Simone Webb

The question of how gender might inflect and affect philosophy as a way of life has been somewhat neglected, as has the role of philosophical modes of living for historical female philosophers. This essay draws on Michel Foucault's multifaceted, Hadot-inspired conception of philosophy to show how transforma-tive philosophical practices of the self function as feminist praxis in the work of the early modern feminist philosopher Mary Astell. Philosophy in Astell's texts, the essay argues, is a spiritual practice of the self that at the same time functions as a feminist critique both of sexist social structures and of the self that undertakes the practice. It facilitates women in achieving internal freedom. Finally, the essay discusses potential feminist concerns about Astell's proposed philosophical way of living, before suggesting that it may have value for women today.

The seventeenth-century philosopher Damaris Masham (1658/59-1708) had an intimate and emotional relationship with her friend and companion John Locke (1632-1704), and corresponded with him over many years. Her extensive surviving letters to Locke have been largely overlooked by scholarship on her philosophy. Setting Masham's letters in the context of philosophical and historical scholarship on autobiography , as well as Berel Lang's work on philosophical genre, I argue that her letters to Locke should be read as a form of philosophical autobiography. By doing so, unrecognized aspects of Masham's philosophical position on selfhood and sociability are made visible. Furthermore, I show how the personal and the philosophical are inextricable in the letters and argue that lived emotional experience is of philosophical value. This point is of particular import in the project of retrieval of women philosophers throughout history, but should also be taken into account in the context of a modern philosophical milieu that often privileges "arguing that" as the only legitimate mode of philosophical practice.

Anne Conway is one of the more well-known women philosophers of the seventeenth century. Although her primary text, The Principles of the Most Ancient and Modern Philosophy, is a work of metaphysics which does not address social issues the way a philosopher such as Mary Astell did, it has nonetheless received several feminist readings. These feminist readings of Conway, in particular the two put forward by Jacqueline Broad and Jane Duran respectively, are the focus of this dissertation. I analyse Broad and Duran’s work, and to a lesser extent Carol Wayne White’s, in tandem with a close textual reading of the Principles itself. I evaluate feminist readings of Conway on textual and methodological criteria, as well as to explore the purpose and value of applying a feminist framework to Conway’s writing.

Broad’s feminist reading of Conway is embedded in a chapter focusing on Conway’s philosophy in Broad’s book Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century, and primarily focuses on Conway’s monism with respect to body and soul and Conway’s explicit metaphorical references to gender. Although she argues that this monism and Conway’s rejection of Cartesian dualism avoids the sexist implications she attributes to dualism, she fails to pay attention to the details of Conway’s text.  At worst she is textually inaccurate; at best she presents a simplistic view devoid of the nuance or historical context the Principles requires. I explore in my dissertation why Broad, a respected scholar in her field, would produce such badly theorised work when undertaking a feminist analysis of Conway. Duran’s project is a very different one to Broad’s; she evaluates Conway according to a framework of gynocentric and androcentric writing styles. I challenge Duran on her methodology, building on Sarah Hutton’s comments in her intellectual biography of Conway to argue that Duran’s, and to some extent Broad’s, way of approaching Conway is in fact disrespectful to the voice of an Early Modern woman philosopher. Broad and Duran both fail to take account of Conway’s project in the Principles, instead applying anachronistic frameworks to her work largely motivated by her status as a woman philosopher.

I advocate in my dissertation for a far more historically situated feminist approach to women philosophers of the period. I also present avenues for more insightful enquiry into Conway’s work with respect to gender. In particular, some exploration of the tension in Conway regarding her presentation of the body and femininity is required. I draw out the way in which Conway situates the body, and by association femininity, as vital for the retention of memory and knowledge, but simultaneously the site of sin and the falling away from God.  This work should be of use both to Conway scholars and more broadly to those interested in feminist approaches to the history of philosophy.