In this paper we show how a realistic normative democratic theory can work within the constraints set by the most pessimistic empirical results about voting behaviour and elite capture of the policy process. After setting out the empirical evidence and discussing some extant responses by political theorists, we argue that the evidence produces a two-pronged challenge for democracy: an epistemic challenge concerning the quality and focus of decision-making and an oligarchic challenge concerning power concentration. To address the challenges we then (...) put forward three main normative claims, each of which is compatible with the evidence. We start with a critique of the epistocratic position commonly thought to be supported by the evidence. We then introduce a qualified critique of referenda and other forms of plebiscite, and an outline of a tribune-based system of popular control over oligarchic influence on the policy process. Our discussion points towards a renewal of democracy in a plebeian but not plebiscitarian direction: Attention to the relative power of social classes matters more than formal dispersal of power through voting. We close with some methodological reflections about the compatibility between our normative claims and the realist program in political philosophy. (shrink)

This article analyses how child victims of abuse may be subjected to hermeneutical injustice. I start by explaining how child victims are hermeneutically marginalised by adults’ social and epistemic authority, and the stigma around child abuse. In understanding their abuse, I highlight two epistemic obstacles child victims may face: (i) lack of access to concepts of child abuse, thereby causing victims not to know what abuse is; and (ii) myths of child abuse causing misunderstandings of abuse. When these epistemic obstacles (...) cause the child victims to fail to see themselves as being abused and/or to get adults to recognise that they are being abused, I argue that this constitutes hermeneutical injustice. While some may justify obstructing epistemic access to concepts of abuse on the grounds of parental rights and protection of children’s innocence, I reply that both grounds are unjust in light of children’s basic rights and the fact that children can easily be taught such concepts in a child-appropriate manner. The case of child abuse prompts important reflections on existing epistemic injustice literature, particularly on the ways in which hermeneutical injustice materialises, the epistemic responsibilities of institutional bodies and individuals, and the interrelationship between testimonial and hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

Gary Bartlett (2022) provides critical reflections on my account of hermeneutical injustice experienced by child victims of abuse (Lo 2022). He argues that professionals cannot be said to have all the relevant concepts of abuse as child victims have unique access to the emotional and subjective aspects of that experience. He thus cautions against remedying the hermeneutical injustice by having institutions replace folk concepts with institutional concepts. Bartlett further reflects on the hermeneutical marginalisation of children and questions to what extent (...) does that constitute hermeneutical injustice against children generally. This article seeks to respond to these points raised by Bartlett. (shrink)

Today's new technology has dramatically changed children's lives. Electronic media continues to impact the lives of young children, and its impact should never be underestimated. With its strong influence, media technology can be vain or gain to the lives of toddlers and preschoolers. This study aims to describe the effects of electronic media use on the expressive and receptive language of very young children as well as their social skills from the parent's perspective. Looking at parents' experiences with their children's (...) use of electronic media reveals the impact of electronic media on their children's language and social skills. An inductive qualitative approach was used to analyze data collected from interviews with parents of preschool children and used this as the primary data source. This study shows that electronic media exposure to children strongly influences their expressiveness and receptivity in language. The results further indicate that electronic media have adverse impact on children's social skills. (shrink)

This research delves into the intricate relationship between language and mathematics education, particularly within the context of mother-tongue-based instruction. It addresses the challenge of reconciling the language of instruction, the learners' mother tongue, and the language of mathematical concepts, emphasizing the need for synchronization to enhance the teaching and learning process. Drawing from international experiences and the Philippine educational landscape, which transitioned to the K-12 curriculum, this study investigates the role of code-switching in Grade-One mathematics education. By conducting a pretest-posttest (...) group design at an Elementary School in Bohol, Philippines, the study evaluates the effects of code-switching within a mother-tongue-based instruction framework. Findings demonstrate that code-switching improves mathematics performance, with the experimental group excelling in advanced and proficient levels post-implementation. Notably, the control and experimental groups exhibited similar pretest scores, indicating their comparability. This research concludes that code-switching is an effective strategy for bridging the linguistic gaps between the mother tongue and mathematical concepts, thereby enhancing the meaningfulness and comprehensibility of mathematics. In light of these findings, the study recommends the adoption of code-switching in teaching mathematics, especially for students with lower academic achievement. Additionally, it encourages future research to explore the applicability of code-switching in other subjects and higher grade levels. This study advocates for an inclusive and adaptive approach to mathematics instruction that recognizes the complex interplay of languages and aims to empower students to understand, participate actively, and develop a profound love for the subject. Based on the empirical findings of this study, it is strongly recommended that the integration of code-switching as a pedagogical strategy in mathematics instruction be formally endorsed within the school setting. This endorsement serves the paramount goal of enhancing the mathematical proficiency and overall academic performance of the students. -/- . (shrink)

