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61A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1400–1700Cambridge University Press. 2009.This ground-breaking book surveys the history of women's political thought in Europe from the late medieval period to the early modern era. The authors examine women's ideas about topics such as the basis of political authority, the best form of political organisation, justifications of obedience and resistance, and concepts of liberty, toleration, sociability, equality, and self-preservation. Women's ideas concerning relations between the sexes are discussed in tandem with their broader politic…Read more
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81When is a contract theorist not a contract theorist? Mary Astell and Catharine Macaulay as critics of Thomas HobbesIn Nancy Hirschmann Joanne Wright (ed.), Feminist Interpretations of Thomas Hobbes, Penn State. pp. 169-89. 2012.Although Catharine Macaulay was a contract theorist and early feminist her philosophy is not based on a concept of liberty like that of Hobbes, but on a notion of individual liberty as self government close to that accepted by Mary Astell. This raises the question of whether criticisms of liberal feminism which assume that it is rooted in Hobbes's suspect notion of freedom and consent may miss there mark.
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62A Moral Philosophy of Their Own? The Moral and Political Thought of Eighteenth-Century British WomenThe Monist 98 (1): 89-101. 2015.Despite the fact that the High-Church Tory, Mary Astell, held political views diametrically opposed to the Whiggish Catharine Trotter Cockburn and Catharine Macaulay, it is here argued that their metaethical views were surprisingly similar. All were influenced by a blend of Christian universalism and Aristotelian eudaimonism, which accepted the existence of a law of nature, that we strive for happiness, and that happiness results from living in accord with our God-given nature. They differed wit…Read more
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11Review of Engaging with Irigaray ed. Carolyn Burke, Naomi Shor and Margaret Whitford (review)International Studies in Philosophy 31. 1999.
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36Liberty and Virtue in Catherine Macaulay's Enlightenment PhilosophyIntellectual History Review 22 (3): 411-426. 2012.Argues that like more conservative feminist writers, Gabrielle Suchon and Mary Astell, writing earlier in the Eighteenth Century, Macaulay's concept of liberty is closely tied to virtue and involves free self government according to reason. Unlike these earlier writers from this concept of liberty she deduces the rationality of democratic republican government. Thus the grounds on which she builds her republicanism involve a very different concept of rational self interest to that usually assume…Read more
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52Does science persecute women? The case of the 16th–17th century witch-HuntsPhilosophy 73 (2): 195-217. 1998.I. Logic, rationality and ideology Herbert Marcuse once claimed that the ‘“rational” is a mode of thought and action which is geared to reduce ignorance, destruction, brutality, and oppression.’ He echoed a widespread folk belief that a world in which people were rational would be a better world. This could be taken as an optimistic empirical conjecture: if people were more rational then probably the world would be a better place (a trust that ‘virtue will be rewarded’, so to speak). However, it…Read more
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136Prostitution, Exploitation and TabooPhilosophy 64 (250). 1989.It is so generally accepted that prostitution is immoral, that this is one of the least discussed of all ethical issues. Few serious philosophical treatments of the subject have been published. Of these, at least one, Lars Ericsson's, ‘Charges against Prostitution’, throws into stark relief the apparent inconsistency of our community attitudes. For it demonstrates that, from the point of view of the simple free market liberalism, to which many subscribe, there is nothing immoral about prostituti…Read more
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1Brooke A. Ackerly, Political Theory and Feminist Social Criticism Reviewed by (review)Philosophy in Review 22 (1): 1-3. 2002.
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1Will the real Enlightenment historian please stand up? Catharine Macaulay versus David HumeIn Stephen Buckle Craig Taylor (ed.), Hume and the Enlightenment, Pickering & Chatto. 2011.Argues that on an interpretation of the Enlightenment which emphasises its radical potential and importance for the development of democracy Catharine Macaulay should be recognised as a more centrally Enlightenment historian than David Hume.
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15The woman of reason: feminism, humanism, and political thoughtContinuum. 1995.This is a timely re-appraisal of feminist political thinkers and their male contemporaries, providing a re-evaluation of feminist humanism.
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48Psychologism and anti-realismAustralasian Journal of Philosophy 64 (4). 1986.This Article does not have an abstract
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98Freud, wollstonecraft, and ecofeminismEnvironmental Ethics 16 (2): 117-134. 1994.I examine recent arguments to the effect that there are significant logical, conceptual, historical, or psychosexual connections between the subordination of women and the subordination of nature and argue that they are all problematic. Although there are important connections between women’s emancipation and the achievement of important environmental goals, they are practical connections rather than conceptual ones
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12Virtue, Liberty, and Toleration: Political Ideas of European Women, 1400-1800 (edited book)Springer. 2007.This volume challenges the view that women have not contributed to the historical development of political ideas, and highlights the depth and complexity of women’s political thought in the centuries prior to the French Revolution. From the late medieval period to the enlightenment, a significant number of European women wrote works dealing with themes of political significance. The essays in this collection examine their writings with particular reference to the ideas of virtue, liberty, and to…Read more
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88Was Searle's Descriptivism Refuted?Teorema: International Journal of Philosophy 17 (1): 109-13. 1998.It is generally thought that Searle 's cluster theory of the sense of a proper name was soundly refuted by Kripke in Naming and Necessity. This paper challenges this widespread belief and argues that the observations made by Kripke do not show that Searle 's version of descriptivism is false. Indeed, charitably interpreted, Searle 's theory retains considerable plausibility
Parkville, Victoria, Australia
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Language |
Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy |
17th/18th Century Philosophy |
Continental Philosophy |