Could There Be A More Profitable

From Discourse 3, "That Women Too Should Study Philosophy," one of the most remarkable of Musonius Rufus's extant lectures. In it he argues that since women possess reason just as men do, and since philosophy is simply the systematic cultivation of reason applied to living, there is no basis for excluding women from philosophical education. The rhetorical question here challenges his audience: if we agree that knowing how to live is the most important knowledge, how can we justify withholding it from half of humanity? This argument was radical for the first century AD.