres
Le deuxieme sexe, un post-scriptum. Paris: Denoel/Gonthier, ca. 1982.
Zuidgeest, Marja. "Antropomorfisme en Wetenschap, Kritische Beschouwingen
Van Enkele Aspecten Van Susanne Langer's Theorie Van Het Gevoel."
Algemeen Nederlands TijdschriJt voor Wijsbegeerte 71 (July 1979): 173188.
Index
462
Index
Baldwin 309
Barbara (see syllogistic logic)
Index
Christian religion 305
Christian philosophy 234ff (see also
catholicism, lutheranism)
Cicero 228
City University of New York 243
civilization 15lff
Claremont Colleges 342
Clark University xxvii, 104, 105
classes 37
Clauss, Ludwig 190
Clifford, Lucy 6
Collective, the 21lff
Collingwood, James 340
colonialism 261, 273
Columbia University xxviii, 126,332, 342
common sense 251
communism xxxii, xxxiv, 207-209, 216,
222, 289, 291 (see also marxism)
community xxx, xxxii, 117-118, 173174, 190, 191, 196
Comte, Auguste 305, 355
Conference on Jewish Relations 244
Conrad-Martius, Hedwig 162, 179
conscience 309
conscientious objection 350 (see also
pacifism)
consciousness xxviii, xxxvii, 269ff, 306ff,
319,329
continuity 18, 353
contraceptives 324-325, 344
contradiction, law of 33ff
Coolidge, Mary Lowel 381
Corneille 25
Cornell University 331, 339, 355
cosmology, xli, 18, 144ff
Costelloe, Karin (see Stephen)
Council of the British Society of
Aesthetics 358
Creed, Isabel Payson 381
Creighton, James 339ff
Croce, Benedetto 340, 342
Cuming, Agnes 281
Curtis, Adela 381
Cust, Nina Welby 4
Dambska, Izydora 381
dance 339
Darwin 9
Darwinism (see also Reform Darwinism,
Social Darwinism)
de Vogel, Cornelia (see Vogel, Cornelia
De)
463
death 262
definition 12, 13
deism 112, 319-320
deity, concept of xxv, 140ff, 176--178,
180-182,199,232,235,236--239,
248,250-251,256,272,295,319320, 322, 328-329, 358ff
DeLaguna, Grace Mead Andrus 331-332
DeLaguna, Theodore 331
DeMille, Cecile B. 209
Demiurge in Plato 235
democracy 138, 244-248, 305, 312
DeMorgan 32
Dendy, Helen (see also Bosanquet) 306311
denomination 26, 32
denotation 14, 33-42
Descartes, Rene 112, 162, 215, 250-251,
314,359
destiny xxxvii
determinism 81, 145-146,276,323,351352
Dewey, John xxi, xxii, 54, 342ff, 351,
352, 356
discrimination against Jews xxix, xxx,
xxxv, 160-161
discrimination against women xxx, 158159
divine, experience of 200
divorce (see women, condition of)
Dostoyevsky 265
Driesch, Hans 192
Drummond, Margaret 381
dualism 15
Duddington, Nathalie 335, 381
Duns Scotus 162, 256
Eaton, Ralph 135
Eckstein, Gustav 189
Ecole Normale Superieure xxxvi, 261,
288-289
economics 54
ecstasy (see mysticism)
Eddington, Sir Arthur 127, 139-140,
145-148
Edgell, Beatrice xxi, 333-338, 358
education, philosphy of 343ff
ego 6, 217, 253, 268, 269ff
Eichmann, Adolf xxxvi, 244-245
Einstein, Albert 318-319, 353-354
Eisner, Kurt 194
Ellis, Havelock 340
464
Index
364
Goethe 25
Goldman, Emma xlii, 323-325
Gombrich 362
good, the 292, 338
Goodman, Nelson 362
Gordon, Kate Moore 381
Green, xxiv, 31
Greenspan, Alan 220
Gromska, Daniela Tennerowna 381
Grundler, Otto 190
Gulliver, Julia Henrietta 305
Hackson, Hughlings 4
Haezrahi, Pepita 299, 381
Hahn, Olga 381
Haldane, Elizabeth, xx, 314-315, 323
Haldane J. S. 4
Hamblin, Frances 381
Hamilton, Elizabeth, xxiv, 26
Hanakdan, Berachya 333
Hannay 337
Hardy, Thomas
Harris, Marjorie, Silliman 355
Hartford Female Seminary 52
Index
Harvard University xxvii, 104, 105, 118,
135
Haymarket Affair 324
Heath, Louise Robinson 381
hedonism, ethical 28, 30,46
hedonism, psychological, 30
hedonism, rational (see utilitarianism)
Hegel, Georg 27, 38, 112,255,263,266268,275, 277ff, 314, 317, 318,
350-352.
