This chapter, which serves as the introduction, outlines the objectives and key questions of the volume, reviews existing scholarship on ancient women philosophers, and highlights the original philosophical contributions of each chapter. A substantial section is devoted to the specific challenges in the study of ancient women philosophers, with special focus on source issues, as well as the methods the contributors of the volume have adopted to face these challenges and approach these female thinkers philosophically. We argue that the study of ancient women philosophers has a special value for our understanding of the history of philosophy. While at first daunting, this unique set of thinkers and the available evidence both enrich our insight into the methodology of the history of philosophy and re-introduce philosophical contributions which would otherwise be lost.

Quentin Skinner's neo-Romanism has proved a hugely rich resource for understanding the thought of women philosophers. So why do they not form part of his discussion in Liberty before Liberalism? I argue that this is partly a consequence of Skinner's focus on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, when women political philosophers were apparently fewer. When we look at the eighteenth century, particularly at its second half, with the sort of attention to contextual detail Skinner recommends, we find a number of women philosophers embracing and developing a republicanism which emphasizes liberty as non-domination. These women aligned themselves with the tradition of neo-Roman political thought and therefore ought to be studied with equal care. Moreover, a study of their works reveals neo-Roman republicanism in a different light from that of their predecessors, one which takes their position as women in society – as mothers, but also as potential citizens and policy makers - as central. I focus on two authors in particular:Olympe de Gouges and Manon Roland.

This chapter examines the relationship between Kant’s political thought and that of Elise Reimarus (1735-1805), a prominent member of the Hamburg Enlightenment. Kant and Reimarus both ground their political philosophies on the concept of freedom. Yet, although Kant grounds his political philosophy on freedom, he also controversially claims that people must live in obedience to unjust states and may not rebel against them. This chapter argues against a prior interpretation from Curtis-Wendlandt that assimilates Elise Reimarus’s own views regarding rebellion to those of Kant. The chapter argues that Elise Reimarus’s views regarding rebellion differ significantly from Kant’s own and provide an interesting 18th-century alternative for people attracted to Kant’s emphasis on freedom but skeptical of his views regarding obedience and rebellion.