Edmund Burke

Работа посвящена анализу политической составляющей англиканской мысли XVII-XVIII века (Ричарда Хукера, Уильяма Лода и Джозефа Батлера) и их связи с консервативной традицией, выраженной в творчестве Эдмунда Бёрка. Автор приходит к выводу, что новое идеологическое разделение было порождено не столько Великой Французской Революцией, а Английской гражданской войной, в которой противостояние сторонников Высокой церкви и пуритан достигло наивысшей точки - вооруженного конфликта. Учение сторонников Высокой церкви стала основанием английского прото-консерватизма, а учение пуритан - английского прото-либерализма. Французская революция же ускорила процесс их трансформации в современный вид идеологии.

In this article, I want to show the crucial role London as a social environment played in the Burke-Wollstonecraft-Debate. For reasons specific to the Protestant-humanist development of early modern England, London at the time is a hot-bed for political radicalism. Starting as a political dispute about the meaning of the French revolution, the Burke-Wollstonecraft-Debate soon developed into a dispute about whether Britain shall move into the direction of a democracy. Burke's argument against democracy is based on his view that the majority of the people easily become a dangerous mob, and therefore, if allowed sovereignty, are rather a threat to liberty than its democratic guarantor. Remarkably, the topic of the mob as being uncontrollable if it is allowed a voice as a whole people is also central to his speeches as an MP in the House of Commons, which are concerned with the social control of the London mob. Wollstonecraft counters Burke's anti-democratic line of argument by claiming that the true mob is the elite, because the mob is everyone who does not contribute to the common good. Seeing the mob as the elite is a strong theme in London popular culture at the time, especially in the works of William Hogarth and John Gay. The problems the City of London had with governing crowds, are exemplarily shown by the decision of city administrators to not punish political dissent with standing in the pillory anymore, because the pillory allowed the mob an active role in the punishment, and therefore, led to the mob taking action in favor of political dissenters, who were put in the pillory, the most famous example of is Daniel Defoe. As the active integration of the mob into city politics failed, punishment moved into the direction of just quietening dissent by imprisonment. However, the democratic theme of giving ordinary people a voice remained strong in London popular culture.

This book examines literary representations of human and non-human animality in British Romanticism, a period in which scientific, political, and industrial revolutions radically transformed the status of the human and redefined the concept of species. Its novel approach lies in its focus on the role that aesthetic taste played in the Romantic understanding of the animal. Concentrating on the discourses of the sublime, the beautiful, and the ugly, Heymans argues that the Romantics’ aesthetic views of animality influenced and were influenced by their moral, scientific, political, and theological judgment. He shows how feelings of environmental alienation and disgust played a positive moral role in animal rights poetry, why ugliness presented such a major problem for Romantic-period scientists and theologians, and how in political writings the violent yet awe-inspiring power of exotic species came to symbolize the beauty and terror of the French Revolution. Linking the works of Wordsworth, Blake, Coleridge, Byron, the Shelleys, Erasmus Darwin, and William Paley to the theories of Immanuel Kant and Edmund Burke, this book reveals the importance of animality in the Romantic imagination as well as the crucial role of the aesthetic in late eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century conceptions of species. Its wide-ranging investigation of the problematic relationship between beauty, truth, morality, and biology brings an original and fascinating perspective to the fields of ecocriticism, animal studies, and literature and science studies.

http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415507301/


CONTENTS


Introduction: The Aesthetics of Species


Part 1

1. The Environmental Ethics of Alienation: The Ecological Sublime
2. Green Masochism: Coleridge’s “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner”
3. Hunting for Pleasure: Wordsworth’s Ecofeminism


Part 2

4. Humans and Other Moving Things: Wordsworth Visits London (with Deleuze and Guattari)
5. The Cute and the Cruel: Taste, Animality and Sexual Violence in Burke and Blake
6. A Problem of Waste Management: Frankenstein and the Visual Order of Things


Part 3

7. Revelation, Reason, Ridicule: The Scientific Sublime
8. A Taste of God: Natural Theology and the Aesthetics of Intelligent Design
9. Beauty with a Past: Evolutionary Aesthetics in Erasmus Darwin’s The Temple of Nature""