Heidegger, Martin xxii, xxxv, xxxvi, 162,
190,243,245,251,256,257,270,
271, 277ff
Heidelberg Univefsity 321
Heisenberg 145
Hellenistic philosophy xxxv, 228
Henry IV, Ecole 288, 289
Hering, Jean 183
Hermetica, the 228
Herzberg, Alexander 355
Hicks, G. Dawes 335-337
Hildegard von Bingen xlii, 329
history 348
Hitler xxxi, 149, 152 (see also Nazi
regime, fascism)
Hobbes xxviii, 112
Hollywood xxxiii
Holocaust 160-162, 273
Hooker, Isabella Beecher 52
Horner, Matilda Louisa 357
housework 264
Hugo, Victor 208
Hull House 54, 314
humanitarianism 194
human nature 196, 347
Hume, David xxii, xxviii, xxxiii, 107,
111-113,215,251
Husser!, Edmund xxx, xxxii, xxxv, 157187 inter alia, 190, 197,243,263,
268, 269, 281
Huxley, Thomas Hill 144
hypostases, Plotinian 229ff
hypothesis 134
Ibsen, Henrik 74
idealism xxix, 111-116, 119,
148-153, 316, 351-352
identity xxiv, 31-42
identity in diversity 34ff
imagery 9, 333-338, 352-353
imagination 106
immanence 273ff
141,
465
466
Index
Manichaeism 233
Mann, J. S. 27, 39
Mannoury, Gerrit 20
Marcel, Gabriel 280
Margolis 361, 362
Maritain, Jacques 177
Marquette University 349
marriage xxvi, 6()...{i2, 264, 344
Martineau, James, xxiv, 31
marxism xxii, xxv, 3, 196, 218, 263
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 52
Masterman Braithwaite, Margaret 363364
mathematics xxxvii, 290-291, 301
McAlister, Linda Lopez 299
McDougall, William 113
McFarlane, Margaret 381
McKinley, President 324
McTaggart,xxv,27,38,40,46,322,350,
367
meaning, xxiv, 8, 10, 11, 135ff
Mearleau-Ponty 251, 266, 277, 281, 282
Mechthild of Magdeburg 328
Mechtild xlii
Meikeljohn 339
memory 106,307,333-338,352-353
mental entities xxviii
mental phenomena xxxi, 331-332 (see
also ideas, memory, sensation, perception, recognition, recall, etc.)
