Mary Astell’s theory of friendship has been interpreted either as a version of Aristotelian virtue friendship, or as aligned with a Christian and Platonist tradition. In this paper, I argue that Astell’s theory of friendship is determinedly anti-Aristotelian; it is a theory of spiritual friendship offered as an alternative to Aristotelian virtue friendship. By grounding her conception of friendship in a Christian–Platonist metaphysics, I show that Astell rejects the Aristotelian criteria of reciprocity and partiality as essential features of the friendship (...) bond and that she develops a theory of friendship that is neither reciprocal nor partial. Further, I argue that Astell’s theory of friendship advances her feminist aims by providing a justification for female–female spiritual bonds in contradistinction to female–male marriage bonds. Astell argues that the female–female bond of spiritual friendship is sanctioned by God, and is, therefore, a divinely authorized alternative to the male–female bond of marriage. Through her theory of spiritual friendship, Astell marks out a central place for female–female bonds and provides women with a justification for resisting marriage. (shrink)

There are many reasons to include texts written by women in early modern philosophy courses. The most obvious one is accuracy: women helped to shape the philosophical landscape of the time. Thus, to craft a syllabus that wholly excludes women is to give students an inaccurate picture of the early modern period. Since it seems safe to assume that we all aim for accuracy, this should be reason enough to include women writers in our courses. This article nonetheless offers an (...) additional reason: when students are exposed to philosophical texts written by women, they learn that women have been, are, and can be philosophers. Given how underrepresented women are in philosophy, this finding is significant. If we aim to change the face of philosophy—so that it includes more women—we must include texts written by women in our syllabi. The article considers various obstacles faced by those who work to respond to this call to action. (shrink)

Feminist work in the history of philosophy has been going on for several decades. Some scholars have focused on the ways philosophical concepts are themselves gendered. Others have recovered women writers who were well known in their own time but forgotten in ours, while still others have firmly placed into a philosophical context the works of women writers long celebrated within other disciplines in the humanities. The recovery of women writers has challenged the myth that there are no women in (...) the history of philosophy, but it has not eradicated it. What, we may ask, is impeding our progress? This paper argues that so often we treat early modern women philosophers’ texts in ways that are different from, or inconsistent with, the explicit commitments of the analytic tradition, and in so doing, we may be triggering our audiences to reject these women as philosophers, and their texts as philosophical. Moreover, this is the case despite our intention to achieve precisely the opposite effect. (shrink)

This paper considers Anselm’s Proslogion argument against a background of historical events that include philosophical disputes between Christian and Jewish polemicists. I argue that the Proslogion argument was addressed, in part, to non-Christian theists and that it offered a response to Jewish polemicists who had argued that the Christian conception of God as an instantiated unity was irrational. Anselm is not trying to convince atheists that there really is a God. He is arguing that the Christian conception of God is (...) logically coherent. (shrink)

Mary Astell (1666-1731) is often described as a Cartesian—and for good reason. Many of her philosophical positions align with Descartes’. Nonetheless, it is possible to overstress the similarities between Astell’s philosophy and Descartes’. This entry focuses on the ways their views diverge in order to get a fuller understanding of Astell’s epistemology. Her approach to meditation, the emphasis she places on social dimensions of inquiry, her commitment to cultivating intellectual virtues, and her insights concerning what we would now call “epistemic (...) injustice” are among the elements that distinguish her philosophy from Descartes’ and mark her as a significant early modern epistemologist. (shrink)

Expanding the canon of philosophy to include early modern women writers necessarily requires interdisciplinary work. This is because philosophy remains far behind other fields in the humanities with respect to the project of canon expansion, and thus, attempts to expand the canon of philosophy rely, in large part, on the past and current scholarship of those in other humanities disciplines. In this paper, we argue for this claim and highlight some of the challenges that historians of philosophy face when they (...) are engaged in the project of canon expansion, given differences in disciplinary norms. We then consider the important work of Carol Pal and Judith Zinsser to show how the contributions of those outside of the discipline of philosophy can deepen and expand the understanding historians of philosophy have of early modern women philosophers and their works. We conclude by suggesting that some of the issues we highlight here, and elsewhere (Gordon-Roth and Kendrick 2019), are challenges faced not only by those working in the history of philosophy; they’re challenges faced by anyone working to recover the intellectual lives of women: Intimate details of women scholars’ personal lives rather regularly bleed into discussions of their work, even when we, as commentators, aim to avoid that very conflation. When the personal seeps into the intellectual, female intellectual authority is diminished. What we suggest, then, is an interdisciplinary effort to change the way in which we talk about women and their work. (shrink)

Berkeley apologizes in the Principles for his apparent verbosity. After all, "to what purpose is it to dilate on that which may be demonstrated . . . in a line or two . . . ?" . His justification for his prolixity is that "all men do not equally apprehend things of this nature; and I am willing to be understood by every one" .A willingness to be understood by everyone is surely an intellectual virtue and suggests good will on (...) the part of an author. In this excellent collection of twelve essays, some arising from a 2003 conference commemorating the 250 th anniversary of Berkeley's death, Berkeley's good will is richly rewarded. The essays cover many topics—representation, skepticism, self-consciousness, mathematics, human agency and liberty, as well as fire and light in Berkeley's Siris. In all cases, they offer fresh readings of Berkeley's philosophy.Several of the essays focus with fine precision on commonly discussed topics. Among these is Charles McCracken's contribution, "Berkeley's Realism." McCracken claims not that Berkeley is not a realist, but that, given a certain. (shrink)

The idea of the missing shade of blue presents a difficulty for Hume's first principle that ‘all our simple ideas in their first appearance are deriv'd from simple impressions, which are correspond...