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Women in Philosophy

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Women in Philosophy To start off writing about women in philosophy let me brief out on what philosophy is basically. Philosophy something that it’s a starting line for all the questions that need answers, need critical thinking to solve or trying to solve new concepts, basically humanity’s unanswered questions. Philosophy is a natural and true response of human being’s to the mystery, curiousness, wonder and uncertainly of life. We had seen and heard many male philosophers since ancient times till now. And many of them are very successful in their field and very well recognized. But why women philosophers have not received the same notoriety as male philosophers? I always get disappointed that why there are no importance for women philosophers in our society. If you search internet you cannot find more than hundred names, although women philosophers have also been contributed since ancient times. Even today, there are more men than women who teach philosophy in colleges and universities. Yet, women are, and always been philosophers, even if they don’t get credit for it. For example, Hypatia of Alexandria was the first woman astronomer, mathematician and a philosopher along with Plato and Aristotle. Simone de bouvior, an intellectual, existentialist philosopher and a French writer. Susan Sontag, American writer and a cultural icon and well known political activists. I call them history hidden philosophers because they were in shadows. One of the great philosopher is Agnes Heller. She was born on 12 May 1929 and was a Hungarian philosopher. A prominent Marxists (method of socio-economic inquiry, a dialectic view of social change) thinker, the she moved to liberal social-democratic position onto her career afterwards. I would start with her experience of the holocaust. Where her father was killed brutally and many of her friends. Whatever happen, it had greatly affected in her life and particularly on her work. She always used to ask to herself that How could this possibly happen? How could people do things like this? That was basically her first inquiry. The other inquiry was on the social questions. What kind on world can allow such things to happen? Can we expect redemption? So these were the question she wanted to find out and those were the questions that interested her. She was a giver to the society. She wanted to make things right doesn’t matter how long it will take or didn’t care what people might think. She felt she had a debt to pay as a survivor. The way she did that by writing moral philosophy and philosophy of history then became a way to pay her debt as s survivor who could not survive. “So in this respect my philosophy became a sacrifice but a sacrifice which I enjoyed. And this is not contradictory, I can sincerely say that my whole life became a sacrifice to pay my debt and simultaneously I enjoyed writing philosophy” (An interview with Agnes Heller). She reason behind she became an philosopher by attending one of the Lukacs lectures. She was a chemistry and physics student, but when she had attended Lukacs lecture she realized a very important thing, something that she had changed her majors and went to philosophy. It was far more important to her than the sciences she was studying but to understand the world she’s living in. “I became a philosophy student, later on a student of philosophy and Hungarian literature. I decided that this was my fate and chose myself as a Philosopher at that point” (An interview with Agnes Heller). She was also a member of a communist party for two years but for the first time she was expelled from the party and then accepted later and expelled for the last time. Then she had a choice to join politics and leave philosophy but there are times you don’t agree with something and you do what you want to do but that can’t happen in politics you have to go by the law and order, but she didn’t want that to happen so she chose philosophy. She was also part of communism, she was offered to find answers that why is there suffering, why is there oppression, but it turned out a “phony thing”. Because she believe that in philosophy you need a redemption and answers to such question but she thinks we also need something else, an ability to think from our own mind. She mentioned a party offered a scheme for redemption but it didn’t allow thinking with our own mind. Basically she likes the whole point of communism because it promises redemption but she doesn’t agree with the part where we are not allowed to think with our own mind. She has written books like: An ethics of personality (it’s about how is morality possible after the death of god), Immortal Comedy? (About the comic phenomenon in general), Beyond Justice (where it underlie theories of justice) and many more books had published. She also talked about modernity. She says if we think the modernity has failed then we are wrong. We have to compare modernity with our expectations. We expected a lot of things like development, progression, we expected the modern world would solve our problems that the pre-world could not solve. We expected world to be far more superior than the pre-modern world arrangments, but obviously it didn’t happen that way because we need to question ourselves instaed of speaking about the failure of modernity, weather our expectations were right. She was then forcefully had to leave Hungary. Because of some “Philosopher’s Trial” People were removed from the jobs, she was dismissed from institute of philosophy and institute of sociology and she became unemployed. While she was unemployed she decided to leave the country not just because of that but because of police harassments, they were followed in the streets, they sent informers and to their apartments. It was very unpleasant kind of life she and her husband Feri, had faced. So she moved to Australia with her husband. She liked the US law and constitution. She likes it better than Australia and Europe, because it has a majority rule. She was a very well-known philosopher. For me, I have learnt a lot from her. Being true to yourself and believing in the truth not in some kind of law and order. I love her passion about philosophy and how she had maintained it throughout. it was very fun and exciting writing and knowing about her.

Work Cited http://www.leftcurve.org/lc22webpages/heller.html (an interview with agnes heller) http://www.mamiverse.com/women-philosophers-philosophy-29439/ (women in ohilosophy)

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