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Seventeenth Century SEVENTEENTH CENTURY Women's contributions were crucial to the scientific advances in the early seventeenth century by Johannes Kepler ( 1571-1630), Galileo Galilei ( 1564- 1642) William Harvey (1578-1657) and Pierre Gassendi (1592-1655). Kepler's sister Sophie Braha, the Polish astronomers Marie Cunitz and Elizabeth Korpmann, the chemist Maria Meurdrac, and the Italian mathematician Elena Coronaro Piscopia, Professor at the University of Bologna-all contributed significantly. However, by and large the seventeenth century's achievements in science increased the exclusion of women from institutions of higher learning. Still, women sought philosophical principles to prove their right to pursue science. Among those women who ingeniously sought proofs for being permitted education are those whose works are presented here: Anna van Schurman of Holland, Mary Astell of England, and Sor Juana Ines de la Cruz of Mexico. While van Schurman championed women's right to study, Mary As tell argued for a place to study, and Sor Juana in urging what to study, sketched a tradition of scholarly women. The philosophy canon failed, however, to admit their contributions to traditional epistemology. The Copernican and Galilean theories that prove the center of the universe to be the sun rather than the earth, instigated interest in metaphysics as well as science. Initiating a new rationalism, Rene Descartes ( 1596-1650) with his cogito, developed a method in Meditations on First Philosophy that relied on personal reflection for philosophical inquiry. This method had consequence for women. Having been accustomed to relying on the opinions of men, women now felt more encouraged to think for themselves. Descartes, himself, tutored Queen Kristina of Sweden, corresponded with Elizabeth of Bohemia, and dedicated The Principles of Philosophy to her in gratitude for her critical insights. Descartes, a mathematician and philosopher who held sense data unreliable and certainty possible from doubt, is often referred to as Father of Modem Philosophy for the important outcome of this new rationalism. Despite being banned from such domains of power as the Royal Society of London, founded in 1660, a number of women carried on inquiry through whatever means they could discover. Margaret Cavendish ( 1623-73) attempted to be admitted into the Royal Society but failed. Yet, she attempted to enter the mainstream of philosophy. She had met Descartes and had commented on his ideas on corporeality. Included in her "The Newcastle Circle" was Thomas Hobbes ( 1588-1679). Her contemporaries also were engaged in addressing current philosophy. Anne Finch, Viscountess Conway (1631-79), who was encouraged in her originality by Henry More of the Cambridge Platonists, 110 Seventeenth Century dualism. 1 She also criticized Benedict Spinoza' s (1634- 77) attempts to solve Descartes' mind-body. problem. She formulated a theory of spiritual monads, introducing the word to Gottlieb Leibnitz (1649-1714 ). Leibnitz, a disciple of Nicholas Ma1ebranche ( 1638-1715) and an inventor of calculus offered a solution for solving Decartes' "substance" by replacing it " with monads," though of a different sort of monad from Conway's. As a member of Damaris Cudworth Masham's ( 1659-1708) philosophical circle, he joined with Newton (born the year Gali1eo died, 1642-1727), and the founder of new notions of classical empiricism and natural rights, John Locke, (1632-1704). Masham, a defender of Locke, questioned Leibnitz' theory in an exchange of letters.2 Along with advances in scientific theory and new rationalism, an increased interest developed in the idea of human nature as basis of critical discernment. In the spirit of Montaigne and Bacon, this interest led to regard for psychology- faculty psychology and association psychology. Religions multiplied. The Quaker Margaret Fell dared the silence of women speaking in public with her 1666 speech "Women's Speaking Justified, Proved by the Scriptures." Convinced by an "inner light," Fell defended her moral position partly with proof from women encouraged to speak for themselves in Holy Scripture. Part of the richness of women's philosophical writings were their feminist pleas to be let in on the intellectual life. Women were involved with the intercontinental exchanges between Holland and South America, Spain and Mexico, England and Colonial North America. One example, Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672), isolated from her native England and removed from its learned circles, published in England, receiving favorable commentary by the feminist educator Bathsua Makin in her An Essay to Revive the Antient Education of Gentlewomen (1673). Bradstreet had absorbed her brother's education in England 1 Henry More also corresponded with Elizabeth of Bohemia. Anne Conway's 1690 work published in Amsterdam has had a very good new publication (1996 The principles of the most ancient and