Marina Martinez Mateo diskutiert klassische Theorien politischer Repräsentation von Hobbes bis Mill anhand folgender These: Repräsentation stellt eine fundamentale, aber paradoxe Figur der Begründung staatlicher Souveränität dar. Das ‚Volk‘, das repräsentiert wird, muss zunächst formiert und zugleich als vorgängig vorausgesetzt und abgebildet werden. In dieser Paradoxie liegt allerdings auch die politische Produktivität der Repräsentation. Durch ihre krisenhafte Struktur wird Repräsentation zu einem Instrument der Kritik: sowohl am Staat, den sie begründet, als auch am Volk, das sie repräsentiert. So mündet die Untersuchung in der Verteidigung einer Politik der Repräsentation gegen institutionalisierte Formen politischer Repräsentation.

Az értékkonzervatívok igenis fontosnak tartanak bizonyos a priori mércéket. Ám kérdés, honnét tudják ezeket "levezetni", ha nem engedik be az elméletet a politika világába. A józan észre hivatkozó konzervatív gondolkodásmód e kérdésre kínál választ. Nem hajlandó feladni az értékalapú politizálást, de tartózkodik attól is, hogy ideológiai konstrukciókat erőltessen a gyakorlati politika világára. Az érvelés lényege, hogy rendelkezünk olyan, mindnyájunkban fellelhető érzékenységgel (sense), amelyben elődeink tapasztalatai összegződnek, s amely másrészt biztosítja a politikai közösségünk nyilvános diskurzusának implicit logikáját. Ez a konzervatív elképzelés azt vallja, a józan ész fogalmával jelölt politikai tudás-forma nem mindenkor érvényes, fogalmilag meghatározható elvont elvek formájában ad gyakorlati eligazítást, hanem kicsit ahhoz hasonlít, ahogy a hagyományos elképzelés szerint az erények képesek befolyásolni döntéseinket és irányítani cselekvéseinket: mindenfajta életidegen teoretizálás nélkül. Az alábbi dolgozat arra tesz kísérletet, hogy néhány, bizonyos fokig esetlegesen kiválasztott szerző vonatkozó nézeteire utalva felidézze, milyen elgondolások szolgáltak a józan észt középpontba állító gondolkodásmód mögött. Kiindulópontul Oakeshottnak a tapasztalatról és gyakorlatról vallott elképzelése fog szolgálni. Ezután-ahogy eszmetörténeti előadásaiban Oakeshott maga is-visszakeresem a józan észre utaló politikai gondolkodásmód két antik előzményét (Oakeshott 2006). Arisztotelész vonatkozó elképzeléseiből fogok kiindulni, majd megmutatom, miként telítődik politikai tartalommal Cicerónál a sensus communis fogalma. Mindez azért fontos, mert az antik előzményekre való hivatkozás visszatérő elem a modern nyugati intellektuális konzervativizmusban. Ezt követően Vicóval, Shaftesburyvel és Burke-kel fogunk foglalkozni, a józan ész fogalmának egymástól eltérő, de közös, antik forrásokat használó, kora modern képviselőivel, akiknek vonatkozó elképzelései maguk fontos állomást jelentettek a józan ész modern, konzervatív újrahasznosításának folyamatában. míg azonban Burke szerepét senki nem vonná kétségbe a konzervativizmus születése kapcsán, Vico vagy akár Shaftesbury konzervatív pedigréje egyáltalán nem evidens. A jelen dolgozat mégis emellett érvel, továbbgondolva az Isaiah Berlin és Mark Lilla értelmezése által fémjelzett irányt, s összhangban Gadamer vonatkozó elképzeléseivel. A dolgozat egy olyan konzervatív hagyomány felmutatása, amely a józan észnek mérce-szerepet szán, nem ellentétesen a természetjog korábbi, klasszikus tanításával, ám el kívánja kerülni a klasszikus természetjog skolasztikus és doktriner jellegét. E tekintetben a józan észnek a prudencia erényéhez kapcsolódó, s így antik forrásokig visszanyúló, a kora modernitásban újra elővett, majd jó időre háttérbe szoruló értelmezése lesz irányadó.

