Abstract

Andrew Janiak has recently claimed that Mme Du Châtelet was “the Enlightenment's most dangerous woman.” There is no evidence that contemporaries regarded her as dangerous. There is no evidence that contemporaries (publishing in French, in France, during her lifetime) took exception to a woman philosopher, or regarded her epistemology as innovative and/or subversive. The claim that she was dangerous is thus a peculiar one, as it is unsupported by any empirical evidence. A consideration of the various meanings of the word “dangerous” leads to the conclusion that Du Châtelet was not a threat to the culture of the French Enlightenment.