Comparison Page

We (Laura and Jeannemarie) sat down one evening to discuss how to make all of these women philosophers connect and make sense as we link them together in a web page. We began discussing Simone Weil and Simone de Beauvoir. We talked about their views on the topics of Love, Self, and Soul; and we read each other quotes from their individual works. Each of them refers repeatedly to other philosophers such as Kant, Plato, and Descartes. They don't necessarily agree with each other, but they do discuss the same things.

Iris Murdoch was brought up in a round about way while we were discussing one of the references to one of the other philosophers.

We tried to find a way to relate Ayn Rand to the other three, and we found that just as she was arbitrarily chosen, her thoughts didn't quite fit the mold. She randomly speaks of Love and of Self, but never even mentions the idea of Soul.

We even refered to the dictionary to see if we could find a definition that we liked for the word Soul, but among the six we found, none were actual definitions; they were more like descriptions of its functions.

It was interesting to see the way the first three women related to one another. It was also interesting to study a contemporary philosopher. On the one hand, we wish they had more in common, but on the other, the differences made our discussion about our own thoughts even more open ended and abstract, helping us to come up with concrete ideas about Love and Self. We're still pondering the phenomenom behind the Soul.

Return to Main Page