Was the French Revolution a good or a bad thing? On the bicentenary anniversary of the Revolution the French were still divided on the issue. Plaques have been erected in Brittany to the victims of the Reign of Terror, in the west of France the Souvenir Vendéen club is composed of over two thousands royalist members and right wing parties recall the Terror as the archetype of modern totalitarianism from Stalin, through Hitler and Pol Pot. At the end of the 2nd World War, the very same areas of France which had witnessed the counter-revolutionary armed risings and the most savage repressions of the Terror saw the ghost of Robespierre behind the armed clashes between the Vichy supporters and the Resistance as well as behind the great 'purge' and vengeance of the Left towards their wartime collaborationist enemies (Wright 1990). Nonetheless, the biggest intellectual debate on the issue was inevitably contemporary to the events.

Not long before Burke’s death in 1797 Charles James Fox, who until 1790 had been Edmund Burke’s closest political colleague and ally, and who after 1790 led the defence of the French Revolution against Burke in the House of Commons, said of his former friend that ‘It is difficult to say whether [Burke] is mad or inspired; whether one or the other, everyone must agree that he is a prophet’. Two hundred years later a few still think that Burke was mad; some think he was inspired; but very few think he was a prophet. Fox thought him prophetic because, long before any of his contemporaries, he seemed to foresee the ugly and destructive fate of the Revolution. Scholarship on both Burke and the Revolution refuses to stand still long enough for any fixed opinion on the status of Burke’s ‘prophetic’ claims to be formed, but in what follows I will try to give an account of where the matter presently stands.

RESUMEN El presente trabajo analiza la relación existente entre la categoría de lo sublime y la
experiencia estética generada por los videojuegos pertenecientes a la categoría del
survival horror. El éxito de este subgénero de los juegos de acción invita a pensar
que al jugador le gusta vivir el terror, que es capaz de sentir placer estético ante una
pantalla plagada de figuras siniestras, muerte y dolor. El objetivo es explicar cómo
es posible que se produzca esta experiencia estética vinculada al horror, y para ello
se recurrirá a la categoría estética de lo sublime, desarrollada por varios autores y
redescubierta por la corriente artística del romanticismo. Como referencia se ha
utilizado el análisis que sobre ésta desarrolló Edmund Burke en A Philosophical
Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, obra publicada
en 1757, y las tres primeras entregas de la saga de videojuegos Silent Hill, producida
por Konami entre 1999 y 2003. Al comparar ambas se pueden observar similitudes
que certifican el uso de elementos capaces de provocar la experiencia de lo sublime
por parte del Team Silent, el equipo de desarrolladores y artistas que crearon el
mundo de Silent Hill. Si el jugador es capaz de sentir placer estético ante lo
terrorífico, es gracias a categoría, que acoge en su seno las experiencias provocadas
por lo siniestro.
ABSTRACT
The following paper focuses on the similarities between the feeling of the sublime
and the aesthetic experience promoted by survival horror video games. The success
of this action game subgenre is related to the pleasure that gamers can achieve
living the terror, the death experience and the suffering generated while they are
playing. In order to explain how can this horror-born aesthetic experience be we
will analyze the quality of the sublime, which has been studied by many theorists
and was rediscovered by the Romantic artistic movement. For that purpose, we
have used the analysis developed by Edmund Burke in A Philosophical Enquiry into
the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, a text published in 1757, and
the first three games of the Silent Hill video games saga, made by Konami between
1999 and 2003. Comparing those elements we can find the same values, that certify
the use of sources able to create the experience of the sublime by the Team Silent,
the group of developers and artists who gave life to the world of Silent Hill. The
player can feel the aesthetic pleasure of the horror thanks to this genre, which is
related to the experiences caused by the uncanny

The aim of this article is to discuss The Turn of the Screw by the famous American writer Henry James in relation to the concept of the 'sublime' put forward by English thinker Edmund Burke. Having always been associated with the gothic literature, this theory of the 'sublime' can be closely related with the effects of the happenings in James' novella. The curious incidents in the story, the supernatural elements, elements of terror and obscurities make such an analysis possible. Especially, Burke's theory of the sublime can shed light on the effects of the gothic elements on the reader. The reflections of this theory on the possible effects of the story are also discussed in terms of Gothicism. In this respect, this article aims to analyze the novella in the light of Burke's definition of the sublime in many aspects.

