Philosopher
Mary Astell
1666–1731
English rationalist philosopher who argued that the supposed defects of women's minds come from their education, not their nature, and set out a method by which women could think for themselves.
Mary Astell was born in Newcastle and spent her adult life in London, supported by patrons who included Lady Elizabeth Hastings, and part of a circle of writers that included Lady Mary Chudleigh, Judith Drake and Lady Mary Wortley Montagu. Her Serious Proposal to the Ladies (1694, with a second part in 1697) set out how women of her rank might improve their minds; her correspondence with the philosopher John Norris was published in 1695 as Letters Concerning the Love of God; and Some Reflections upon Marriage appeared in 1700.
A rationalist in the tradition of Descartes, she built her philosophy on an account of God and God’s creation, and defended the real distinction of mind and body. She is now remembered chiefly for her theories of women’s education and her criticisms of Norris and of Locke. Recent scholars have noted that her arguments concern the women of her own class, and that she did not consider the privileges those women held.
Key ideas
- A prejudice, not a nature
- Women of her class were taught to believe that God had made them with weaker reason and a natural vanity and pride. Astell called this a prejudice produced by social conditioning, which leaves women doubting their own nature and with no wish to improve their minds.
- Everyone can think clearly
- Against Locke’s view that those without leisure or education must take religious truths on authority, Astell held that all people, whatever their sex or station, can attain clear and distinct ideas through practices of philosophical meditation such as hers and Descartes’.
- A method for women
- Like Plato and Descartes before her, Astell diagnosed the novice’s confusion and offered a method to overcome it, tailored to the women she addressed, both for those living in a monastic-like community devoted to learning and prayer and for those living in the world.
- Takes up René Descartes’s method of doubt
- Vices have no sex
- Passions, virtues and vices are not tied to the sex of the body. The so-called “feminine vices”, such as vanity and pride, come from an education that fixes women’s attention on their bodies and on praise, and men can have them too.
- Matter does not think
- Mind and body are really distinct, the mind’s nature being thought and the body’s extension. Since the mind has no parts it cannot decay, so it is immortal, and matter, against Locke’s suggestion, cannot think.
- Tradition
- Western
- Region
- London
- Period
- Early modern
Influences
Influenced by
Mary Astell1666–1731
Influenced
Influenced by
Mary Astell1666–1731
Influenced
Where these links come from
- Mary Astell drew on René Descartes. Source: Alice Sowaal, Mary Astell, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Mary Astell argued against John Locke. Source: Alice Sowaal, Mary Astell, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Damaris Masham argued against Mary Astell. Source: Sarah Hutton, Lady Damaris Masham, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Key works
- A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, 1694
- Some Reflections upon Marriage, 1700
- The Christian Religion, As Profess'd by a Daughter of the Church of England, 1705
Sources
- Alice Sowaal, Mary Astell, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy