Jessica Gordon-Roth

Expanding the canon of philosophy to include early modern women writers necessarily requires interdisciplinary work. This is because philosophy remains far behind other fields in the humanities with respect to the project of canon expansion, and thus, attempts to expand the canon of philosophy rely, in large part, on the past and current scholarship of those in other humanities disciplines. In this paper, we argue for this claim and highlight some of the challenges that historians of philosophy face when they are engaged in the project of canon expansion, given differences in disciplinary norms. We then consider the important work of Carol Pal and Judith Zinsser to show how the contributions of those outside of the discipline of philosophy can deepen and expand the understanding historians of philosophy have of early modern women philosophers and their works. We conclude by suggesting that some of the issues we highlight here, and elsewhere (Gordon-Roth and Kendrick 2019), are challenges faced not only by those working in the history of philosophy; they’re challenges faced by anyone working to recover the intellectual lives of women: Intimate details of women scholars’ personal lives rather regularly bleed into discussions of their work, even when we, as commentators, aim to avoid that very conflation. When the personal seeps into the intellectual, female intellectual authority is diminished. What we suggest, then, is an interdisciplinary effort to change the way in which we talk about women and their work.

This entry explores two features of John Locke’s (1632-1704) theological commitments: the existence and nature of God; and, the nature of punishment in the afterlife. Locke argues for a cogitative and immaterial God. Locke also denies eternal damnation, or eternal punishment and torment in the afterlife. The goal of this entry is to not only showcase Locke’s often overlooked discussion of eternal damnation, but also to show how this discussion, and Locke’s treatment of God, link up with his groundbreaking and influential discussion of persons and their persistence conditions.

John Locke (1632–1704) added the chapter in which he treats persons and their persistence conditions (Book 2, Chapter 27) to the second edition of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding in 1694, only after being encouraged to do so by William Molyneux (1692–1693).[1] Nevertheless, Locke’s treatment of personal identity is one of the most discussed and debated aspects of his corpus. Locke’s discussion of persons received much attention from his contemporaries, ignited a heated debate over personal identity, and continues to influence and inform the debate over persons and their persistence conditions. This entry aims to first get clear on the basics of Locke’s position, when it comes to persons and personal identity, before turning to areas of the text that continue to be debated by historians of philosophy working to make sense of Locke’s picture of persons today. It then canvases how Locke’s discussion of persons was received by his contemporaries, and concludes by briefly addressing how those working in metaphysics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries have responded to Locke’s view—giving the reader a glimpse of Locke’s lasting impact and influence on the debate over personal identity.

Mary Astell (1666-1731) is often described as a Cartesian—and for good reason. Many of her philosophical positions align with Descartes’. Nonetheless, it is possible to overstress the similarities between Astell’s philosophy and Descartes’. This entry focuses on the ways their views diverge in order to get a fuller understanding of Astell’s epistemology. Her approach to meditation, the emphasis she places on social dimensions of inquiry, her commitment to cultivating intellectual virtues, and her insights concerning what we would now call “epistemic injustice” are among the elements that distinguish her philosophy from Descartes’ and mark her as a significant early modern epistemologist.

There’s long-standing debate over whether Locke can be considered a feminist of sorts; and there’s good reason for this: Much of what Locke says is ambiguous on the gender front. But one topic about which Locke is rather regularly described as a feminist is education. Nevertheless, Giuliana DiBiase (2020) has recently argued that Locke thinks women are naturally less rational than men—offering a decidedly anti-feminist reading of Locke on education. In this chapter, we contribute to the debate over Locke on gender and education in the following ways: We start by showing how even purportedly objective pictures of Locke’s Some Thoughts Concerning Education lean toward a feminist reading by excluding important bits of the broader context within which Locke was writing, and we work to re-set the stage some. Thereafter, we offer a taxonomy of the ways in which commentators utilize the main bit of evidence they present for their interpretations of Locke on gender and education: Letter 809. We then problematize Letter 809 and offer our own reading of it. As we do, we explore how the context provided by Locke’s often-overlooked ‘Midwifery Notes’ appears to tip the interpretive scales toward an anti-feminist reading; but, we also challenge the argument DiBiase offers for the conclusion that Locke thinks women are naturally less rational than men—turning to Locke’s Of the Conduct of the Understanding and ‘Anatomia’ along the way. As a result of our inquiry, we don’t come to any hard and fast conclusions about Locke’s stance on gender and education. Rather, our point is to underscore that it is rather difficult—indeed, far more difficult than most commentators have noted—to do so, given the evidence that we have. But, importantly, this is different from concluding that Locke himself failed to come to any concrete conclusions about the degree to which girls and women are included in his picture of education, or whether, more generally, women naturally have the same rational capacities as men. We conclude by raising some metaphilosophical questions about what it means to call an early modern philosopher or their text “feminist” in the first place.