Mercy College 349
metaphor 4, 5, 9, 10, Hi, 141, 252
metaphysics xxviii, 26, 116, 126, 127,
132, 138-148, 177-184, 214,
229ff, 301, 303, 317-320, 331,
354, 357, 358ff
Meysenbug, Malwida von 78
Michigan State Normal College 348
Mickeiwicz University (Poland) 300
Middle Academy xxxiv, 228,236
Miles, Susan 381
Mill, J. S. xxii, 25, 144, 150,326, 356
Mind Association, xxi, 27, 303, 330, 365,
366
Moliere, 25
Moore, G. E. 31, 39-41, 12{), 132, 135,
334, 335, 352, 357, 365
moral
character 322
education 301, 302
emotions 167ff
philosophy (see ethics)
Index
pluralism 312-313
psychology 29
Morgan, C. Lloyd 315
Most, Johann 324
Motherhood 51, 264
Mount Holyoke College xx, 320, 321,
355
Muirhead 303
Muller, Max 4
Munsterberg, Hugo 105
Murasaki Shikibu xxi
Murray, Dr. Jessie Margaret 315
Murray, Rosalind 150
mysticism xxxii, xxxvii, 198-204, 214,
227,316-317,328-329
narcissism xxvii, 76
Nathaniel Branden Institute 207ff
National Education Association 349
Nationalist Movement 53
naturalism 262
nature 134ff, 148
Nazi regime xxxi, 160-162, 193,288 (see
also fascism, Hitler)
necessity xxxvii, 293
Neoplatonic philosophy xxxiv, 228-237
inter alia
467
468
Index
philosophy
of education xxii, 343ff (see also
moral education, Dewey)
of history xxii, see Oakeley, Hilda in
Bibliography
of language (see also significs) xli,
306, 356-357, 365
of mathematics xxii, 132
of mind 306, 326-327, 333-338, 354,
363-364, 366
of psychology xxii, 106-110, 333338,363
of religion xxii, xli, 14,55,57-58,76,
112, 117-119
of science xxii, xxix, 134, 139-148,
352-355, 363, 365
of sex and love xxvi, 56
of the social sciences 331
Phyntis of Sparta xlii
physics xxix, 139-148, 353-355
Plato xxii, xxxiii, xxxiv, xlii, 111, 162,
220,228-237 inter alia, 251, 253,
326, 340ff, 355
Plato's "unwritten doctrines" 231ff
Plotinus xxii, xxxiv-xxxv
Plumptre, Miss C. E. 381
Plutarch 228
poetry 339ff
political philosophy xxix, xxxv, 304, 305
Pope John Paul II xxxi, 162
positivism 72
pragmatism xxii, xxix, 15, 125, 128-131,
132, 216, 318, 332, 342ff, 351352
Price 366
Prichard 366
Princeton University xxxv, 244
Prix Goncourt 262
productivity xxxiii
prohairesis 253-254, 256
proof 6
Protestantism 360
psychic 164-174
psychical states, 302ff, 306
psychoanalysis xxvii, xxviii, 69, 75-77,
105, 263, 316, 326, 350 (see also
Freud, philosophy of psychology)
psychology xxviii, 26, 104-106, 163ff,
190, 204, 293, 301, 302, 306,
309ff, 318, 330, 333, 363
quantum theory 142-148, 353-354
Racine 25
racism 244
Radcliffe College xx, xxvii, 104
Rahner, Karl 178
Rand, Ayn xxiii, xxxii-xxxiv, 207-224,
244
Randolph-Macon Women's College 355
Rashdall 352
rationalism 119
Ravaisson 129
Rawls, John 245
Reale, Giovanni 231ff
reality 5, 9, 249ff, 332
reason, 31
recognition 333ff
Ree, Paul xxi, xxvi, 69-71, 78
Reform Darwinism 58-63
Reid 326, 330
Reinach, Adolf 158
relativity, theory 353-354
religion xxvii, 71, 327
religious experience xxvi, 72, 80, 191,
226, 327-329
Renouvier, Charles 130
Revolution, Socialist 194
Reynaud-Guerithault, Anne 290
Rhees, Rush 364
rhetoric xxix, 10
right to die xxvi
righteousness 311 ff
Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht xxiv
Rilke, Rainer Maria xxvi, 69, 74, 77, 80,
81
Rohmanowa, Seweryna Liszczewska 381
Roman philosophy xxxiv
Romero, Francisco 355
Rosenbaum, Alice xxxii (see Rand, Ayn)
Ross, W. D. 304