This study determined the cognitive skills achievement in mathematics of elementary pre-service teachers as a basis for improving problem-solving and critical thinking which was analyzed using Piaget's seven logical operations namely: classification, seriation, logical multiplication, compensation, ratio and proportional thinking, probability thinking, and correlational thinking. This study utilized an adopted Test on Logical Operations (TLO) and descriptive research design to describe the cognitive skills achievement and to determine the affecting factors. Overall, elementary pre-service teachers performed with sufficient understanding in dealing (...) with the TLO. However, in each logical operation, students were found to have insufficient understanding of probability thinking and correlational thinking. These insufficiencies in other logical operations were attributed to their misconceptions on some mathematical terms, misinterpretation of the problems, poor comprehension skills, poor problem-solving skills, and poor performance in mathematics in general. (shrink)

This paper identifies, develops, and argues for an interpretation of Mary Astell’s understanding of self-government. On this interpretation, what is essential to self-government, according to Astell, is an agent’s responsiveness to her own reasoning. The paper identifies two aspects of her theory of self-government: an “authenticity” criterion of what makes our motives our own and an account of the capacities required for responsiveness to our own reasoning. The authenticity criterion states that when our motives arise from some external (...) source without validation by our own understanding of the reasons supporting them, then they are not our own. The capacities requisite for responsiveness to our own reasoning are those of examining and evaluating our own motives and of resisting the social pressure to conform to others’ opinions. An upshot of this interpretation of Astell’s theory of self-government is that it reveals her insights into the ways “custom” can undermine an individual’s ability to govern oneself. (shrink)

In discussing the obligation to love everyone, Mary Astell (1666–1731) recognizes and responds to what I call the theocentric challenge: if humans are required to love God entirely, then they cannot fulfill the second requirement to love their neighbor. In exploring how Astell responds to this challenge, I argue that Astell is an astute metaphysician who does not endorse the metaphysical views she praises. This viewpoint helps us to understand the complicated relationship between her views and those (...) of Descartes, Malebranche, Henry More, and John Norris, as well as her sophisticated approach to biblical interpretation and theology. Attending to theocentrism opens up new avenues of research in the study of early modern philosophy. It also helps us to see connections between Astell and other theocentric philosophers such as Spinoza and Anne Conway. (shrink)

In the 1706 third edition of her Reflections upon Marriage, Mary Astell alludes to John Locke’s definition of slavery in her descriptions of marriage. She describes the state of married women as being ‘subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man’ (Locke, Two Treatises, II.22). Recent scholars maintain that Astell does not seriously regard marriage as a form of slavery in the Lockean sense. In this paper, I defend the contrary position: I argue that (...) class='Hi'>Astell does seriously regard marriage as a form of slavery for women and that she condemns this state of affairs as morally wrong. I also show that, far from criticizing Locke, Astell draws on key passages in his Thoughts concerning Education to urge that women be educated to retain their liberty. (shrink)

According to some scholars, Mary Astell’s feminist programme is severely limited by its focus on self-improvement rather than wider social change. In response, I highlight the role of ‘virtuous friendship’ in Astell’s 1694 work, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. Building on classical ideals and traditional Christian principles, Astell promotes the morally transformative power of virtuous friendship among women. By examining the significance of such friendship to Astell’s feminism, we can see that she did in fact (...) aim to bring about reformation of society and not just the individual. (shrink)

