Introduction

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book focuses on the life and work of Maria Ossowska. It reconsiders taken-for-granted assumptions on the nature of reality, knowledge and morality and, in particular, a strongly western masculine tendency to see progress as a linear journey driven by intellectual giants. The book takes up the baton of considering the relationship between science, morals and organizing, this time in respect of the environment. It describes a writer whose contributions to literature, feminist theories and postcolonial studies have challenged what we think we know about the world and its politics. The women writers writing about women's philosophy and practice lead us to engage with ethics differently to the ways in which we may do so in mainstream accounts. These writers show us how to embody their new possibilities, the body being a site of responsibility, morality and ethics.