A penetrating and historically important critique of medieval moral thought.

Recounts the most famous love story of the Middle Ages.

Is logic masculine? Is women's lack of interest in the "hard core" philosophical disciplines of formal logic and semantics symptomatic of an inadequacy linked to sex? Is the failure of women to excel in pure mathematics and mathematical science a function of their inability to think rationally? Andrea Nye undermines the assumptions that inform these questions, assumptions such as: logic is unitary, logic is independenet of concrete human relations, and logic transcends historical circumstances as well as gender. In a series (...) of studies of the logics of historical figures--Parmenides, Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Abelard, Ockham, and Frege--she traces the changing interrelationships between logical innovation and oppressive speech strategies, showing that logic is not transcendent truth but abstract forms of language spoken by men, whether Greek ruling citizens, or scientists. (shrink)

Describes the known life of Abelard, the brilliant medieval philosopher and offers a most original solution to the puzzle of his so-called autobiography. Also explores the fabulous legend of Heloise, affirming that the young girl seduced by her tutor has been perhaps more abused by history than by her lover.