Scholars have long recognised that Mary Astell builds her feminist critique of society on a foundation of Cartesian views about human nature and the passions. At the same time, the full extent of the influence of Descartes’ view of embodiment on the solution Astell proposes in her Serious Proposal to the Ladies is only beginning to come to light. In this paper, I contribute to this ongoing project by arguing that Astell builds on Descartes’ ideas by addressing (...) a blind spot in his view, namely, that that the embodied self is socially situated, and that therefore, our social context plays a crucial formative role in the development of our passions. In doing so, I show Astell extends Cartesian philosophy beyond an egalitarian feminist critique of society, but also to a positive political theory offering a solution to the problems she identifies. Thusly, Astell shows the political potential of Cartesian philosophy as a framework for social critique and to seek solutions to the problems such a critique can bring out. (shrink)

In The Women of Grub Street (1998), Paula McDowell highlighted the fact that the overwhelming majority of women’s texts in early modern England were polemical or religio-political in nature rather than literary in content. Since that time, the study of early modern women’s political ideas has dramatically increased, and there have been a number of recent anthologies, modern editions, and critical analyses of female political writings. As a result of Patricia Springborg’s research, Mary Astell (1668-1731) has risen to prominence (...) as one of the most astute female political commentators of her day. Springborg argues for Astell’s importance as one of the first systematic critics of the philosopher John Locke, and she interprets Astell’s political thought as a reaction to Lockean Whig politics in the early reign of Queen Anne. But some scholars claim that it is a mistake to think that Astell was chiefly preoccupied with Locke, and others suggest that reading Astell in relation to Locke alone can distort our understanding of her larger political theory. In this chapter, I argue that a more accurate picture of Astell’s political outlook emerges by examining a little studied essay, ‘A Prefatory Discourse to Dr D’Aveanant’ in her 1704 work Moderation Truly Stated. In this critique of Charles Davenant’s Essays upon Peace at Home, and War Abroad (1704), Astell provides a commentary on the political ruthlessness of Niccolo Machiavelli in his Discourses on Livy. Astell’s comments reveal that, in an age in which the political vocabulary was turning to the language of rights, property, and liberty, she still subscribed to the ancient world view, and the ethical-political language of virtue and the good. My intention is to show that these ethical dimensions of Astell’s political thought are consonant with her wider philosophy. (shrink)

Mary Astell (1666-1731) relies on a Cartesian account of the self to argue that both men and women are essentially thinking things and, hence, that both should perfect their minds or intellects. This account of the self might seem to ignore the inescapable fact that we have bodies. I argue that Astell accommodates the self’s embodiment along three dimensions. First, she tempers her sharp distinction between mind and body by insisting on their union. Second, she argues that the (...) mind-body union is good, at least when the body obeys the mind. Third, though Astell identifies the self with the mind, she identifies the person with the combination of mind and body. (shrink)

In 1705, Mary Astell and Damaris Masham both published works advocating for women's use of individual judgment in matters of religion. Although both philosophers advocate for women's education and intellectual autonomy, and both are adherents of the Church of England, they differ dramatically in their attitudes to religious authority. These differences are rooted in a deeper disagreement about the nature of epistemic authority in general. Astell defends an interpersonal model of epistemic authority on which we properly trust testimony (...) when the testifier is answerable for its truth. Masham holds an evidence model of epistemic authority on which testimony is treated as an ordinary piece of empirical evidence. Central to Masham's argument is her contention that religious beliefs based on the kind of authority recognized by Astell could never serve as a stable source of moral motivation. Because of their different theories of epistemic authority, Masham's defense of women's intellectual autonomy leads to a radical anti-clericalism, while Astell's defense is fully consistent with her insistence on deference to the established church. (shrink)

