Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from DominationPhilosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas of the early modern period. Among the first systematic critics of John Locke's entire corpus, she is best known for the famous question which prefaces her Reflections on Marriage: 'If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves?' She is claimed by modern Republican theorists and feminists alike but, as a Royalist High Church Tory, the peculiar constellation of her views sits uneasily with modern commentators. Patricia Springborg's study addresses these apparent paradoxes, recovering the historical and philosophical contexts to her thought. She shows that Astell was not alone in her views; rather, she was part of a cohort of early modern women philosophers who were important for the reception of Descartes and who grappled with the existential problems of a new age. |
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Page xiv
... pamphlets of 1704 , Moderation Truly Stated , A Fair Way with the Dissenters , and An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War , the first two analyzed in more detail in Chapter 5. An Impartial Enquiry , Astell's ...
... pamphlets of 1704 , Moderation Truly Stated , A Fair Way with the Dissenters , and An Impartial Enquiry into the Causes of Rebellion and Civil War , the first two analyzed in more detail in Chapter 5. An Impartial Enquiry , Astell's ...
Page xv
... pamphlets of 1704 , possibly commissioned by her printer and written in the heat of the occasional conformity debate against the dissenters , is a reply to Owen's Moderation a Virtue of 1703 , while A Fair Way with the Dissenters is a ...
... pamphlets of 1704 , possibly commissioned by her printer and written in the heat of the occasional conformity debate against the dissenters , is a reply to Owen's Moderation a Virtue of 1703 , while A Fair Way with the Dissenters is a ...
Page 17
... pamphlet literature ( addressed in Chapter 1 , Section 5 ) that had seen an upsurge at the time at which they wrote . This , at the onset of the eighteenth century , was the age of the gallant and the fop , charming but fickle , tricked ...
... pamphlet literature ( addressed in Chapter 1 , Section 5 ) that had seen an upsurge at the time at which they wrote . This , at the onset of the eighteenth century , was the age of the gallant and the fop , charming but fickle , tricked ...
Page 23
... pamphlet What is Property ? ( 1840 ) , answered ' All Property is theft ' , could in a period in which the hard natural sciences were hegemonic , and the emerging social sciences emulated them , sanguinely declare : ' The woman author ...
... pamphlet What is Property ? ( 1840 ) , answered ' All Property is theft ' , could in a period in which the hard natural sciences were hegemonic , and the emerging social sciences emulated them , sanguinely declare : ' The woman author ...
Page 27
... pamphlet warfare and an ideological climate that embraced a relatively wide spectrum of society . It was an environment in which , like the Restora- tion , women writers were to find a niche as novelists , dramatists and , in Astell's ...
... pamphlet warfare and an ideological climate that embraced a relatively wide spectrum of society . It was an environment in which , like the Restora- tion , women writers were to find a niche as novelists , dramatists and , in Astell's ...
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