Ross, G. R. T. 314, 337,366
Rossetti, Christina 4
Royce Josiah xxvii, 111, 112, 114, 117
Russell, Bertrand xxiv, xxi, xxiii, 4, 26,
27, 37ff, 112, 126, 132,316-318,
334-336,349-350,352,358,359,
366
Russell, L. J. 133, 135, 137, 146
Russian Revolution 77, 245
Ryle, Gilbert 365, 366
St. Andrews University 306
St. Teresa of Avila 159
St. Andrew's University 314, 366
Index
St. Hilda's College, Oxford University
365
Sait, Una Mirrieless Bernard, xxiii, 342346
Salom~, Lou Andreas xxi, xxvi, 69-102
Sanford, Edmund 105
Sanger, Dr. Margaret 324, 344
sapientia 235
Sartre, Jean-Paul xxi, xxxvi, 244, 261,
266-286 inter alia
Saw, Grace 357
Saw, Ruth Lydia 357-363, 365
Saw, Samuel James 357
Scheler, Max 162
Schelling, 112
Schillebeeckx, 239
Schiller, F. C. S. 15, 26, 46, 135
schizophrenia 192, 203
scholasticism 159ff
Schoonenberg 239
Schopenhauer, Arthur 112
Schrenk-Notzing, Dr. Albert Freiherr von
192
self, 107-110, 112-117, 119, 164-174,
268-281, 306ff
science (see philosophy of science)
Scots Philosophical Society 366
self-consciousness 303, 315
self-interest 214 (see also selfishness)
selfishness xxxiii, 219
Sellars, Wilfrid xix
Semon, Richard 336
sense, xxiv, 12ff
sense-and-reference, xxiv, 26ff, 40
sensifics (see significs)
sensory experience xxxiii, 106, 326, 331
Seven Sister Colleges xx, 320
sex xxviii, 58-61
sex education 344
sexism (see discrimination against
women, women condition of, etc.)
Shaw, George Bernard 53
Shields, F. Rosamond 335, 338-339
Sidgwick, Henry xxii, xxiv, xxv, 26-29,
31, 38, 46, 326
significance 8, 12, 13
significant assertion 33ff
significs, xxiv, xxiii, 4, 13ff
signs 356
Simonis, Msgr, Bishop of Rotterdam 238
Sinclair, May xx, xxiii, 315-320
Sister Patricia Garvey (see Garvey)
469
470
Index
utopianism 149-150
Valentinus 228
Van Eeden, Frederik 20
Varnhagen, Rahel 243
Vassar College, xx, 103
Vebleh, Thorstein 62
Venn, 32, 301
verifiability 364-365
victim, 213, 273
Victoria Regina (Queen Victoria) 1
Vietnamese War 261
violence xxxv, 244
virtue xxvii, 29, 117,291,312,320
Vogel, Cornelia de xxxiv-xxxv, xli,
225-242
volition 335
Voltaire 25
voluntarism xxix, 125, 128-131
Walsh Dorothy 381
Walther, Dr. Otto 189
Walther, Gerda xxxi-xxxii, 189-206
war xxix, xxxiii, 152 (see American
Revolutionary War, Russian Revolution, World War I, World War II,
Spanish Civil War, Vietnamese
War)
Ward, James xxv, 26, 38,40,46,336
Ward, Lester 51, 58-59
Washburn, Margaret Floy 381
Webb, Sidney (Miss) 39
Weber, Max 197
Webster, Daniel 2
Wiedman, Barbara 211
Weil, Andre 288
Wei!, Bernard 287-288
Weil, Selma 287-288
Weil, Simone xxxvii-xxxix, 287-297
Welby, Archive at York University 4
Welby, Victoria Lady xx, xxiii, 1-24
Wellesley College xx, xxviii, 104, 111
Wells, H. G. 4
Wescott, Mary 52
Westerbork concentration camp 161
Whetnall, Miss E. M. 330, 355-357
Whitehead, Alfred North xxi, 41, 126,
135, 316, 353, 355, 357, 358
Wilkie, Wendell 210
will, the 253-256
Williams, Marie 381
Wilson, Woodrow 149
wisdom 235
Index
Wisdom, John 126, 127, 146, 330, 357,
366
Wittgenstein 364-365
Wodehouse, Helen 382
Wolistonecraft, Mary xlii, 278
woman, xxviii, xxx, 18, 19, 58-59, 71,
172-173,265-266, 274ff, 308ff
women, condition of xxiii, xxv-xxvi,
xxxvii, 54ff, 58-62, 237-239,
264-276, 324-325
women, status of 304-305, 309ff
womens movement 221 (see also
suffrage, feminism)
471