This paper focuses on the English philosopher Mary Astell’s marginalia in Lady Mary Wortley Montagu’s personal copy of the 1704 edition of Pierre Bayle’s Pensées diverses sur le comète (first published in 1682). I argue that Astell’s annotations provide good reasons for thinking that Bayle is biased toward atheism in this work. Recent scholars maintain that Bayle can be interpreted as an Academic Sceptic: as someone who honestly and impartially follows a dialectical method of argument in order to (...) obtain the goal of intellectual integrity. In her commentary, however, Astell suggests that: (i) if Bayle were honest and impartial in his inquiries, then he would not have pretended to attack popular superstition, only to undermine generally-held religious beliefs; and (ii) if Bayle valued intellectual integrity, then his argument for a society of virtuous atheists would not have relied upon a deceptive equivocation in terms. I conclude that the rediscovery of this marginalia is valuable for enhancing our appreciation of Astell as an astute reader of one of her most enigmatic contemporaries. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Mary Astell's contributions to the history of feminism, noting her grounding in and departure from Cartesianism and its relation to women.

Whatever may be said about contemporary feminists’ evaluation of Descartes’ role in the history of feminism, Mary Astell herself believed that Descartes’ philosophy held tremendous promise for women. His urging all people to eschew the tyranny of custom and authority in order to uncover the knowledge that could be found in each one of our unsexed souls potentially offered women a great deal of intellectual and personal freedom and power. Certainly Astell often read Descartes in this way, and (...) Astell herself has been interpreted as a feminist – indeed, as the first English feminist. But a close look at Astell’s and Descartes’ theories of reason, and the role of authority in knowledge formation as well as in their philosophies of education, show that there are subtle yet crucial divergences in their thought – divergences which force us to temper our evaluation of Astell as a feminist. -/- My first task is to evaluate Astell’s views on custom and authority in knowledge formation and education by comparing her ideas with those of Descartes. While it is true that Astell seems to share Descartes’ wariness of custom and authority, a careful reading of her work shows that the wariness extends only as far as the tyranny of custom over individual intellectual development. It does not extend to a wariness about social and institutional customs and authority (including, perhaps most crucially, the institution of marriage as we see in her Reflection on Marriage). The reason for this is that Astell’s driving goal is to help women to come to know God’s plan for women – both in their roles as human and in their roles as women. According to Astell, while it is true that, as individuals, women must develop their rational capacities to the fullest in order to honor God and his plan for women as human, as members of social institutions, including the institution of marriage, women must subordinate themselves to men, including their husbands, in this case so as to honor God and his plan for women as women. Once we understand the theological underpinnings of her equivocal reaction to authority and custom, we can see that Astell may be considered a feminist in a very tempered way. -/- My second task is to use these initial conclusions to re-read her proposal for single-sexed education that we find in A Serious Proposal to the Ladies. It is true that Astell encourages women to join single-sexed educational institutions for the unique and empowering friendships that women can develop in such institutions. Still, my argument continues, the development of such friendships is not entirely an end in itself. Rather, Astell encourages women to develop such friendships such that they can re-enter the broader world armed with the tools that will help them endure burdensome features of the lives that await them in the world, including their lives as subordinated wives –burdens that Astell does not, in principle, challenge. (shrink)

I am in almost complete agreement with Arlene Lo (2022). Child abuse victims surely suffer hermeneutical injustice if they are denied the concepts necessary to understand their experience, and that injustice is immensely harmful. In this reply, I offer an amendment to Lo’s use of Sally Haslanger’s distinction between manifest and operative concepts. I then raise some wider questions about the hermeneutical marginalization of children. The work that has so far been done on epistemic injustice against children has focused (...) mostly on testimonial injustice. It is time to give more attention to hermeneutical injustice. (shrink)

Against the backdrop of the English reception of Locke’s Essay, stands a little-known philosophical dispute between two seventeenth-century women writers: Mary Astell (1666-1731) and Damaris Cudworth Masham (1659-1708). On the basis of their brief but heated exchange, Astell and Masham are typically regarded as philosophical adversaries: Astell a disciple of the occasionalist John Norris, and Masham a devout Lockean. In this paper, I argue that although there are many respects in which Astell and Masham are radically (...) opposed, the two women also have a surprising amount in common. Rather than interpret their ideas solely in relation to the ‘canonical’ philosophies of the time – Lockean empiricism and Malebranchean occasionalism – I examine the ways in which Astell and Masham are influenced by the metaphysical theories of the Cambridge Platonists, Ralph Cudworth and Henry More. On this basis, I argue that a remarkably similar theological approach underlies the metaphysical and feminist arguments of Astell and Masham. (shrink)

This dissertation examines the influence of Cambridge Platonism and materialist philosophy on Mary Astell's early feminism. More specifically, I argue that Astell co-opts Descartes's theory of regulating the passions in his final publication, The Passions of the Soul, to articulate a comprehensive, Enlightenment and body friendly theory of feminine self-esteem that renders her feminism modern. My analysis of Astell's theory of feminine self-esteem follows both textual and contextual cues, thus allowing for a reorientation of her early feminism (...) vis-a-vis contemporary feminist theory . An entire chapter in the dissertation is devoted to Astell's use of Descartes's theory of regulating the passions to render women more substantial and inherently worthy. This rendering becomes more concrete in Astell's feminist framework as she employs the language of the social contract in her fourth publication, Reflections Upon Marriage, to depict wives as contractual slaves. I argue that her assertion concerning women's slavery is theoretically consistent when read in light of her theory of feminine self-esteem, since this theory is based on the Enlightenment principles of self-mastery, independence and self-preservation. Further, I align Astell's early feminism in a dialogic sense with the Continental "querelle des femmes," especially as presented in writings by Christine de Pizan and Agrippa. Astell, I argue, contributes to the "querelle" by framing the feminist problem she wishes to solve concerning women's equality in a robust , philosophical manner that uncannily prefigures Wollstonecraft's call for the universalization of human virtues and the reform of of women's education. (shrink)

This chapter shows how Mary Astell and Margaret Cavendish can reasonably be understood as early feminists in three senses of the term. First, they are committed to the natural equality of men and women, and related, they are committed to equal opportunity of education for men and women. Second, they are committed to social structures that help women develop authentic selves and thus autonomy understood in one sense of the word. Third, they acknowledge the power of production relationships, especially (...) friendships among women, in cultivating fulfilling lives for women. All three forms of feminism promote greater liberty for women. Moreover, the chapter establishes that many of these conclusions are especially forceful given Cavendish’s use of the genre of literature, and given the method that literature allows, namely that of presenting alternate points of view. (shrink)

This chapter discusses methodology in feminist history of philosophy and shows that women philosophers made interesting and original contributions to the debates concerning the cosmological argument. I set forth and examine the arguments of Mary Astell, Damaris Masham, Catherine Trotter Cockburn, Emilie Du Châtelet, and Mary Shepherd, and discuss their involvement with philosophical issues and debates surrounding the cosmological argument. I argue that their contributions are original, philosophically interesting, and result from participation in the ongoing debates and controversies about (...) the cosmological argument, causal principles, and necessary existence. (shrink)

Some scholars have identified a puzzle in the writings of Mary Astell (1666–1731), a deeply religious feminist thinker of the early modern period. On the one hand, Astell strongly urges her fellow women to preserve their independence of judgement from men; yet, on the other, she insists upon those same women maintaining a submissive deference to the Anglican church. These two positions appear to be incompatible. In this paper, I propose a historical-contextualist solution to the puzzle: I argue (...) that the seeming inconsistency can be dispelled through a close examination of (i) the concepts of selfhood and self-government in Anglican women’s devotional texts of the period, and of (ii) the role that these concepts play in Astell’s feminist arguments. (shrink)

In this article, I argue that existing literature discounts the role of self-improvement in Astellian friendship. To make this element central, I show how an Epicurean analysis of Astellian friendship brings self-improvement clearly into focus. On the way to centering self-improvement, I show how extant accounts imply self-improvement without explicitly setting up the architecture to explain this element of Astellian friendship. Self-improvement is centralized by way of three shared themes between the Epicurean Garden and the Astellian religious retirement: the motivation (...) to enter, the project inside, and the manner of friendship. (shrink)