In this chapter I explore whether what’s come to be known as Locke’s ‘Midwifery Notes’ reveals that Locke has a tendency toward a sexist epistemology. I argue that it doesn’t appear as if Locke is challenging women as epistemic agents per se in this document, but rather the efficacy of midwives. I then consider whether Locke has the kind of attitude that undergirds the eventual divide between obstetrics and midwifery as it arises in the US—a divide taken to be teeming with sexist assumptions on the obstetrics’ side. I argue that this kind of reading is ruled out given what Locke says about the practices of midwives in the ‘Midwifery Notes’ and what he says about medical practice more generally in ‘Anatomia.’ Nevertheless, there is something different about Locke’s tone in the ‘Midwifery Notes’ and it’s worth considering how the trope of the ‘meddling’ or ‘useless’ woman is playing a role in this often overlooked text.

Catharine Trotter Cockburn is best known for her Defence of Mr. Locke’s Essay of Human Understanding (1702). However very little has been said about Trotter’s treatment of Locke’s metaphysical commitments therein. In this paper I give a brief description of the history of Trotter’s Defence. Thereafter I focus on two (of the many) objections to which Trotter responds on Locke’s behalf: 1) the objection that Locke has not proved the soul immortal, and 2) the objection that Locke’s view leads to the absurd consequence that our souls are in constant flux. I argue that Trotter offers a compelling response to both of these charges. This is not only because of what Trotter explicitly claims in the Defence, but also because the Defence invites and encourages the reader to return to Locke’s text. I then argue that in Trotter we find additional insights and clarifications once we move past the two objections I just mentioned, and on to the related topic of personal identity. In this short paper I am not be able to offer a full explication or evaluation of Trotter’s treatment of Locke’s metaphysical commitments. I am, however, able to show that this aspect of Trotter’s Defence warrants careful consideration and further study.

Berkeley’s two most obvious targets in Alciphron are Shaftesbury and Mandeville. However, as numerous commentators have pointed out, there is good reason to think Berkeley additionally targets Anthony Collins in this dialogue. In this paper, I bolster David Berman’s claim that “Collins looms large in the background” of Dialogue VII, and put some meat on the bones of Raymond Martin and John Barresi’s passing suggestion that there is a connection between the Clarke-Collins Correspondence, Alciphron, and the objection that Berkeley raises regarding persons and their persistence conditions therein. Specifically, I argue that we have evidence that Berkeley’s objection to consciousness-based views of personal identity, as found in VII.8, is a response to a challenge that Collins raises to Clarke in “An Answer to Mr. Clarke’s Third Defense of his Letter to Mr. Dodwell.” This is significant not just because this objection is usually—and consistently—taken to be an objection to Locke, but also because Berkeley’s objection works against Collins’s theory of personal identity in a way that it doesn’t against Locke’s.

Feminist work in the history of philosophy has been going on for several decades. Some scholars have focused on the ways philosophical concepts are themselves gendered. Others have recovered women writers who were well known in their own time but forgotten in ours, while still others have firmly placed into a philosophical context the works of women writers long celebrated within other disciplines in the humanities. The recovery of women writers has challenged the myth that there are no women in the history of philosophy, but it has not eradicated it. What, we may ask, is impeding our progress? This paper argues that so often we treat early modern women philosophers’ texts in ways that are different from, or inconsistent with, the explicit commitments of the analytic tradition, and in so doing, we may be triggering our audiences to reject these women as philosophers, and their texts as philosophical. Moreover, this is the case despite our intention to achieve precisely the opposite effect.

