Reason's feminist disciples [Elektronische Ressource] : Cartesianism and seventeenth-century English women / vorgelegt von Astrid Wilkens

Wilkenas

Sujets

• Philosophie

Informations

• Publié par: goethe_universitat_frankfurt_am_main
• Publié le: 01 janvier 2008
• Nombre de lectures: 29
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 4 Mo

Extrait

‘Reason’s Feminist Disciples’ -
Cartesianism and seventeenth-century
English women








Inauguraldissertation
zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie
im Fachbereich Neuere Philologien (10)
der Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität
zu Frankfurt am Main




vorgelegt von

Astrid Wilkens

aus: Wilhelmshaven



2006
(Einreichungsjahr)


2008
(Erscheinungsjahr)






1. Gutachter/in: Prof. Dr. Klaus Reichert
2. Gutachter/in: Prof. Dr. Susanne Scholz

Tag der Promotion: 28. November 2006

Erschienen als Online Disseratation an der Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian
Senckenberg in Frankfurt am Main.


2
















For
Maya



3‚Reason’s Feminist Disciples‘ - Cartesianism and seventeenth-
century English women


CONTENTS


Acknowledgements 6

Introduction 7


1. The dissemination and cultural significance of Cartesianism in 20
seventeenth-century England

1.1. The Introduction of Cartesianism to England 23

1.2. The English way of understanding 28

1.3. The popularity of Cartesianism 29

1.4. The universities and their role in disseminating Cartesianism 32

1.5. Science and Cartesianism 33

1.6. Popularising Cartesianism 35

1.7. Periodicals 41

1.8. Conclusion 44


2. ‘The mind has no sex.’ Descartes’ philosophy and its influence on 45
the thought of literate English women

2.1. Descartes – a supporter of women? 45

2.2. The concept of social Cartesianism 49

2.3. The education of seventeenth-century English girls and women 52

2.4. Descartes’ notion of equal individual rational abilities 55

2.5. Descartes’ rejection of the Aristotelian curriculum 65
2.6. Descartes’ universal doubt 73

2.7. Descartes made English women think 78
4

3. “As if we had not rational souls as well as men” - 80
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle’s use of Cartesianism

3.1. The Duchess as philosopher 84

3.2. Opposition versus alignment: Cavendish’s uses of 92
Descartes’ thinking

3.3. Cartesianism as a strategy of female empowerment 98

3.4. “Theators as publick patterns to take example from” 107

3.5. Cavendish as disseminator of Cartesian thinking 118

4. “For since GOD has given Women as well as Men intelligent 123
Souls, why should they be forbidden to improve them?” - Mary Astell’s
use of Cartesianism for the Ladies

4.1. An impoverished rational Lady 125

4.2. Astell - an accepted social critic 127

4.3. Astell’s Proposal - Cartesian principles for the Ladies 138
4.3.1. “She who rightly understands wherein the perfection of 139
her Nature consists, will lay out her Thoughts and
Industry in the acquisition of such Perfections” -
Astell’s first Proposal
4.3.2. “I shall not send you further than your Own Minds” - 152
Astell’s second Proposal
4.3.3. “If GOD had not intended that Women shou’d use their 161
Reason, He wou’d not have given them any” -
The last attempt

4.4. The impact of Astell’s outline on rational women 167

4.5. A life-long struggle for female empowerment and its 177
contradictions

5. Conclusion 179

6. Bibliography 182

6.1. Primary Literature 182
6.1.1. Newspapers and Magazines 195

6.2. Secondary Literature 196

7. Appendix 220

5Acknowledgements


I would like to express my indebtedness to all my friends for their uncompromising
support; to Dr. Yvonne Roth, who read and commented on all parts of this work. She
believed in my abilities and convinced me to finish this dissertation. Her undaunting
support led me throughout the whole dissertation and kept me from destroying my
laptop and with it my dissertation. I would further like to acknowledge the support of
my dear friend Hugo MacPherson for all his assistance. He endured my German
‘openness’ (considered rude in Britain) with great patience and never stopped trying
to make my dissertation a better piece of work with helpful comments, especially
regarding language. My heartiest thanks go to Dr. Antje Blank, who commented and
proof read carefully. Dr. Staci von Boeckmann was kind enough to review my work in
the final and most crucial phase. She is a wonderful person who knew how to
encourage me even in weak moments. I am also truly indebted to Dr. Gisela Engel,
whose comments and criticism often forced me to revise my own position. Without
her support I would have never written a dissertation or been granted a scholarship.

