Cartesianism and Seventeenth-Century English Women

‘Reason’s Feminist Disciples’ - Cartesianism and seventeenth-century English women Inauguraldissertation zur Erlangung des Grades eines Doktors der Philosophie im Fachbereich Neuere Philologien (10) der Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität zu Frankfurt am Main vorgelegt von Astrid Wilkens aus: Wilhelmshaven 2006 (Einreichungsjahr) 2008 (Erscheinungsjahr) 1. Gutachter/in: Prof. Dr. Klaus Reichert 2. Gutachter/in: Prof. Dr. Susanne Scholz Tag der Promotion: 28. November 2006 Erschienen als Online Disseratation an der Universitätsbibliothek Johann Christian Senckenberg in Frankfurt am Main. 2 For Maya 3 ‚Reason’s Feminist Disciples‘ - Cartesianism and seventeenth- century English women CONTENTS Acknowledgements 6 Introduction 7 1. The dissemination and cultural significance of Cartesianism in 20 seventeenth-century England 1.1. The Introduction of Cartesianism to England 23 1.2. The English way of understanding 28 1.3. The popularity of Cartesianism 29 1.4. The universities and their role in disseminating Cartesianism 32 1.5. Science and Cartesianism 33 1.6. Popularising Cartesianism 35 1.7. Periodicals 41 1.8. Conclusion 44 2. ‘The mind has no sex.’ Descartes’ philosophy and its influence on 45 the thought of literate English women 2.1. Descartes – a supporter of women? 45 2.2. The concept of social Cartesianism 49 2.3. The education of seventeenth-century English girls and women 52 2.4. Descartes’ notion of equal individual rational abilities 55 2.5. Descartes’ rejection of the Aristotelian curriculum 65 2.6. Descartes’ universal doubt 73 2.7. Descartes made English women think 78 4 3. “As if we had not rational souls as well as men” - 80 Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle’s use of Cartesianism 3.1. The Duchess as philosopher 84 3.2. Opposition versus alignment: Cavendish’s uses of 92 Descartes’ thinking 3.3. Cartesianism as a strategy of female empowerment 98 3.4. “Theators as publick patterns to take example from” 107 3.5. Cavendish as disseminator of Cartesian thinking 118 4. “For since GOD has given Women as well as Men intelligent 123 Souls, why should they be forbidden to improve them?” - Mary Astell’s use of Cartesianism for the Ladies 4.1. An impoverished rational Lady 125 4.2. Astell - an accepted social critic 127 4.3. Astell’s Proposal - Cartesian principles for the Ladies 138 4.3.1. “She who rightly understands wherein the perfection of 139 her Nature consists, will lay out her Thoughts and Industry in the acquisition of such Perfections” - Astell’s first Proposal 4.3.2. “I shall not send you further than your Own Minds” - 152 Astell’s second Proposal 4.3.3. “If GOD had not intended that Women shou’d use their 161 Reason, He wou’d not have given them any” - The last attempt 4.4. The impact of Astell’s outline on rational women 167 4.5. A life-long struggle for female empowerment and its 177 contradictions 5. Conclusion 179 6. Bibliography 182 6.1. Primary Literature 182 6.1.1. Newspapers and Magazines 195 6.2. Secondary Literature 196 7. Appendix 220 5 Acknowledgements I would like to express my indebtedness to all my friends for their uncompromising support; to Dr. Yvonne Roth, who read and commented on all parts of this work. She believed in my abilities and convinced me to finish this dissertation. Her undaunting support led me throughout the whole dissertation and kept me from destroying my laptop and with it my dissertation. I would further like to acknowledge the support of my dear friend Hugo MacPherson for all his assistance. He endured my German ‘openness’ (considered rude in Britain) with great patience and never stopped trying to make my dissertation a better piece of work with helpful comments, especially regarding language. My heartiest thanks go to Dr. Antje Blank, who commented and proof read carefully. Dr. Staci von Boeckmann was kind enough to review my work in the final and most crucial phase. She is a wonderful person who knew how to encourage me even in weak moments. I am also truly indebted to Dr. Gisela Engel, whose comments and criticism often forced me to revise my own position. Without her support I would have never written a dissertation or been granted a scholarship. I thank the staff of the British Library, the Bodleian Library and the Folger Shakespeare Library for their assistance. I also like to thank the Heinrich Böll-Stiftung who made my dissertation possible with a four year doctoral scholarship. Above all, I should like to record my deepest gratitude and indebtedness to Professor Klaus Reichert, Professor Susanne Scholz and Professor Jan Todd, my doctoral supervisors. Last but not least, I would like to thank my wonderful daughter, Maya, for her patience and understanding towards her mother. In the most difficult situations, she has been a