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Mary Astell Patricia Springborg (Professor of Political Science and Deputy Dean, University of Sydney)

Mary Astell By Patricia Springborg (Professor of Political Science and Deputy Dean, University of Sydney)

Summary

Philosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist, and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas. This study addresses the apparent paradoxes between her often radical views and position as a Royalist High Church Tory, recovering the historical and philosophical contexts for her thought.

Mary Astell Summary

Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination by Patricia Springborg (Professor of Political Science and Deputy Dean, University of Sydney)

Philosopher, 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.

Mary Astell Reviews

"Patricia Springborg is to be commended for having done the most work on that scintillating political thinker, Mary Astell, and having done it with superlatively high standards." -Jane Duran, University of Santa Barbara
"In this book, which draws on her earlier publications, [Springborg] works to insert Astell into the canon writ large, presenting an engaging picture of the relevant social, historical and political contexts. She is particularly adept at isolating moments of philosophical dispute, explaining the views, pressures, and goals of the individual players and re-dramatizing the debates, attending to both the rhetoric and logic of argument." -Alice Sowaal, Journal of the History of Philosophy
"It remains[...]that Springborg's research played-and with this book, will continue to play-a crucial part in igniting sophisticated critical debate about Astell's writings[...]Springborg has performed an inestimable service for Astell studies and for the study of early modern women philosophers in general." -Jacqueline Broad, Monash University, American Historical Review

About Patricia Springborg (Professor of Political Science and Deputy Dean, University of Sydney)

Patricia Springborg received her first degrees in Political Science from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand and her doctorate from Oxford University. She has taught political science in New Zealand, and as a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of California, Berkeley, and held a personal chair in Political Theory in the Department of Government at the University of Sydney before being appointed professor ordinario in the School of Economics of the Free University, Bolzano. Elected to the Australian Academy of the Social Sciences in 1999, she has been a stipendiary fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars in Washington DC, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study in Uppsala, was a Senior Visiting Research Fellow at St John's College, Oxford, and was the recipient of a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Award in International Peace and Security, taken up at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC. As a political theorist she works across a wide field, from political economy (The Problem of Human Needs, 1981), to theory of the state (Royal Persons, 1990), Orientalism (Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince, Cambridge University Press, 1992), and the history of political thought. She is editor of The Cambridge Companion to Hobbes's Leviathan (Cambridge University Press, 2007), and co-editor of the first English translation and critical edition of Thomas Hobbes's long Latin poem 'Historia Ecclesiastica'. She has published articles in journals such as The American Political Science Review, Political Theory, Political Studies, the Journal for the History of Political Thought and the British Journal for the History of Philosophy.

Table of Contents

1. Mary Astell, polemicist, philosopher and theologian; 2. Astell, Drake, education, epistemology and the serious proposal; 3. Astell on marriage, patriarchalism and contractarianism; 4. Mary Astell and the settlement of 1689; 5. A fair way with the dissenters and their patrons; 6. Astell, Locke and the highwayman: a test case; 7. Astell, Drake and the legacy of freedom from domination.

Additional information

NPB9780521841047
9780521841047
0521841046
Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination by Patricia Springborg (Professor of Political Science and Deputy Dean, University of Sydney)
New
Hardback
Cambridge University Press
2005-12-05
396
N/A
Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
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