I thank the staff of the British Library, the Bodleian Library and the Folger
Shakespeare Library for their assistance. I also like to thank the Heinrich Böll-Stiftung
who made my dissertation possible with a four year doctoral scholarship. Above all, I
should like to record my deepest gratitude and indebtedness to Professor Klaus
Reichert, Professor Susanne Scholz and Professor Jan Todd, my doctoral
supervisors.

Last but not least, I would like to thank my wonderful daughter, Maya, for her
patience and understanding towards her mother. In the most difficult situations, she
has been a source of great happiness to me.
6Introduction


Descartes and feminist theory

Trying to account for Descartes’ continued appeal to English thinkers and for their
selective perception of the assets and shortcomings of his philosophy, the historian
of ideas, Russell Anderson, claims that
Descartes was a sort of intellectual restaurant where English thinkers
found a variety of choice dishes, selecting for continuous diet only those
which were peculiarly attractive to them and oftentimes cursing those e in any sense distasteful, but always returning to appease
1their appetites.
Twentieth-century scholars have thought little about the attractions of Descartes’
thinking. Especially in feminist theory, he has a bad press as the ‘instigator’ of the
body-mind-split – seen as one of the theoretical bases for the subordination of
2women in Western culture. Even the most cursory look at the reception of
Descartes’ theories in feminist thought reveals that ‘Cartesian’ here serves as a
chiffre for an epistemological paradigm through which perception was increasingly
structured into categories of the knowing subject, characterised through his Ratio on
the one hand, and the known object, on the other. This separation with its clear
hierarchical implications also pervaded the gender order founded upon it. One of the
chief criticisms of feminist theory is that the specific realities of women’s lives made
them less able to develop a Cartesian kind of Reason, seen as “a highly abstract
mode of thought, separable, in principle, from the emotional complexities and

1 Russell Anderson (1937), "Descartes Influence in seventeenth-century England", in:
Travaux du IXe Congrès International de Philosophie, Études Cartésiennes, p. 114.
2 Genevieve Lloyd examines why Descartes’ reason is perceived as working against
women. She notes that although Descartes had intended otherwise his philosophy
had a negative effect for women in Western Europe. See Genevieve Lloyd (1999),
“Reason as Attainment”, in: Susan Bordo (1999) Feminist Interpretations of René
Descartes. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. See further
Susan Bordo (1986), „The Cartesian Masculinization of Thought“, in: Signs, vol. 11,
no. 3, pp. 439-456, and Susan Bordo (1985), The Flight to Objectivity. Essays on
Cartesianism & Culture. New York: State University New York. And Genevieve Lloyd
(1984), The Man of Reason. 'Male' and 'Female' in Western Philosophy, London:
Routledge.
73practical demands of ordinary life.” Genevieve Lloyd explains further that “the
sharpness of his [Descartes’] separation of the ultimate requirements of truth-seeking
from the practical affairs of everyday live reinforced already existing distinctions
between male and female roles, opening the way to the idea of distinctive male and
4female consciousness.” In this perspective only the Cartesian ‘man of reason’ was
able to be guided by pure reason and to transcend his worldly dependencies in order
to gain ‘true’ knowledge of things. Rational thought and science are therefore marked
as masculine.

Seen from within seventeenth-century discourse, the appeal of Descartes’ way
of conceptualising nature or the mind becomes more clear. The dictum that can be
inferred from his writings that ‘the mind has no sex’, can be seen as an appeal to
think about rational capacities in the utopian perspective of a gender neutral
discourse. Ina Schabert, Ruth Perry, Hilda L. Smith, and others acknowledge such a <