Students in Modern Philosophy this past spring have played a key role in ensuring more consistent representation of 17th- and 18th-century women philosophers in philosophy’s top online research resource, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (SEP).
Inspired by a visit from Daina Bouquin, last year’s Phi Beta Kappa lecturer, students in Professor David Levy’s course noticed that the SEP’s practices regularly subordinated entries about women from the era to those about men. For example, the entry about Lady Mary Shepherd, who offered a theory of perception quite different from any of her contemporaries, includes George Berkeley among the related entries (and indeed Shepherd’s account of perception was developed as a direct response to Berkeley’s). However, the entry about George Berkeley does not even mention Shepherd, let alone list her among the related entries.
Bouquin, a data operations and research manager at the National Parks Conservation Association and a 2011 alumna of Geneseo, has advocated for the use of metadata to protect against the erasure of, and indeed to elevate the work of, women astronomers from the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Some of the students in Levy’s course identified patterns of exclusion in related-entry tagging for seven women philosophers from the historical period covered by the course. Others discovered information about the SEP’s editorial policies, while still others identified the relevant members of the editorial staff. After much collaboration, they wrote a letter to SEP editors in which they shared their findings and offered specific suggestions for improvement. Chief among these was a recommendation that the SEP adopt a policy of mutual tagging of related entries: for example, if George Berkeley is listed among the related entries on the page for Lady Mary Shepherd, then Lady Mary Shepherd should be listed among the related entries on the page for George Berkeley .
Within hours of sending the letter over email, the students received a response from Christia Mercer, Gustave M. Berne Professor of Philosophy at Columbia University and SEP subject editor for Women in the History of Philosophy. Professor Mercer commended the students for making and sharing their observations about the ways in which the SEP’s policies and practices continue to contribute to the marginalization of women. And, a few days later, they heard from the SEP’s co-principal editors, who shared the news that they had already made some changes to include references to women among the “Related Entries” of specific entries, and that they would begin to investigate others.
As students reflected on the work they completed for this project, they noted ways in which it related to Geneseo’s values, and to several of Geneseo’s Learning Outcomes for a Baccalaureate Education. One student wrote, “It made me think of the belonging aspect of Geneseo's values; Catharine Trotter Cockburn is not being treated as though she belongs in the SEP.” Another student, a current Philosophy major, added, “I enjoyed the collaborative effort of this project and believe that it has an important value in philosophy and academic culture overall. As a woman myself, I am aware of the disadvantages, especially in the past during periods such as the Modern Era, that women face just to release their work, let alone for that work to be fairly and dutifully recorded and remembered. This project has allowed undergraduate students to use critical thinking and communication-—intended learning outcomes for our class—to work firsthand on something that deals directly with an important issue that we believe can and should be resolved.”
Because of the work these students have done, other students throughout the world will have an easier time accessing and understanding the significant contributions made by women philosophers during this important era in the history of philosophy.