Attention has a long history in philosophy, despite its near absence in the twentieth century. This chapter provides an overview of philosophical research on attention. It begins by explaining the concept of "selection from limitation," contrasting it with the more recent "selection for action." It reviews historical texts that discuss attention, focusing on those in the Western canon whose understanding of "attention" aligns with contemporary usage. It then describes the differential treatment of attention in phenomenology and behaviorism in the last (...) century. Finally, it discusses contemporary research by topic: attention, perception, and knowledge; attention and consciousness; attention and action; and attention and the self. It includes work by Allport,Aristotle, Astell, Augustine, Bergson, Berkeley, Block, Bradley, Buddhaghosa, Campbell, Cherry, De Brigard, Dehaene and Naccache, Descartes, Dickie, Du Bois, Ganeri, Hegel, Heidegger, James, Kant, Koch and Tsuchiya, LaBerge, Locke, Mack and Rock, Malebranche, Merleau-Ponty, Mole, Montemayor and Haladjian, Neumann, Pashler, Posner, Prinz, Reid, Rensink, Reynolds and Heeger, Treisman, Watzl, Wittgenstein, Wollstonecraft, and Wu. (shrink)

Our modern ideals about liberty were forged in the great political and philosophical debates of the 17th and 18th centuries, but we seldom hear about women's contributions to those debates. This paper examines the ideas of early modern English women – namely Margaret Cavendish, Mary Astell, Mary Overton, ‘Eugenia’, Sarah Chapone and the civil war women petitioners – with respect to the classic political concepts of negative, positive and republican liberty. The author suggests that these writers' woman-centred concerns provide (...) a unique historical perspective on these much-discussed ideals of freedom from external interference, freedom as self-determination and freedom from domination. (shrink)

In his De la recherche de la vérité (The Search after Truth) of 1674-75, Nicolas Malebranche makes a number of apparently contradictory remarks about women and their capacity for pure intellectual thought. On the one hand, he seems to espouse a negative biological determinism about women’s minds, and on the other, he suggests that women have the free capacity to attain truth and happiness, regardless of their physiology. In the early eighteenth-century, four English women thinkers – Anne Docwra (c. 1624-1710), (...) Mary Astell (1666-1731), Damaris Masham (1659-1708), and Mary Chudleigh (1656-1710) – engaged with Malebranche’s ideas. Their writings reveal how we might dispel the apparent contradictions in Malebranche’s thinking about women, and reaffirm the liberating potential of Cartesian philosophy for women in the early modern period. (shrink)

På mange måter er dette en bok som blir utgitt alt for sent. Det er den første antologien av sitt slag, og retter fokus på kvinnelige metafysikere som virket i den tidlige moderne perioden (16. og tidlig 17. århundre). Redaktør Emily Thomas skriver i introduksjonen at til tross for at flere antologier om moderne metafysikk allerede finnes, er kvinnelige filosofer fortsatt underrepresentert og den filosofiske kanon mannsdominert. De ni filosofene som blir omtalt i totalt 13 kapitler var alle originale og (...) velkjente tenkere i sin samtid, men har blitt glemt i filosofihistoriens løp. (shrink)

In 1816, Thomas Jefferson wrote that the discovery of “representative democracy has rendered useless almost everything written before on the structure of government; and in great measure, relieves our regret, if the political writing of Aristotle, or of any other ancient, have been lost, or are unfaithfully rendered or explained to us” (quoted in Saxonhouse, p. 13). No doubt there are historical reasons to study classical Greece, but between us and them lies not only the discovery of representative democracy, but (...) also the discoveries of Christianity, economics, national and trans-national political institutions, universal human rights, and modern science. What can modern political theory learn from the lessons of old books? Three recent volumes wrestle with this question. Confronting Tyranny asks what we can learn about modern oppressive institutions from their ancient ancestors. In Plato’s Fable, Joshua Mitchell claims that Plato’s Republic offers an account of ethical “imitation” superior to those offered by modern liberalism. In Free Speech and Democracy in Ancient Athens, Arlene Saxonhouse argues that free speech in antiquity differs from our rights-based understanding of the practice, and yet it shed light on the presuppositions of modern freedoms. (shrink)