The conservative ideas explained to revolutionaries and reactionary of João Pereira Coutinho is a book of essay character that exposes the genesis and the slopes of the conservative thought. It seeks to problematize and dissociate conservative thinking from reactionary tendencies. With clear, objective and engaging language, the author presents the arguments and foundations of conservative thinking. The book is structured in the introduction and seven chapters. Coutinho points out that there is no conservatism but there  are different kinds of conservatism. In different expressions in ideology in time and space. The most famous version is part of the British conservative tradition and the book is linked to this understanding. It is worth noting that British conservatism is also not homogeneous. The thinking originated from Edmund Burke and all his faithful heirs are distinguished. There are different shades in the conservative British view as the conservative movement around the world. It synthesizes some principles of Coutinho's doctoral thesis. The author makes it clear that he aspires - modestly - to build a "conservative melody" around such concepts as "human imperfection", "pluralism", "tradition", "reform", and "commercial society". And finally, conservatism and Burke's work is the supporting pillar to define the conservative movement in the book Conservative ideas explained to reactionary and revolutionaries.

The paper deals with Edmund Burke's Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful (1757) and its influence on the development of the English Gothic novel. Drawing on the concept of the sublime and its transformation from a rhetorical context to an aesthetic category, the paper refers to the ambiguity of the sublime experience against the background of contemporary literary theory (Weiskel, Botting, Prochizka, Simpson, P.H. Frye). It focuses on the feeling of terror and the fear of death as the crucial aspects of Gothic sublimity.

This research aims to examine which of the "Sublime" concepts described by Edmund Burke in A philosophical inquiry into an origin of our ideas of the sublime and the beautiful, published in 1757, can help in the interpretation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Black Cat, published in 1843. The analysis of the human passions performed by Burke in his book shows their effects for pain or pleasure, and the concept of "Sublime" characterizes the passions caused by pain. Since Poe presents many different philosophical questions in his tale, this research wants to investigate which are they and show how Burke's concept of "Sublime" may be observed in it. The horror described by Poe in the tale's sequence of events has numerous features of Burke's concept. The tale begins with the narrator, imprisoned and feeling close to death, telling about the series of strange domestic events. At this moment, everything that has happened to him, is felt as horror-although to some, it seems only grotesque. In this state, he loses his intelligence and says that only someone who has sanity can understand these events. The narrator asks himself throughout the tale where do the perverseness come from and whether it is innate to man, because, in the beginning, he loved his cat, Pluto. The cat's intelligence is said to be scary to his wife's eyes and, in addition, the narrator refers to him several times in the story as a huge feline, "remarkably large and beautiful", aspects related to the sublime. During the story, he starts to feel something scary about his cat, which makes him start to commit atrocities against it. After that, he questions himself about his sanity. The narrator's excessive perverseness and the strange and obscure side of the cat, resemble the sources of the "Sublime" as described by Burke. In this tale, there are a lot of sources of "Sublime". This research wants to find them and show their effect. The philosophical questions presented in Poe's tale indicate, therefore, a fictional narrative focused on the ambiguities and paradoxes of passions. In the same direction, Edmund Burke, in the previous century, examined in his work the most important human passions. This research is looking for connections between Poe's fantastic tale and the aesthetic concept of "Sublime", with a thorough focus on the analysis of the colors, sounds, personalities, architecture, and general characteristics used by Poe, which can be sources of the "Sublime". Thus, this research analyses the relations between philosophy and literature. The concept of Sublime in Edmund Burke and Poe's tale The Black Cat. Esse trabalho se insere na área de Estética e na linha de pesquisa que examina as relações entre filosofia e literatura; nessa direção, ele visa analisar os aspectos do conceito de Sublime de Edmund Burke (1729-1797) que poderiam operar na interpretação do conto de Poe (1809-1849).

This paper (in German) argues Edmund Burke's Idea of sublime (das Erhabene) with comparing the landscape paintings in the 18th and 19th centuries. It is published in the report of The Institutional Program for Young Researcher Overseas Visits, Kobe University.

A kötetben olvasható eszmetörténeti tanulmányok a korai tizennyolcadik század és a múlt század hetvenes évei közötti időszakból veszik témáikat. Lord Shaftesburytől Hannah Arendtig olyan szerzők írásait elemzik, akiknél az esztétikai fogalmak és a morál-, vallás- vagy politikafilozófiai elgondolások kölcsönösen megvilágítják egymást. Szépség és fenség, szabadság és humor, szerelem és barátság, ízlés és képzelet, játék és cselekvés kérdései merülnek fel újra és újra különböző korszakokban és kontextusokban; értelmezéseik árnyaltabb képet kívánnak nyújtani az európai modernség néhány fontos aspektusáról.

