History of Women Philosophers and Scientists

08/09/2026

Have you already seen: Andrea Reichenberger (Technische Universität München) on “Émilie Du Châtelet on the Meaning and Role of Hypotheses: Paving the Way for Enlightenment Philosophy
This talk was part of the International Online Conference: Émilie Du Châtelet’s Scientific Methodology: Hypotheses and the Principles of Knowledge on 23/24th of May 2024, wich was organised by Clara Carus, Head of the DFG-Research Project: The Relationship between the Theory of Hypotheses and the Principles of Knowledge in Émilie Du Châtelet at the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists. Keynote Address: Katherine Brading (Duke Univerity)
Interest and scholarship on Du Châtelet has been growing exponentially recently. Many Du Châtelet scholars see her newfound scientific methodology at [...]
See the full video here: https://youtu.be/dg5dHfG5ZmM?si=Ug0hTz3SoVwgYnmT

06/09/2026

Gerda Walther: Phenomenology, Social Communities, and Mystical Experience
Gerda Walther (March 18, 1897, Nordrach, Germany – January 6, 1977, Diessen am Ammersee, Germany) was a German philosopher whose work brought together psychology, sociology, and phenomenology. Her intellectual path led from questions about individual and collective experience to an enduring interest in mysticism and parapsychological phenomena.
Walther studied with Alexander Pfänder in Munich and Edmund Husserl in Freiburg, engaging closely with the emerging phenomenological tradition. Her early philosophical work was particularly concerned with [...] For further information: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/project/directory-of-women-philosophers/walther-gerda-1897-1977/

04/09/2026

In this video Rodney Parker and Ronny Miron are talking about Hedwig Condrad-Martius.
See the full video here: https://youtu.be/wpDlTGxgpKg?si=QHK4I0xvKGk2SNC6
The video is part of our YouTube-series „Conversations with Diotima“: https: [...] See more on our website: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/project/women-in-early-phenomenology/
-martius

03/09/2026

The Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists at Paderborn University is deeply saddened by the sudden and tragic passing of Professor Mariya Shcherbyna of V. Dahl East Ukrainian National University, who was also a visiting scholar at the Politecnico di Torino and a Fellow of the Turin Academy of Sciences. Mariya passed away suddenly on 2 September 2026 in Kharkiv.

In March 2022, Mariya was forced to flee Kharkiv with her son and her dog as the city came under intense bombing and shelling. Before the full-scale invasion, she served as an associate professor at V. Dahl East Ukrainian National University. Her scholarly work focused on gender, anti-discrimination, and questions of social justice, and she was a member of the Anti-Discrimination Commission of the Ukrainian Ministry of Education.

Mariya remained deeply committed to human rights, women’s dignity, and the recognition of women’s voices and experiences, including those of refugee women and Ukrainian women academics displaced by the war. She understood philosophy as inseparable from the urgent challenges facing our world. In particular, she sought to establish a meaningful connection between philosophy and ecology, drawing attention to the destruction of the natural world and ecosystems, as well as to the profound consequences of failing to respect human and animal life. […]

The Center remembers Mariya Shcherbyna with deep gratitude and respect—as a scholar, teacher, advocate for human dignity, and courageous voice for women and for a more humane and sustainable world. Her intellectual work and her commitment to justice will remain an important part of the communities she touched.

Further information: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/journals/journal/in-memory-of-maria-shcherbina-ukrainian-researcher-in-philosophy-of-culture-and-anti-discrimination/
Mariya Shcherbyna at our Voices from Ukraine Conference: https://youtu.be/4J_G3tIR2xQ?is=QGQSRIRyoY8bNZ0a

01/09/2026

Rediscovering the Women of Early Phenomenology
Research at the Center HWPS sheds light on the lives, work, and intellectual networks of women who helped shape the early phenomenological movement.
As research continues to uncover the intellectual networks surrounding the early phenomenological movement, it is becoming increasingly clear that women were not marginal participants in this history. They were active scholars, thinkers, and interlocutors who contributed to the development of phenomenological philosophy and its wider intellectual culture.
This project aims to shed new light on their lives and work, with particular focus on Edith Stein, Hedwig Conrad-Martius, and Gerda Walther.
Recent scholarship has brought greater attention to these three remarkable thinkers and, more broadly, to the women who studied and worked within the intellectual circles of Edmund Husserl, Theodor Lipps, and Alexander Pfänder. Their contributions open up new perspectives on the history of phenomenology and invite us to reconsider the movement not simply as a history of its best-known male philosophers, but as a diverse intellectual and social network.
Among the women whose lives and philosophical activities deserve further investigation are Erika Gothe and Margarete Ortmann, who studied in Göttingen; Margarete Calinich and Else Voigtländer in Munich; and Erica Sehl and Amelie Jaegerschmid in Freiburg. Together, these figures point towards a much richer and more complex history of early phenomenology—one that is still waiting to be fully explored.
Researching Unpublished Sources
At the Center HWPS, current research focuses particularly on [...] For further information: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/project/women-in-early-phenomenology/

29/08/2026

25/08/2026

Dear Annie Jourdain we will be there. Thank you for your support to revive the memory of

La femme qui traduira Newton en français se voit refuser l'entrée du café où ses confrères discutent de physique.

Elle s'appelle Émilie du Châtelet. Nous sommes en 1734, à Paris.

Le café s'appelle chez Gradot. C'est là que Maupertuis, Clairaut et les autres se retrouvent pour parler de mathématiques.

