Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination [Hardcover]

This study recovers the historical and philosophical contexts for Mary Astell's thought.Philosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist, and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas of the early modern period. She is best known for the famous question which prefaces her Reflections on Marriage: If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves? She is claimed by modern Republican theorists and feminists alike, but as a Royalist High Church Tory, the peculiar constellation of her views sits uneasily with modern commentators. Patricia Springborg's study addresses these apparent paradoxes and recovers the historical and philosophical contexts for her thought.Philosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist, and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas of the early modern period. She is best known for the famous question which prefaces her Reflections on Marriage: If all men are born free, how is it that all women are born slaves? She is claimed by modern Republican theorists and feminists alike, but as a Royalist High Church Tory, the peculiar constellation of her views sits uneasily with modern commentators. Patricia Springborg's study addresses these apparent paradoxes and recovers the historical and philosophical contexts for her thought.Philosopher, theologian, educational theorist, feminist, and political pamphleteer, Mary Astell was an important figure in the history of ideas of the early modern period in many contexts. (She contributed to the British debate over toleration and dissent from the 1690s, which inaugurated the modern secular state.) Patricia Springborg's study recovers the historical and philosophical contexts of her thought. She demonstrates that Astell was not alone in her views but, rather, part of a cohort of early modern women philosophers grappling with the existential problems of a new age.1. Mary Astell, polemicistl#'