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/colonial-capitalism-and-the-dilemmas-of-liberalism-9780190637293?q=ince&cc=us&lang=en#

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Britons celebrated their empire as a unique “empire of liberty” that propagated the rule of private property, free trade, and free labor across the globe. They also knew that the same empire had been made by conquering overseas territories, trading in slaves, and extorting tribute from other societies. Set in the context of the early-modern British Empire, this book paints a striking picture of the tensions between the illiberal origins of capitalism and its liberal imaginations in metropolitan thought. Ince investigates the construction of a liberal self-image for the British Empire in the face of the systematic expropriation, exploitation, and servitude that built its transoceanic capitalist economy. The resilience of Britain’s liberal image, Ince argues, owed in good measure to the liberal intellectuals of empire and their efforts to disavow the violent transformations that propelled British colonial capitalism. Moving across the colonization of America, the conquest of India, and the settlement of Australasia, Ince examines the metropolitan debates over property, exchange, and labor relations within the empire. At the center of Ince’s analysis are John Locke, Edmund Burke, and Edward Gibbon Wakefield as three liberal political economists who tried to navigate the ideological dilemmas arising from colonial land seizures, commercial imperialism, and colonial labor dispossession. Ince deftly dissects the theoretical maneuvers, rhetorical strategies, myths, and fictions through which these liberal intellectuals disavowed the originary violence of capitalism – what Karl Marx labeled “the primitive accumulation of capital” – so as to craft an essentially commercial, pacific, and free character for the British Empire. Weaving together intellectual history, critical theory, and colonial studies, Colonial Capitalism is more than a study in intellectual history. It is a bold attempt to reconceptualize the relationship between capitalism, liberalism, and empire in a key that continues to resonate with our present moment.

Rozprawa Krzysztofa Wawrzonkowskiego nawiązuje do zamierającej dziś w Polsce, choć niegdyś świetnie u nas prosperującej dyscypliny, jaką jest historia estetyki. Dzieło Władysława Tatarkiewicza, Historia estetyki, będące chlubą kultury polskiej, kończy się niestety na omówieniu poglądów myślicieli siedemnastowiecznych. Toruńska szkoła estetyczna, nawiązująca do tradycji Henryka Elzenberga, podejmuje kontynuację tej tradycji. Niniejsza rozprawa Krzysztofa Wawrzonkowskiego, wraz z jego pracą Smak, geniusz, sztuka. Filozofia piękna Alexandra Gerarda w świetle estetyki kantowskiej, oraz książkami Adama Grzelińskiego (Angielski spór o istotę piękna. Koncepcje estetyczne Shaftesbury`ego i Burke`a) i Marty Śliwy (Teoria piękna w filozofii Francisa Hutchesona) dostarcza wyczerpującej prezentacji historii osiemnastowiecznej estetyki brytyjskiej. Tym samym, mimo luki pokoleniowej, podjęta zostaje kontynuacja problematyki tak istotnej dla polskich estetyków minionych generacji.
(z recenzji prof. dr. hab. Mirosława Żelaznego)

Elinor Dashwood, the heroine of Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility, is notably self-possessed and level-headed, but not all readers notice the effort she makes to cultivate these attributes. Elinor consciously suppresess her own  emotions and encourages her sister, Marianne, to do the same, while eager to sympathize with the male characters in the novel. Through her judgements about who may and may not express emotion, Elinor inflicts an emotional disinheritance on herself and her sister which mirrors their financial disinheritance through the system of primogeniture. Through Elinor's psychological development, Austen explores the meaning of individualism and its meaning for those with limited legal rights.

Just how prescient was Edmund Burke about the problems of modern democracy?  Written for the bicentenary of his death in 1797, this book argues that he had a remarkable grasp of the shortcomings of the ideas promoted by the French Revolution, which still dominate much of our political thinking.  "As for the rights of man, I did implore the Director General to leave them alone" -- T. S. Eliot to Mrs. J. J. Hawkes of UNESCO, 22 Oct 1947.

