In a well-known scene from the Mahābhārata, the female renunciate Sulabhā engages in a philosophical debate against King Janaka. This chapter will examine Sulabhā’s arguments and methods, while demonstrating that she makes important contributions to philosophical discussions that are going on throughout the text. I will focus on three aspects of her argument: (1) her discussion on good speech; (2) her articulation of the ethics of renunciation; and (3) her characterisation of the highest knowledge as beyond the dualities of gender distinctions. As I will show, Sulabhā makes original contributions to ongoing debates about rhetoric, ethics, and ontology in Indian philosophy. I will also address the thorny question of whether Sulabhā should be understood as a woman philosopher, or as a literary character most likely constructed by male authors. Despite the ultimate unanswerability of this question, Sulabhā articulates an understanding of enlightenment (mokṣa) that is as available for women as for men.

In Gregory of Nyssa’s dialogue, On Soul and Resurrection, Macrina addresses questions about the nature of the soul and the possibility of survival after death. Her conversation involves striking similarities to Socrates’ arguments in Plato’s Phaedo. Both Macrina and Socrates are about to die, and both discourse about the soul and immortality. However, while Socrates’ arguments are commonly taught in classrooms around the world, Macrina’s arguments are widely neglected. This chapter argues that we should correct this oversight and pay more attention to Macrina as we include women in the philosophical canon of antiquity. Although no extant texts authored by her have survived, the chapter shows how the external evidence left by Gregory suggests Macrina is a worthy philosopher in her own right. She was not silent during her life. We should not allow her to remain silent in death.

This chapter surveys the status of the (pseud)epigrapha and treatises credited to Pythagorean women. While we cannot be certain they were written by women, it is clear their intended audience is women, who were expected to entertain the texts and hopefully even find the reasoning persuasive. As such, if the content of these texts can be called philosophical, then that will show that women engaged with philosophy at least as far back as the datings of the earliest texts. To that end, the chapter focuses on a few texts, which the author argues address how the running of a household can contribute to the development of virtuous families and cities, an interest shared by canonical authors including Plato and Aristotle. It is further argued that the Pythagorean texts address aspects of the household that are of essential importance but which are ignored in our canonical texts.

Whilst most of the Pseudo-Pythagorean writings ascribed to female authors discuss women-related topics and focus on ethical questions, the treatise titled On Wisdom and ascribed to Perictione, the mother of Plato, is unique for at least two reasons: first, it concerns humankind, rather than women specifically, and second, it has an explicit metaphysical and epistemological focus. In the available fragments, Perictione makes two key statements: first, the purpose and function of a human being is the contemplation of the nature of all things. Second, wisdom is the highest-ranked human activity, for it enables us to grasp all kinds of things that are and brings us closer to the divine. The purpose of this chapter is to reconstruct the philosophical arguments of Perictione’s On Wisdom with the aim of highlighting the contributions this treatise makes to the history of metaphysics. The paper shows that the texts ascribed to Pythagorean women go well beyond female ethics, all the way to contemplating “all the things that are.”

This chapter surveys reactions to Plato’s famous proposal in the Republic to allow women to engage in military action and political rule in his ideal city. After a methodological discussion relating this topic to the issues looked at in the volume as a whole, the chapter goes on to set out some of the interpretive debates concerning women in the Republic in modern-day secondary literature. It is then shown that interpreters from late antiquity to the Renaissance responded to some of the same concerns. For example, Proclus was at pains to reconcile the apparently contrary views on women found in the Republic and Timaeus. On the other hand, we find that in Proclus, Ibn Rushd (Averroes), and Lucrezia Marinella, wider concerns shaped reactions to Plato: for instance Ibn Rushd tries to fit the idea of potential virtue in women into an Aristotelian framework while Marinella offers a reading of Plato on women that brings him into conversation with the Renaissance ’querelle des femmes’.

In Plato’s Symposium, the central insights are gleaned from a wise woman from whom Socrates learnt the single thing to which he laid claim to expertise: ta erotika. Since there is a widespread view that Plato stands at the head of a tradition of philosophical thinking in which women are eclipsed, or marginalised, this fact has been seen as significant. This chapter explores whether Diotima’s gender is significant for the philosophy of the Symposium. Gender categories are an explicit feature of this text, but Plato’s playful and provocative use of them is not just a dialectical ploy to provoke reflection on the social norms around sexuality and gender that held sway in his day; toying with them exposes the contingency of gendered categories and, ultimately, their irrelevance to the philosophical life. The wisdom of Diotima is that philosophy is beyond gender; it is, in that respect at least, inclusive.