Deux portes lui sont fermées, et pour la même raison. Les séances de l'Académie des sciences sont interdites aux femmes. Les cafés aussi.

Elle fait alors confectionner un habit d'homme et se présente à la porte.

On la laisse entrer. Elle va s'asseoir à la table de Maupertuis.

Ses amis l'applaudissent et commandent un café pour elle. Les patrons font mine de ne rien voir : ils tiennent à leur clientèle.

Elle deviendra une habituée.

Elle traduit ensuite les Principia de Newton en français, et y ajoute un commentaire qui explique le calcul.

Elle démontre aussi, par l'expérience, que l'énergie d'un corps en mouvement dépend du carré de sa vitesse.

Elle meurt à Lunéville le 10 septembre 1749, à quarante-deux ans, quelques jours après un accouchement.

Sa traduction de Newton paraît en 1756. Sept ans après sa mort.

Elle fait encore autorité aujourd'hui.

C'est toujours la seule traduction française complète des Principia.

𝗤𝘂𝗲 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗱 𝘂𝗻 𝗽𝗮𝘆𝘀 𝗾𝘂𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗶𝗹 𝗳𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗲 𝘀𝗲𝘀 𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗲𝘀 𝗮 𝗹𝗮 𝗺𝗼𝗶𝘁𝗶𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝘀 𝘀𝗶𝗲𝗻𝘀 ?

21/08/2026

Muller, J. (Ed.). (2026). Food, plants, remedies and healing practices: Women’s ideas in the history of medicine. Springer Nature Switzerland: https://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-032-17766-7

About this book:
This book examines the contributions of women to the history of philosophy and medicine, as well as the traditional medical knowledge that has been employed in households. Women have played integral roles in the history of medicine, often serving as healers, caretakers, midwives and guardians of traditional knowledge surrounding food, plants, remedies, and healing practices. However, women’s writings are often overlooked or marginalized in mainstream narratives because they did not […]

About the editor:
Jil Muller is Deputy Head of the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists, Postdoctoral Researcher, and Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Paderborn University.
Her research combines the history of medicine with the history of philosophy. She specializes in the medical traditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, with particular attention to women thinkers and their understandings of the body, mechanism, and humourism. Her work also focuses on the moral philosophy of early modern […]

Further information: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/journals/journal/food-plants-remedies-and-healing-practices-womens-ideas-in-the-history-of-medicine/

10/08/2026

Du Chatelet is read as a criticism of Newtonian absolute time, or an acceptance of Leibnizian relational time. Du Châtelet however explains the genesis of temporal objectivity. “The notion of time is born from the succession of our ideas and not from the movement of exterior bodies” (2009:6.101) Du Châtelet argues that any measuring of time does not exist independently of the subject that experiences time. Neither Motion, nor clocks generate time, rather it is our mind that generates the notion of time (2009:6.108)
Therefore also the possibility of measuring time does not exist independently of the perceiving mind. Our knowledge and measurement of time originate in the mind’s awareness of the duration of its own existence and of the beings that coexist with it: “All measures of Time are founded only on the duration of our Being, & on that of the Beings who coexist with us, & whose existence we relate to the idea we have of our own” (2009:6.115).
The mind abstracts from all their particular determinations and only retains succession. It thereby creates “an ideal being” consisting in “a uniform flow” (2009:6.96). Du Châtelet calls this the ideal time: “a being composed of successive, continuous parts without internal differences” (2009:6.101). The imagination thus constructs ideal time as an abstract continuum of homogeneous succession, providing a common measure by which successive beings may be compared. (2025,71). […]

Full ECC entry: https://ecc.historyofwomenphilosophers.org/ =Ruth%20Edith%20Hagengruber

07/08/2026

We are pleased to announce the publication of The History of Women Philosophers: Festschrift in Honour of Mary Ellen Waithe, edited by Ruth Edith Hagengruber. Published by Springer in the series Women in the History of Philosophy and Sciences (Vol. 26), the volume honours the pioneering work of Mary Ellen Waithe and her outstanding contribution to the history of women philosophers.

About the Book
This book is a tribute to one of the most influential philosophers in the history of philosophy in recent times. With her four-volume work title “A History of Women Philosophers” and the volume of the non-Western history of philosophers, published in 2024, Mary Ellen Waithe’s writings have an international significance. Colleagues and friends, who have been companions for many years, have gathered in this book to honor her work. Contributions from the Middle Ages to the present, from the philosophy of religion to logic, cover a broad field that will attract equally broad interest. An otherwise unencountered collection of ideas is presented here, united by the bond of research into the history of women philosophers.

About Mary Ellen Waithe
Mary Ellen Waithe is Professor Emerita of Philosophy at Cleveland State University, where she taught until her retirement in 2015. From 2016 to 2019, she served as a project advisor to the Center for the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists and supported the Center’s ECC project.

Together with Prof. Dr. Ruth Edith Hagengruber, Waithe also founded the Journal of the History of Women Philosophers and Scientists (JHWS), the world’s first journal dedicated to restoring and discussing the history of texts written by and about women philosophers. As founding editor-in-chief, Waithe played a central role in establishing the journal as an international platform for research on women in the history of philosophy and science.

Further information: https://historyofwomenphilosophers.org/journals/journal/new-publication-the-history-of-women-philosophers-festschrift-in-honour-of-mary-ellen-waithe/