Damaris Masham’s letters to John Locke can be fruitfully read as a form of philosophical autobiography. By reading them in this way, neglected aspects of Masham’s philosophy of sociability and the self’s relationship to the world can be brought to light. My first section introduces Masham and the letters, suggesting that generic interpretation has been an obstacle to their reception. Second, I argue that they are autobiographical. Third, I argue that they can be considered as philosophical autobiography. To demonstrate this, (...) I contrast Masham’s published stance on sociability with the stance on the topic that is revealed through the autobiographical reflections in the Locke correspondence.This... (shrink)

This paper treats a heretofore-unnoticed concept in the history of the philosophical discussion of human freedom, a kind of freedom that is not defined solely in terms of the causal power of the agent. Instead, the exercise of freedom essentially involves the non-occurrence of something. That being free involves the non-occurrence, that is, the absence, of an act may seem counterintuitive. With the exception of those specifically treated in this paper, philosophers tend to think of freedom as intimately involved with (...) volition, the judging or deciding activity of the will that votes in favor of or against a proposed action. However, there are two thinkers who endorse a view where not willing constitutes human freedom. Our analysis focuses on the views of Malebranche and Locke. Both invoke a notion dubbed here as ‘absential suspension.’ On this view, freedom is associated not with the power of volition, but rather with this kind of suspension. (shrink)

ABSTRACTLocke’s influential discussion of agency in the chapter ‘Of Power’ in the Essay Concerning Human Understanding underwent important changes between the first and second edition. He reconside...

This paper argues that Locke offers qualified support for male-male intimacy. While one can find denunciations of sodomy and ‘debauchery’ in his work, these claims are embedded in a natural and divine law framework that did not formally specify how to define much less morally characterize these actions. At the very least, Locke makes it difficult to strictly condemn sodomy or other homosexual acts as inherently immoral. This paper will explore three areas of interest: 1) Locke’s Paraphrases of the Pauline (...) epistles in which he argues that Paul’s interest in sexuality concerns temple idolatry rather than a trans-generational sexual ethic; 2) the empirical terms in which he appears to reject the viability of sodomy and his interest in native sexual practices show that he tolerated alternative conjugal frameworks; and 3) the curious case of his own sexuality, the passionate letters he shared with close male friends suggest that sexual obligations to society were not permanent and that as one ages alternative forms of love may be permitted. (shrink)

Many commentators have contrasted the way that sociability is theorized in the writings of Mary Astell and Damaris Masham, emphasizing the extent to which Masham is more interested in embodied, worldly existence. I argue, by contrast, that Astell's own interest in imagining a constitutively relational individual emerges once we pay attention to her use of religious texts and tropes. To explore the relevance of Astell's Christianity, I emphasize both how Astell's Christianity shapes her view of the individual's relation to society (...) and how Masham's contrasting views can be analyzed through the lens of her charge that Astell is an “enthusiast.” In late seventeenth-century England, “enthusiasm” was a term of abuse that, commentators have recently argued, could function polemically to dismiss those deemed either excessively social or antisocial. By accusing Astell of enthusiasm, I claim, Masham seeks to marginalize the relational self that Astell imagines and to promote a more instrumental view of social ties. I suggest some aspects of Astell's thought that may have struck contemporaries as “enthusiastic” and contrast her vision of the self with Masham's more hedonistic subject. I conclude that, although each woman differently configures the relation between self and society, they share a desire to imagine autonomy within a relational framework. (shrink)

In the first edition of the Essay, Locke argued that we pursue whatever course of action we judge to be the best option available to us at the time. In other words, we always act under the guise of...

In his unpublished freewill manuscripts, Ralph Cudworth seeks to complete the project that he begins in The True Intellectual System of the Universe (1678) by arguing for an account of human liberty that avoids the opposing poles of necessitarianism and indifferency. I argue that Cudworth’s account rests upon a crucial distinction between the will and the power of freewill. Whereas we necessarily will the greater apparent good, freewill is a more fundamental power by which we endeavour to discern the greater (...) good before willing to pursue it. Cudworth thus opposes necessitarianism by arguing for a libertarian account of freewill while nonetheless rejecting the indifferentist claim that we can will contrary to the greater apparent good. (shrink)