Saint Louis College
City of San Fernando (La Union)
COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES, TEACHER EDUCATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science
PS 105 – Introduction to Political Theory
2nd Semester, School Year 2020-2021
Female Political Thinkers
Political Thinkers
Sarah Moore Grimké (1792–1873)
- Born on November 26, 1792
- came from a rich family of slave holders in
Charleston, South Carolina
- lived with her mother Mary Smith and her father
John Faucheraud Grimké, who was a head judge of
the state supreme court
- her father enslaved hundreds of people that were not
allowed to go to school, which led to her to begin
teaching some of the enslaved people how to read
until her father would not allow her to teach them
anymore
Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
- the second among seven children, born on April 27,
1759
- her father, Edward John, mismanaged his share of
the inheritance and tried to establish himself as a
gentleman farmer in Epping
- Wollstonecraft’s own haphazard education was,
however, not entirely unusual for someone of her sex
and position, nor was it particularly deficient
- her published writings show her to have acquired a
true command of the Bible and a good knowledge of
the works of several of the most famous Ancient
philosophers
Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
- was one of the most influential political philosophers
of the twentieth century
- born into a German-Jewish family, she was forced to
leave Germany in 1933 and lived in Paris for the next
eight years
- held a number of academic positions at various
American universities until her death in 1975
- best known for her works that had a major impact
both within and outside the academic community
- published a number of influential essays on topics
such as the nature of revolution, freedom, authority,
tradition and the modern age
1 Student Number: 19100396
Contributions/Theories/Ideas
- Sarah, along with her sister Angelina, eloquently
fought the injustices of slavery, racism and sexism
during the mid-19th century
- they were eventually forced to move to the North,
where they continued to appeal to northerners and
southerners to work toward abolition, as well as
urging white northerners to end racial discrimination
- among the first female abolitionists, they were the
first women to speak publicly against slavery, an
important political topic - they continued their crusade
even in the face of criticism from clergy and others
that they were threatening “the female character”
- she came to write her Vindication of the Rights of
Men (1790), attacking Edmund Burke for having set
upon a harmless elderly preacher in his Reflections;
yet her own review justifies Burke’s depiction of
Richard Price’s sermon as inflammatory
- Wollstonecraft took for granted a Lockean
conception of God-given rights discoverable by
reason, except when the latter was warped by self-love
- believed that rational women would perceive their
real duties
- further believed that God made all things right and
that the cause of all evil was man
- wanted women to aspire to full citizenship, to be
worthy of it, and this necessitated the development of
reason
Arendt’s Theory of Action
- Arendt’s theory of action and her revival of the
ancient notion of praxis represent one of the most
original contributions to twentieth century political
thought. By distinguishing action (praxis) from
fabrication (poiesis), by linking it to freedom and
plurality, and by showing its connection to speech and
remembrance, Arendt is able to articulate a conception
of politics in which questions of meaning and identity
can be addressed in a fresh and original manner
Arendt’s Conception of Modernity
- in her major philosophical work, The Human
Condition, and in some of the essays collected in
Between Past and Future, Arendt articulated a fairly
negative conception of modernity
- the writings are primarily concerned with the losses
incurred as a result of the eclipse of tradition, religion,
and authority, but she offers a number of illuminating
suggestions with respect to the resources that the
modern age can still provide to address questions of
meaning, identity, and value
- modernity is characterized by the loss of the world,
by which she means the restriction or elimination of
the public sphere of action and speech in favor of the
private world of introspection and the private pursuit
of economic interests
 Saint Louis College
City of San Fernando (La Union)
COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES, TEACHER EDUCATION AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
Bachelor of Arts in Political Science
PS 105 – Introduction to Political Theory
2nd Semester, School Year 2020-2021

Arendt’s Theory of Judgment

- One of the most enduring contributions of Arendt’s
political thought is to be found in her reflections on
judgment which were to occupy the last years of her
life. Together with the theory of action, her unfinished
theory of judgment represents her central legacy to
twentieth century political thought
- Arendt’s theory of judgment not only incorporates
two models, the actor’s — judging in order to act —
and the spectator’s — judging in order to cull meaning
from the past — but that the philosophical sources it
draws upon are somewhat at odds with each other

Simone Weil (1909–1943) - Weil continually revised her social-political

- was born in Paris on February 3, 1909
- her parents, both of whom came from Jewish
families, provided her with an assimilated, secular,
bourgeois French childhood both cultured and
comfortable
- Weil and her older brother André studied at
prestigious Parisian schools
- Weil’s first philosophy teacher, René Le Senne,
introduced her to the thesis—which she would
maintain—that contradiction is a theoretical obstacle
generative of nuanced, alert thinking
Simone de Beauvoir (1908–1986)
- born on January 9, 1908
- was also famous for being the life-long companion
of Jean Paul Sartre
- a central player in the philosophical debates of the
times both in her role as an author of philosophical
essays, novels, plays, memoirs, travel diaries, and
newspaper articles, and as an editor of Les Temps
Modernes
- was not considered a philosopher in her own right at
the time of her death
philosophy in light of the rapidly changing material
conditions in which she lived.
- maintained consistency in her acute attention to and
theorizing from the situation of the oppressed and
marginalized in society
- Weil attempted to provide an analysis of the real
causes of oppression so as to inform militants in
revolutionary action
- it was her concern that, without this analysis, a
socially enticing movement would lead only to
superficial changes in the appearance of the means of
production, not to new forms of structural
organization
- she is also critical of “revolution”, which for her
refers to an inversion of forces, the victory of the
weak over the powerful and “the equivalent of a
balance whose lighter scale were to go down”
- detailed her phenomenological and existential
critique of the philosophical status quo in her 1946
essay Literature and the Metaphysical Essay, and her
1965 and 1966 essays Que Peut la Littérature? and
Mon Expérience d’écrivain
- focused on the significance of lived experience and
on the ways that the meanings of the world are
revealed in language
- her book The Second Sex became a catalyst for
challenging women’s situations
- declared herself a feminist in a 1972 interview in Le
Nouvel observateur and joined other Marxist
feminists in founding the journal Questions
féministes
- identifies our ambiguity with the idea of failure and
that we can never fulfill our passion for meaning in
either of its intentional expressions

2 Student Number: 19100396