"John Locke is considered as one of the most important philosophers of the modern era. The Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution were both highly influenced by Locke's philosophical ideas. Commonly known as the 'Father of Liberalism' Locke heavily influences contemporary libertarianism, with its emphasis on small government, the requirement of actual consent to that government, and a natural executive right to establish one's own sovereignty and enforce one'' own rights. The Lockean Mind provides a comprehensive survey of his work, not only placing it in its historical context but also exploring its contemporary significance. Comprising almost sixty chapters by a superb team of international contributors, the volume is divided into twelve parts covering the full range of Locke's thought: Historical Background, Locke's Interlocutors, Locke's Epistemology, Locke's Philosophy of Mind, Locke on Philosophy of Language and Logic, Locke's Metaphysics, Locke's Natural Philosophy, Locke's Moral Philosophy, Locke on Education, Locke's Political Philosophy, Locke's Social Philosophy, Locke on Religion. This collection is essential reading for students and researchers working in political philosophy, philosophy of mind, libertarianism, British Empiricism, epistemology and political theory, as well as for those in related Humanities and Social Sciences disciplines with an interest in John Locke"--

One of the most basic questions an ontology can address is: How many things, or substances, are there? A monist will say, ‘just one’. But there are different stripes of monism, and where the borders between these different views lie rests on the question, ‘To what does this “oneness” apply?’ Some monists apply ‘oneness’ to existence. Others apply ‘oneness’ to types. Determining whether a philosopher is a monist and deciphering what this is supposed to mean is no easy task, especially when it comes to those writing in the early modern period because many philosophers of the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries include God in their ontologies. InThe Principles,Anne Finch Conway offers an ontology that is often described as being both ‘vitalist’ and ‘monist’. I take this to mean that, for Conway, all that exists is in some way alive and that if asked ‘How many things, or substances, are there?’ Conway would say, ‘Just one’. But to what does this ‘oneness’ apply? And where does the point of disagreement between Conway and her interlocutors, Hobbes, Spinoza, More, and Descartes lie? In this paper, I argue that determining the answer to this first question turns out to be quite difficult. Nevertheless, we can still make sense of the second.

John Locke discusses the notions of identity and diversity in Book 2, Chapter 27 of An Essay Concerning Human Understanding. At the beginning of this much-discussed chapter, Locke posits the place-time-kind principle. According to this principle, no two things of the same kind can be in the same place at the same time . Just what Locke means by this is unclear, however. So too is whether this principle causes problems for Locke, and whether these problems can be resolved. This is significant because the place-time-kind principle is foundational to Locke's discussion of identity. Moreover, the place-time-kind principle stands at the center of a number of lively and long-standing debates in Locke scholarship. These include the debates over the ontological status of Lockean persons, and whether Locke is a relative identity theorist, to name just two. In this paper, I offer a survey of how Locke's place-time-kind principle has been interpreted in the secondary literature. The aim of this taxonomy is to clarify where the differences between competing interpretations lie, and additionally show just how challenging it is to determine which reading is best

There are many reasons to include texts written by women in early modern philosophy courses. The most obvious one is accuracy: women helped to shape the philosophical landscape of the time. Thus, to craft a syllabus that wholly excludes women is to give students an inaccurate picture of the early modern period. Since it seems safe to assume that we all aim for accuracy, this should be reason enough to include women writers in our courses. This article nonetheless offers an additional reason: when students are exposed to philosophical texts written by women, they learn that women have been, are, and can be philosophers. Given how underrepresented women are in philosophy, this finding is significant. If we aim to change the face of philosophy—so that it includes more women—we must include texts written by women in our syllabi. The article considers various obstacles faced by those who work to respond to this call to action

The importance of John Locke's discussion of persons is undeniable. Locke never explicitly tells us whether he thinks persons are substances or modes, however. We are thus left in the dark about a fundamental aspect of Locke's view. Many commentators have recently claimed that Lockean persons are modes. In this paper I swim against the current tide in the secondary literature and argue that Lockean persons are substances. Specifically I argue that what Locke says about substance, power, and agency commits him to the claim that persons are substances. I consider the passages mode interpreters cite and show why these passages do not imply that Lockean persons are modes. I also respond to two objections anyone who thinks Lockean persons are substances must address. I show that a substance reading of Locke on persons can be sympathetic and viable. I contend that with a clearer understanding of the ontological status of Lockean persons we can gain a firmer grasp of what Locke's picture of persons looks like. Finally, once we are armed with a better understanding of Locke on substance, mode, and personhood, we can pave the way toward a more nuanced description of the early modern debate over personal identity