Where are the Woman in Medieval Logic? - a podcast by MCMP Team

Sara Uckelman (Durham University) gives a talk at the MCMP Colloquium (18 November, 2015) titled "Where are the Woman in Medieval Logic?". Abstract: Recent research into medieval logic has shown that the field is full of material of interest to the contemporary logicians, from dynamic analyses of the relationship between proof and knowledge, to novel solutions to the Liar paradox (and others), to logics for deceit and lying, to reasoning about uncertainty and ignorance, and much, much more. Recent research has also shown that many contemporary academic disciplines, mathematics and philosophy included, suffer from a problematic gender imbalance, with women disproportionately underrepresented both in academic positions and in the teaching syllabi. Recognition of this fact has come with a push to revisit the history of these fields to resurrect and rehabilitate the contributions of women. This talk stems from the intersection of these two developments and seeks to answer the question of "Where are the women in medieval logic?" We currently don't know of any female author of logical works in the Middle Ages. There are (at least) two causes for this: (i) We haven't discovered any yet. (ii) There weren't any. We consider the relative merits of both of these explanations, discussing the historic and cultural/contextual facts that prevented women from participating in main-stream logical research. Next we turn to the question of 'what is logic', showing how the answer to this question determines the answer to the original question: For if we expand 'logic' to include not only the production of theoretical, instructional treatises, but also to include the application of Aristotelian dialectic in non-academic contexts, we find a number of women worthy of further investigation when developing a more complete history of logic.

Further episodes of MCMP

Further podcasts by MCMP Team

Website of MCMP Team