Mary Astell: Including Women's Voices in Political Theory

Writing in the seventeenth century, Mary Astell offers some splendid models of what it can mean to include women in determining the purposes of politics, in marking the boundaries of issues on the political agenda, and in analyzing particular political concepts. A contending voice in early modern philosophy, Astell's contributions to political thought are made more visible here by contrast with Thomas Hobbes, with whom she was familiar and somewhat sympathetic.     

Philosophy,Early Modern Intellectual History,and the History of Philosophy

Historians of philosophy are increasingly likely to emphasize the extent to which their work offers a pay‐off for philosophers of un‐historical or anti‐historical inclinations; but this defence is less familiar, and often seems less than self‐evident, to intellectual historians. This article examines this tendency, arguing that such arguments for the instrumental value of historical scholarship in philosophy are often more problematic than they at first appear. Using the relatively familiar case study of René Descartes' reading of his scholastic and Aristotelian contemporaries, the article attempts to problematize this notion of pay‐off from an historian's perspective.     

Mary Astell: Defender of the “Disembodied Mind”

This paper demonstrates how Mary Astell's version of Cartesian dualism supports her disavowal of female subordination and traditional gender roles, her rejection of Locke's notion of “thinking matter” as a major premise for rejecting his political philosophy of “social contracts” between men and women, and, finally, her claim that there is no intrinsic difference between genders in terms of ratiocination, the primary assertion that grants her the title of the first female English feminist.     

The Logic of Chastity: Women,Sex, and the History of Philosophy in the Early Modern Period

Before women could become visible as philosophers, they had first to become visible as rational autonomous thinkers. A social and ethical position holding that chastity was the most important virtue for women, and that rationality and chastity were incompatible, was a significant impediment to accepting women's capacity for philosophical thought. Thus one of the first tasks for women was to confront this belief and argue for their rationality in the face of a self‐referential dilemma.     

社群主义德性观

当代社群主义者在批评现代伦理理论误区的基础上论述了德性伦理,他们认为功利主义和康德主义义务论道德在相互论战中都忽视了人的德性的培育这一关键问题,因而需要复兴古典的德性,特别是亚里士多德所反复论述的德性.德性与幸福紧密相关,同时以理智和基于知识的正确选择为核心,而根本的德性是在两个极端之间取得中道,即中庸之道.公平、正义等不是绝对抽象的,它与人的理性选择和社会实践相关.这些论述对于人们认识现代社会所疏离了的德性,注意培育美德,特别是在民主制度下要求政治人物保持操守,坚守德行,防止腐败,都具有建设性的意义.当然,如何在现代多样化的社会复兴古典德性,防止停留于空幻的议论,真正实现德性践行上的进步,是社群主义者面对的一个理论难题.     

Toward an Evolutionary Democracy: The Philosophy of Mary Parker Follett

We are entering an era in which the idea of democracy itself is undergoing an evolutionary shift. The assumptions and values underlying present models of democratic governance, rooted in earlier eras of rebellion, fail to recognize the dynamic and creative potential of individuals and their social organizations now essential to evolutionary advance. More than eighty years ago, Mary Parker Follett recognized this situation and advanced the idea of a participatory democracy that would be truly evolutionary in its self-guidance. Her insights fit well with current emancipatory systems philosophy and general evolutionary thought.     

An Early Modern Scholastic Theory of Negative Entities: Thomas Compton Carleton on Lacks,Negations, and Privations

Seventeenth century scholastics had a rich debate about the ontological status and nature of lacks, negations, and privations. Realists in this debate posit irreducible negative entities responsible for the non-existence of positive entities. One of the first scholastics to develop a realist position on negative entities was Thomas Compton Carleton. In this paper I explain Carleton's theory of negative entities, including what it is for something to be negative, how negative entities are individuated, whether they are abstract or concrete, and how they affect their subjects. I argue that for Carleton, negative entities are conceived as spatially extended simples that affect their subjects by means of spatial overlap. I also show how Carleton responds to some theological worries about his realism concerning negative entities.     

正义与美德——道德哲学的结构及其内在张力

正义与美德是西方道德哲学的核心观念,从更广的视域看,二者也构成中国传统道德哲学的逻辑基础。质言之,正义与美德各自具有自己相对独立的意义形式和逻辑面向,标示了两种截然不同、有时竟相互抵牾的道德规范模式。近年来,尤其是随着规范伦理学在现代人类社会普遍注重法制建设的社会历史背景之下的迅速发展,有两个问题越来越突出,即规范伦理学由于过度追求自身形式的精密化而逐渐减蚀其合理性内核和基础;再者,美德伦理学因过度诉求善良意志的纯粹性而拒绝随社会实践的发展将自身现实化或曰显像化,从而造成正义与美德体用殊绝,亦即二者结构的严重失衡及其内在逻辑张力的断裂。道德主体行动判断力和价值观的减弱亦可在这一背景下解释。     

The Psychology of Courage: Modern Research on an Ancient Virtue

While drawing on a limited field of articles and chapters on courage, the editors of The Psychology of Courage: modern research on an ancient virtue have postulated a viable history of the evolution of courage in psychology and chosen a select set of articles which advocate the influence of some of the more modern approaches to psychological thought, while relying only slightly on the historical and alternative views of courage. An alternative view and application of courage presented here examines the impact of courage as a component of a dynamic system. This dynamic systems approach allows for courage to have an interactional impact on the individual regardless of cultural identity or label.     

当代西方德性伦理的思想特色

德性伦理是当代西方伦理学中非常重要的一支,已经成为了当代各种思想不断争论的舞台和焦点.可以说,在当代,几乎每一种新的思潮和文化流派都会或多或少地涉及德性伦理.与康德主义和功利主义相比较,德性伦理具有基础性、批判性和叙事性等特征.     

Mary Astell’s critique of Pierre Bayle: atheism and intellectual integrity in the Pensées (1682)

ABSTRACT

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 towards 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.