Sophie de Grouchy Letters on Sympathy (1798)

Sophie de Grouchy, marquise de Condorcet, was a woman of the French Enlightenment who was a member of the Girondin revolutionary faction, ran an influential salon, and translated Adam Smith and Thomas Paine. Her “Lettres sur la sympathie” is a work on moral philosophy, a theory of social progress, and a feminist reassessment of liberal philosophy and social contract theory. Editor Brown brings to light an important philosophical text from the end of the 18th cent. which will be valuable to scholars of the French Enlightenment, Adam Smith and the Scottish Enlightenment, women’s studies, and the history of women in philosophy. “Succeeds in restoring Sophie de Grouchy’s text to its rightful place in the history of philosophy and ideas.” Illus.