Journal of the History of Philosophy

Scholars have recently begun to expand research in early modern philosophy to include “minor” figures, especially those who contributed to the foundations of the scientific revolution. Simultaneously and (for the most part) separately, other scholars have begun examination of the female figures of the period. Prominent here are Eileen O’Neill’s series of articles, Jacqueline Broad’s Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge, 2002), and Sarah Hutton’s Anne Conway: A Woman Philosopher (Cambridge, 2004).

Patricia Springborg, a political scientist, now contributes to this literature with Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination (Cambridge, 2005). Springborg has herself made Astell scholarship possible with a series of articles and scholarly editions of two of Astell’s texts. In this book, which draws on her earlier publications, she works to insert Astell into the canon writ large, presenting an engaging picture of the relevant social, historical, and political contexts. She is particularly adept at isolating moments of philosophical dispute, explaining the views, pressures, and goals of the individual players and re-dramatizing the debates, attending to both the rhetoric and logic of argument.

Between 1695 and 1722, Astell published four philosophical texts and several political pamphlets. Springborg looks at all of these pieces, explaining their central theses and showing how Astell critiqued views developed by her contemporaries. Philosophers will be especially interested in Astell’s discussion of Malebranche’s doctrine that we see all things in God and of Locke’s views on thinking matter, freedom, marriage, and social contract theory. In Springborg’s presentation of Astell’s political philosophy, she sides with Carole Pateman’s analysis of Astell’s critique of rights discourse; she argues against John Pocock, Quentin Skinner, and Philip Pettit, who suggest Astell adheres to republicanism.

Springborg is working on a number of fronts in presenting Astell. As a philosopher, I cannot comment on her depictions of the social, historical, and political events that [End Page 322] constitute much of her text. With regard to philosophy, I can say that I find conceptual confusion in Springborg’s representation of some of the metaphysical and epistemological material. I will give one example.

According to Springborg, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Part II: Wherein a Method is Offered for the Improvement of Their Minds (1679) contains “one of the most brilliant disquisitions of the age on Descartes’s clear and distinct ideas, the possibility of certitude, and the ethical and religious consequences of the Cartesian position” (91). Later, when glossing a passage in which Astell writes on ideas, Springborg concludes that Astell “not very convincingly” argues that “clear ideas entail distinctness, but that distinctness does not entail clearness” (109). She then looks to Astell’s The Christian Religion as Profess’d by a Daughter of the Church of England (1705) for a further analysis of what she now calls “the apparently vacuous claim of A Serious Proposal, Part II, that clearness entails distinctness but not vice versa,” and writes that Astell “scores points against Locke in the process,” that is, in critiquing Locke on the topic of thinking matter (111–12).

If Springborg is right in her reading of Astell’s view on clarity and distinctness, then it would be striking indeed: despite Astell’s statement that she is following Descartes’s account in Principles of Philosophy, pt. I, sec. 45, she would have his position in reverse. Indeed, analysis of the lines from which Springborg draws her interpretation yields the classic Cartesian picture: “Whatever we see Distinctly we likewise see Clearly, Distinction always including Clearness, tho this does not necessarily include that, there being many Objects Clear to the view of the Mind, which yet can’t be said to be Distinct” (Mary Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Parts I and II, ed. Patricia Springborg [Broadview, 2002]: 172). There is a tricky line here—“tho this does not necessarily include that”—which could be fleshed out as “tho this clearness does not necessarily include that distinctness.” If this rendering is correct...