The Stoics argued for women’s moral equality, companionate marriage, education, and participation in philosophy. And yet we have no writings from Stoic women, even from the Roman imperial period, when we know of several who could be considered Stoics. This silence of the written record coheres with the centrality within Stoicism of manliness (virtus), exemplified by heroes like Hercules. We must therefore examine indirect evidence, including writings by Stoic men on marriage and society, in order to glean anything about Stoic women. But this chapter suggests that writing tragedy provided the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca the opportunity to stage the voice of a Stoic woman facing the most crucial choice – between life and death – and responding as her own moral agent. Acting as a Stoic exemplar, Megara, Hercules’ wife, chooses death over a life inconsistent with her ethically determined role.

This chapter presents an overview of Plato’s moral realism. The metaphysical framework of Plato’s moral realism is explained. This framework’s fundamental principle is the superordinate Idea of the Good, which is both the anchor for moral realism and the unhypothetical first principle of all. Thus, for Plato normativity is woven into metaphysics (Section 1.1). A taxonomy of types of moral realism is provided within which Plato’s moral realism can be situated (Section 1.2). Plato’s moral realism is compared to versions of antimoral realism and naturalistic versions of moral realism (Section 1.3). The priority of “good” to “right” in Plato is explained (Section 1.4). The priority of “good” to “value” is further explained. The universality of the Good goes beyond objectivity and is intended to preclude the possibility that “good” and “good for me” can possibly conflict (Section 1.5).

In this chapter the account of the Idea of the Good as the foundation of moral realism is applied to issues in religion and politics (Section #1). The question is raised and answered why Plato is confident that the gods are only good and not ever bad (Section #2). The theology of Laws10 is examined for some of the theological implications of the preeminence of the Good (Section #3). The concept of religious experience is introduced and its metaphysical underpinnings explained (Section #4). The problem of evil is addressed: how can the Good, the archē of everything, be the cause of evil? If it is not the cause, whence evil? (Section #5). The tensions between a metaphysics of the Good and the exigencies of politics, especially the authority of rulership, is examined (Section #6). The idea of the common good is introduced in order to determine if it is possible that the common good and the private good should conflict and if so, how does this impact Plato’s universal Good (Section #7). The connection between political expertise, consent, and legitimacy of types of government is examined (Section #8)

The widespread view that so-called Socratic ethics is fundamentally different from Platonic ethics is examined. The so-called Socratic paradoxes are discussed (Section 4.1). The idea of Socratic ethics as independent of any metaphysical assumptions is critically examined (Section 4.2). The so-called Socratic intellectualism is examined and the claim that in Protagoras Socrates rejects the idea of incontinence is criticized (Section 4.3). The account in Protagoras of “being overcome by pleasure” and the possibility of incontinence are examined as a possible key to differentiating Socratic and Platonic ethics (Section 4.3). The connection between virtue and happiness in the “Socratic” dialogues and in the “Platonic” dialogues is explored. What is the connection between happiness and the Idea of the Good (Section 4.4)?

This chapter is focused on aspects ot the superordinate Idea of the Good. Why is the first principle of all a normative principle (Section 2.1)? How does the Idea of the Good differ from an “ordinary” Form of the Good (Section 2.2)? Why is the unhypothetical first principle of all also the goal of everything, that which all desire (Section 2.3)? How does the Idea of the Good differ from the Demiurge? Why is the Demiurge good but not the Good (Section 2.4)? How is the admonition in Theaetetus to “assimilate to god” related to the Good as goal (Section 2.5)? In Symposium, the relation between eros and the Good is explored (Section 2.6). In Lysis, the idea of a “prōton philon” is comapred to the Idea of the Good as goal (Section 2.7). The evidence frrom Aristotle and from the indirect tradition that Plato identified the Good with “the One” is assembled. Why is oneness an index of goodness? The idea of integrated unity according to kind is introduced (Section 2.8).