Extract

Women in philosophy are recorded in antiquity, though extant writings are few, and there is controversy over dating and authorship of texts. Most of the women whom ancient sources identify as philosophers are associated with schools or societies that admitted women, or are related to philosophers who made education available to them. Women are reported as writing philosophical and mathematical works, and teaching in positions of authority in established schools.Pythagoreanism seems to have been hospitable to women from the start (see pythagoras(1)). This philosophical tradition, which held a doctrine of the *transmigration of *souls, began as a religious society at *Croton in the late 6th cent. bce. Pythagoras taught women as well as men, and many are associated with the society. *Iamblichus(2) names sixteen (Life of Pythagoras267), and other sources such as *Hermesianax (in Athenaeus 13), *Clement of Alexandria (Strom.