One year before Edmund Burke´s A philosophical Enquiry into the Origins of Our Ideas of the  Sublime and Beautiful, (1757)  Madame Leprince de Beaumont published The Beauty and the Beast. In this tale the characters seems to personify Burke´s aesthetic categories: Beauty was represented as a Classical figure, and Beast as a monster surrounded by a Sublime Gothic atmosphere. Classical and Sublime Gothic styles (and therefore, Beauty and Beast) are identified as Neoclassicism and Romanticism. Following  Herbert Read interpretation of the tale under Carl Jung´s  theory of the psyche (anima and animus), the Neoclassicism and  Romanticism are interpreted as Beauty and Beast, and therefore as a same being that is to say, in historical terms, as the same tradition in Occidental art. Duality became Unity so that, these faces apparently opposite and confronted, gave way to a new period: Contemporary art. Beauty and Beast are therefore used here as metaphors of Classical and anti-Classical, the two tendencies of art until Impressionism.

Edmund Burke’s political philosophy is generally known as the theoretical foundation of Western conservatism. In his intellectual elaboration, society is an organic complex organized in many stratified social classes. But who has the right to lead the community towards the common good? Burke’s answer to that question is: the natural aristocracy. Being the society «a clause in the great primeval contract of eternal society» – so writes Burke –, all creatures are «each in their appointed place». And the group destined to lead the whole is represented by the natural aristocracy. However, this aristocracy shouldn’t be entirely confused with the big landowners and with the traditional nobility; rather, Burke’s vision is founded over a classical concept based on virtue and wisdom, and the natural aristocrats are described as «those who are virtute et honore majores». Hence, the aristocracy of birth and wealth is only a part of it — and every civil society will develop a natural aristocracy, or else fall into chaos and subversion.

Les monnaies grecques ont de tout temps été considérées comme les plus belles monnaies jamais produites. Evoquant Goethe, José Maria de Hérédia ou le Président Theodore Roosevelt, cette conférence s’interroge sur les raisons qui fondent ce sentiment. On évoquera le très haut relief, la diversité des types, la qualité de la gravure et l’adaptation à la petitesse du format. On traitera également de la beauté (fondée sur la symétrie) et du sublime (fondé sur la dissymétrie), avec une attention particulière pour les types représentés de trois quarts face et pour l’évolution du goût du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours. Platon, Longin, Raphael, Rubens, Winckelmann, Kant, Burke et Ruskin sont quelques-uns des grands noms évoqués à cette occasion.

Este libro es un estudio introductorio, histórico y filosófico sobre la tradición revolucionaria. Su objetivo es explorar y repensar la compleja relación entre la tradición, la memoria y la revolución a partir de examinar las aportaciones de los principales pensadores que han reflexionado sobre la revolución y de analizar cómo se han desarrollado en la práctica las revoluciones del pasado. De este modo, lo que también se aborda en el libro es de qué modo se engarzan pasado, presente y futuro en los acontecimientos revolucionarios. Lejos de ser contradictorias o incompatibles, la revolución y la tradición se han relacionado de múltiples maneras que hasta el día de hoy han sido insuficientemente investigadas.

Link: https://www.documentauniversitaria.com/es/producte/memoria-de-la-revolucion/

This article traces the notion of ressentiment beginning with several key uses by Denis Diderot and Edmund Burke from the 1770s and 1780s, but shifts from there to consider Nietzsche’s impactful and distinct use in On the Genealogy of Morality (1887) emphasizing linkages between ressentiment and temporality. It juxtaposes these two moments with the colonial context, turning to Frantz Fanon and Ranajit Guha to explore how the sentiments of conquest are reflected in a conception of the past inextricably marked by colonialism. The conclusion notes Fanon’s struggle with Nietzsche’s formulation, and suggests he is closer to the understanding of ressentiment visible in Diderot.

