Transactions to Publish Durmus and Agler Article

Early treatments of classical American philosophy have, to some extent, neglected the contributions made by women philosophers to science and philosophy. However, since the early 1990s, contemporary feminists have paid more attention to how American women have contributed to the development of philosophy in the United States.

“We hope that our paper inspires more interdisciplinary collaborative work which focuses on how women have been marginalized in science and the academy,” wrote Durmus and Agler.

In a paper entitled, “Christine Ladd-Franklin: Pragmatist Feminist” to be published in Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society: A Quarterly Journal in American Philosophy, Deniz Durmus and David Agler add to this developing body of literature by detailing certain pragmatic aspects of Christine Ladd-Franklin’s feminism.

Ladd-Franklin, known primarily for her work in color-theory, was a staunch supporter of women playing a greater role in the academy. Durmus and Agler detail this support through her efforts to increase academic research positions for women, her criticisms of male-only scientific societies, her charge that gender-based discrimination in science was “unscientific”, her feminist project to reclaim scientific priority for scientific discoveries made by women, and finally her tacit use of the pragmatic maxim to clarify inequalities present in higher education during the 19th century.