source of great happiness to me. 6 Introduction Descartes and feminist theory Trying to account for Descartes’ continued appeal to English thinkers and for their selective perception of the assets and shortcomings of his philosophy, the historian of ideas, Russell Anderson, claims that Descartes was a sort of intellectual restaurant where English thinkers found a variety of choice dishes, selecting for continuous diet only those which were peculiarly attractive to them and oftentimes cursing those which were in any sense distasteful, but always returning to appease their appetites.1 Twentieth-century scholars have thought little about the attractions of Descartes’ thinking. Especially in feminist theory, he has a bad press as the ‘instigator’ of the body-mind-split – seen as one of the theoretical bases for the subordination of women in Western culture.2 Even the most cursory look at the reception of Descartes’ theories in feminist thought reveals that ‘Cartesian’ here serves as a chiffre for an epistemological paradigm through which perception was increasingly structured into categories of the knowing subject, characterised through his Ratio on the one hand, and the known object, on the other. This separation with its clear hierarchical implications also pervaded the gender order founded upon it. One of the chief criticisms of feminist theory is that the specific realities of women’s lives made them less able to develop a Cartesian kind of Reason, seen as “a highly abstract mode of thought, separable, in principle, from the emotional complexities and 1 Russell Anderson (1937), "Descartes Influence in seventeenth-century England", in: Travaux du IXe Congrès International de Philosophie, Études Cartésiennes, p. 114. 2 Genevieve Lloyd examines why Descartes’ reason is perceived as working against women. She notes that although Descartes had intended otherwise his philosophy had a negative effect for women in Western Europe. See Genevieve Lloyd (1999), “Reason as Attainment”, in: Susan Bordo (1999) Feminist Interpretations of René Descartes. Pennsylvania: The Pennsylvania State University Press. See further Susan Bordo (1986), „The Cartesian Masculinization of Thought“, in: Signs, vol. 11, no. 3, pp. 439-456, and Susan Bordo (1985), The Flight to Objectivity. Essays on Cartesianism & Culture. New York: State University New York. And Genevieve Lloyd (1984), The Man of Reason. 'Male' and 'Female' in Western Philosophy, London: Routledge. 7 practical demands of ordinary life.”3 Genevieve Lloyd explains further that “the sharpness of his [Descartes’] separation of the ultimate requirements of truth-seeking from the practical affairs of everyday live reinforced already existing distinctions between male and female roles, opening the way to the idea of distinctive male and female consciousness.”4 In this perspective only the Cartesian ‘man of reason’ was able to be guided by pure reason and to transcend his worldly dependencies in order to gain ‘true’ knowledge of things. Rational thought and science are therefore marked as masculine. Seen from within seventeenth-century discourse, the appeal of Descartes’ way of conceptualising nature or the mind becomes more clear. The dictum that can be inferred from his writings that ‘the mind has no sex’, can be seen as an appeal to think about rational capacities in the utopian perspective of a gender neutral discourse. Ina Schabert, Ruth Perry, Hilda L. Smith, and others acknowledge such a development for England5 in claiming that Cartesian ideas had a profound impact on seventeenth-century women.6 Schabert for instance calls the outcome of this influence “Cartesian Feminism” and traces examples for this kind of thinking in contemporary literature. Hilda Smith wants “to identify and analyze feminist views produced in seventeenth-century England and to link them to a central theme of later feminist movements”. For her, Descartes and “the development of rationalism as a complement to the use of faith in discovering truth provided the feminists with a significant method to analyze the relationships between the sexes.” All show that rational theories, in particular the ideas of René Descartes, influenced women to become involved intellectually and even publish their thinking. Perry demonstrates that some women took up epistolary exchanges with scholars and understands those exchanges as a distinct genre of the seventeenth century. 3 Genevieve Lloyd (1999), “Reason as Attainment”, p. 79. 4 Ibid. 5 Erica Harth does so for France. See Erica Harth (1992), Cartesian Women. Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime. Ithaca & London: Cornell University Press. 6 Ina Schabert (1997), Englische Literaturgeschichte aus der Sicht der Geschlechterforschung, Stuttgart: Kröner; Ruth Perry (1985),

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