Some personal views...

Of all of the women philosopher candidates we studied in class, I believe wholeheartedly that Harriet Taylor Mill was in fact a philosopher.  If she did write the works in question, which I believe she did, I see no reason why she should not be counted in the same category as her husband John Stuart Mill.  However, all of the reasons I do see that people are trying to discount her seem to be rooted in sexism.  It has been interesting throughout the class to see different reasons that women were not accepted as philosophers.  Some weren't counted because no male philosophers valued them.  Others did not seem worth studying as female philosophers because they didn't hold feminist views, and that seemed to be an important point to make them worthy of study today.  Some women seemed less valid because they didn't practice what they preached, and many women were discounted because they didn't have sound philosophical arguments.

Harriet comes along and fits all of these criteria which have been picked on in the past.  John Stuart Mill is belaboring the point that Harriet's genius was the backbone of all of their philosophical work on the feminism which they lived out each day, challenging traditional views on marriage, women's roles, and partnerships.  Is Harriet accepted as a philosopher?  Of course not.  The more popular, and in my opinion far less probable, response is that she was a bitchy, overbearing wife and he was just smitten and feeble.  It leaves a dirty taste in my mouth.

Although at this point we are still in the early stages of the Recovery Project, I feel that at some point we will have to create some kind of defining criteria to apply to these women as we judge their status as philosophers.  As it is now, each is being evaluated seperately and critiqued for reasons that other women, or men, are praised as philosophers.  Perhaps this is a long distance goal, but it seems important to solidify claims that a certain group of women ought to be written into the curriculums.

In any case, I believe that Harriet Taylor Mill ought to be one of those women.

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