PDF-PowerPoint presentation of the talk I gave on Sunday, 26th August 2018 at the 2018 Societas Ethica Annual Conference, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 23th – 26th August 2018.
Abstract
In the first chapter of her “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”, Mary Wollstonecraft defines human degrees of reason, virtue and knowledge as the instruments for measurement of human nature’s perfection. Reason, virtue and knowledge constitute, in Wollstonecraft’s intents, the new values that ought to promote a radical change, in general, in the whole human dimension and, in particular, in the woman’s sphere of life. In my contribution, I would like to analyse principles, contents and arguments present in Mary Wollstonecraft’s work “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” – published in 1792 –, which constitutes one of the first texts – probably the first “manifesto” – of the feminist movement. I will also take into consideration Wollstonecraft’s work “A Vindication of the Rights of Men” in order to investigate the main points of Wollstonecraft’s criticism of Burke’s “Reflections on Revolution in France”. An initial, rather short part of my contribution will be dedicated to the presentation of the main events in Wollstonecraft’s life, in order to reconstruct at least some of the cultural and intellectual environments with which Mary Wollstonecraft came in contact during her life: Wollstonecraft’s role and contribution in the Enlightenment will thereby be described. Furthermore, the exposition of some biographical facts regarding Mary Wollstonecraft will aim at illustrating the dimensions of the hostile political and intellectual groups against which Mary Wollstonecraft had to fight in her life, since Wollstonecraft’s positions apparently belonged to an absolute minority as regards the spectrum of ideas of her times. The main aim of my investigation will consist in showing that both “Vindications” are expressions of a programme of radical modification of the society: The subjection of women in the `community is, in Wollstonecraft’s view, a part of the greater problem of the subjugated social community. Wollstonecraft expresses in her works an absolute denial of the traditional education of women: Wollstonecraft’s principal purpose is to promote the change of female education and the reform the social and political institution oppressing women. Women’s inclusion into public life can be reached, in the opinion of Mary Wollstonecraft, only through a common education for men and women; reform of the education of women means reform of the society.
We will see that one of the aims of Wollstonecraft lies in persuading women to abandon a false conception of the feminine nature in order to let them adopt the practical virtues of rationality, autonomy, and self-reliance. Wollstonecraft expresses her absolute denial of whichever categorization of women as creature of feeling rather than of reason. This point constitutes the first step, in Wollstonecraft meditation, towards a model and towards a proposal of a new education, in which women and men are given the same kind of education: education ought to produce in individual the attitudes to reason, to autonomy and to independence. The education to the attitude and the behaviour led by reason represents, in Wollstonecraft’s project, the opposition to the traditional cultivation, in the women’s sphere, of sensibility. The main principle of Wollstonecraft’s project of education consists in the persuasion that, without knowledge, there can be no morality: not sensibility, but reason ought to be the aim of the education itself. A method of education promoting sensibility in the individual can only produce mental instability in the individual; moreover, education tending to strengthening sensibility in women proves to be an agent in the diminution of value and in the consequent oppression of women. The duty of women consists, in Wollstonecraft’ view, in abandoning false femininity in order to reach the practical virtues of rationality, independence and self-reliance. The mind has no sex: There is no natural disposition because of which men are reason, and women are sensibility. This artificial distinction, which lies at the very origin of the oppression of women, is established only in the society: therefore, the society ought to be, in Wollstonecraft’s intents, profoundly reformed. I shall point out, furthermore, Wollstonecraft’s connections with the religious environment of her time. The religious roots of Mary Wollstonecraft’s thought will be, therefore, investigated in order to demonstrate that her thought was profoundly influenced by the religious background of that time: I will show that Wollstonecraft’s meditation cannot be interpreted without its connections with the positions of the radical dissenters. Moreover, utopian components are not extraneous to her theological conceptions. My analysis will, furthermore, concentrate on the reconstruction of Wollstonecraft’s polemical issues: therefore, I shall analyse Wollstonecraft’s criticism of, for instance, Rousseau’s and of Milton’s conception of the woman. As regards the connections of Mary Wollstonecraft with the feminist movement, the main question I shall propose in my contribution will consist in analysing whether the feminism model of Mary Wollstonecraft does or does not contain in itself a tension or even a contradiction between a possible radical feminism component and a more traditional component. Through her radical feminist component, Wollstonecraft undoubtedly denounces many forms of oppression of women. On the other hand, due to her traditional component, Wollstonecraft apparently binds the role of women, for instance, to the role of mothers, thus reaffirming the diversity, as to social duties and social self-realization, between men and women. In other words, the question will be whether Mary Wollstonecraft oscillates between models of radical, anti-patriarchal feminism and models of acceptance of separate spheres for male and women. The bibliographical studies on Mary Wollstonecraft will help in the analysis of the presence (or not) of this dilemma in her works.