modern philosophy. A. P. Coudert and T. Corse, eds. Cambridge: Cambridge UP). The importance of Conway has been remarked upon mainly in the last two decades of the twentieth century. Note (Lois Frankel, 1991 Anne Finch, Viscountess Conway, A history of women philosophers. M.E. Waithe, ed. v.3/1600- 1900, Dordrecht, Netherlands: Kluwer: 41-58, and 1993 The value of harmony, S. Nadler, ed. Causation in early modern philosophy: Cartesianism. Occasionalism, and pre-established harmony, University Park: Pennsylvania State UP: 197-216 also Carolyn Merchant 1979, The vitalism of Anne Conway: Its impact on Leibniz's Conception of the Monad, Journal of the History of Philosophy: 255- 70, and Jane Duran, 1989, Anne Viscountess Conway: A seventeenth century rationalist, Hypatia, Spring: 64-79. 2 Masham, the author of two treatises, was a feminist. Note (Lois Frankel, 1989, Damaris Cudworth Masham: A seventeenth century feminist philosopher. Hypatia, Spring: 80-90, and Sarah Hutton, 1993, Damaris Cudworth, Lady Masham: Between Platonism and Enlightenment, The British Journal for the History ofPhilosophy , Spring :29-54). Leibnitz was lampooned by Voltaire in Candide with the phrase "this is the best of all possible worlds ... Seventeenth Century Ill and rued the prejudice that pressured learned women's lives in New England. In both her philosophy and poetry she drew upon this dual experience and upon history. Identified today as a poet, she did, however, in this way originate an American ethics. The ethics of Bradstreet's, Meditations Divine and Moral. consists of a two page preface and seventy-four aphorisms. The Meditions defmes conduct in a moral situation as spiritual opportunities for action in community. 3 Her poems are also philosophical. The first of the four long poems in her book The Tenth Muse (1650), "The Four Elements," provides a cosmological metaphysical foundation for the other three, "Of the Four Humors of Man's Constitution,""The Four Ages ofMan" and "The Four Seasons of the Year" with nature personified as feminine. The uncompleted poem "The Four Monarchies' praises women as monarchs and warriors. She counters her "Prologue's" "humility stance" commonplace with feminist satire: I am obnoxious to each carping tongue/ who says my hand a needle better fits .... They'll say its stolen or else it was by chance.4 Experimental science, inductive argument, and human experience characterized thought of the seventeenth century. Feminist arguments for women's education went unheeded, and opportunities for education and advancement eluded women on the continent and beyond. While a few women held status in universities in Italy, in Europe and North America, women were banned from universities and disregarded in general. Still the evidence is, that despite these impediments, women contributed to the best thinking of the century. 3 Other philosophers writing in the aphoristic style, Seneca, Francis Bacon, Friedrich Nietzche, and Ludwig Wittgenstein found this style valuable to direct attitudes, decisions, values or actions by sudden but compelling insight. A tradition of moral treatises for sons or daughters includes Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics purportedly written to his son; Dhuoda's 9th c. ethics to her son William; Abelard's 12th c. to Astrolabe; Christine de Pizan 's 14th c. to her son and Elizabeth Gryrnestra 's to her son ( 1604). Standing in contrast to Bradstreet's ethics are e.g. Bacon's ethics of individual greatness and Spinoza's of intelligence. 4 Note: Anne Bradstreet, 1650, The tenth muse lately sprung up in America. Or several/ poems. compiled with great variety of wit and learning. full of delight. London: Stephen Bowtell, and T.B. Dykeman, ed., 1993, American women philosophers 1650-1930, Lewiston, N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press. ANNA VON SCHURMAN Chronology 1607 November 5 born in Antwerp to Frederick and Eva von Schunnan. 1615 Family settles in Utrecht. 1623 Father dies. 1637? Ethiopian Grammar published. Mother dies. 1638 February 12 letter to Johan Beverwyk. 1639 September 7 letter to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. 1641 De ingenii muliebris ad doctrinam et meliores litteras aptitudine (Whether a Maid May Be A Scholar? or The Learned Maid) published. Letter April 1 to Dorothy Moor, language scholar in England. 1642 Opuscula, hebraeca, graeca, latina, gallica, prosaica et matrica published. (includes letters to Gassendi, Huygens, Makin, Voetius) 1648,1650. 1644 Student (hidden) of Gisbertus Voetius, theologian at the University of Utrecht January 26 letter to Princess Elizabeth of Bohemia. 1645 October 31 letter toMS historian Simonds d'Ewes. 1647 January 26letter to Marie de Goumay. 1673 Eukleria seu me/ioris partis electio, published. 1667 Moves with Jean de Labadie to Herford, Germany. 1677 March 14 letter to J.J. Schutz. 1679 May4 dies. (1699 Mysterium MagnamodorGrosses Geheimnis published.) .
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