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Notes
1 For details, see M. Atherton, ‘Cartesian Reason and Gendered Reason’, in A Mind of One's Own: Feminist Essays on Reason and Objectivity, edited by L.M. Antony and C. Witt (Boulder and Oxford: Westview Press, 1993), 19–34; S. Bordo, ‘Introduction’, Feminist Interpretations of René Descartes, edited by S. Bordo (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999), 1–25; J. Broad, Women Philosophers of the Seventeenth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002); E. Harth, Cartesian Women: Versions and Subversions of Rational Discourse in the Old Regime (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992); E. Harth, ‘Cartesian Women’, in Feminist Interpretations of René Descartes, 213–31; S. Hutton, ‘Women Philosophers and the Early Reception of Descartes’, in Receptions of Descartes: Cartesianism and Anti-Cartesianism in Early Modern Europe, edited by T.M. Schmaltz (New York and London: Routledge, 2005), 3–23; J.K. Kinnaird, ‘Mary Astell and the Conservative Contribution to English Feminism’, The Journal of British Studies, 19:1 (1979), 53–75; E. O'Neill, ‘Women Cartesians, “Feminine Philosophy”, and Historical Exclusion’, in Feminist Interpretations, 232–57; R. Perry, ‘Radical Doubt and the Liberation of Women’, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 18:4 (1985), 472–93; K.M. Rogers, Feminism in Eighteenth-Century England (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982); H.L. Smith, Reason's Disciples: Seventeenth Century English Feminists (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1982); and H.L. Smith, ‘Intellectual Bases for Feminist Analyses: The Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries’, in Women and Reason, edited by E.D. Harvey and K. Okruhlik (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1992), 19–38.
2 M. Astell, A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Parts I and II, edited by P. Springborg (London: Pickering & Chatto, 1997), 119.
3 Astell, A Serious Proposal.
4 On F.P. de la Barre, see S. Stuurman, François Poulain de la Barre and the Invention of Modern Equality (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
5 P. Hazard, The European Mind (1680–1715), translated by J.L. May (London: Hollis & Carter, 1953), 134.
6 C.J. McCracken, Malebranche and British Philosophy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1983), 14.
7 McCracken, Malebranche and British Philosophy, 156.
8 N. Malebranche, Father Malebranche's Treatise concerning the search after truth the whole work compleat, translated by Thomas Taylor (Oxford, 1694).
9 N. Malebranche, Malebranch's Search After Truth, or, A treatise of the nature of the humane mind and of its management for avoiding error in the sciences, translated by R. Sault, 2 vols (London, 1694–95).
10 N. Malebranche, Christian Conferences: Demonstrating the Truth of the Christian Religion and Morality (London, 1695).
11 McCracken, Malebranche and British Philosophy, 5–6. Other early modern Englishwomen who comment on Malebranchean philosophy (not discussed here) include Elizabeth Thomas (1675–1731), Sarah Fyge Egerton (1670–1723), and Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679–1749). For their opinions, see R. Gwinnett and E. Thomas, The Honourable Lovers: Or, The Second and Last Volume of Pylades and Corinna (London, 1732), 131–152, 199–224; S.F. Egerton, Poems on Several Occasions, Together with a Pastoral (London, 1703), 27–31; and C.T. Cockburn, The Works of Mrs Catharine Cockburn, Theological, Moral, Dramatic, and Poetical, edited by T. Birch, 2 vols (London, 1751), vol. 2, 190–91.
12 N. Malebranche, The Search after Truth, translated by and edited by T.M. Lennon and P.J. Olscamp, and Elucidations of The Search after Truth, translated by and edited by T.M. Lennon (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 130–31. Unless otherwise noted, my citations are from this edition.
13 Malebranche, Elucidations, 542.
14 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 130.
15 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 326.
16 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 279.
17 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 279.
18 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 326.
20 Hamerton, ‘Malebranche, Taste, and Sensibility’, 555.
19 K.J. Hamerton, ‘Malebranche, Taste, and Sensibility: The Origins of Sensitive Taste and a Reconsideration of Cartesianism's Feminist Potential’, Journal of the History of Ideas, 69:4 (2008), 533–58 (537). Hamerton is not the only recent scholar to highlight the negative aspects of Malebranche's views about women: see also R. Perry, The Celebrated Mary Astell: An Early English Feminist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986), 78; and P. Springborg, Mary Astell: Theorist of Freedom from Domination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 65.
21 For S. Richardson's dramatization of Astell's ideas, see J. Harris, ‘Philosophy and Sexual Politics in Mary Astell and Samuel Richardson’, in this issue.
22 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 2.
25 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 454; my italics.
23 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 185.
24 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 151.
26 Malebranche, Elucidations, 542.
27 Malebranche, Elucidations, 542.
33 Docwra, ‘A Treatise concerning Enthusiasm’, 46.
28 On Docwra's religio-political thought, see J. Broad and K. Green, A History of Women's Political Thought in Europe, 1400–1700 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 235–42.
29 A. Docwra, ‘A Treatise concerning Enthusiasm, or Inspiration, of the Holy Spirit of God. By A. D.’, in The Second Part of An Apostate-Conscience Exposed: Being an Answer to a Scurrilous Pamphlet (London, 1700), 38.
30 Docwra, ‘A Treatise concerning Enthusiasm’, 39.
31 Docwra, ‘A Treatise concerning Enthusiasm’, 45.
32 Docwra, ‘A Treatise concerning Enthusiasm’, 45.
34 Docwra, ‘A Treatise concerning Enthusiasm’, 46. Docwra quotes from T. Taylor's translation of the chapter ‘That we see all things in God’ in Malebranche's Search after Truth (1694).
39 Astell, Proposal, 24.
43 M. Astell, Reflections upon Marriage (1706), in Astell: Political Writings, edited by P. Springborg (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 21–2.
35 Their exchange was later published as Letters concerning the Love of God (1695). For a modern edition, see M. Astell and J. Norris, Letters Concerning the Love of God, edited by E. D. Taylor and M. New (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2005). My citations are from this text.
36 Astell and Norris, Letters, 92.
37 Astell and Norris, Letters, 94.
38 Astell and Norris, Letters, 103.
40 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 303.
41 Astell, Proposal, 146.
42 Astell, Proposal, 117.
44 In the Preface to his Elucidations of The Search after Truth, Malebranche writes: ‘Therefore it happens often, that Women and Children discover the falsity of certain Prejudices which have been controverted, because they dare not pass their Judgments upon them without Examination, but use all the attention they are capable of in what they read; whereas, on the contrary, the Learned persist in their Opinions, because they will not give themselves the trouble to examine those of others, when they are directly opposite to what they think already’ (Malebranche, Search after Truth, translated by Sault, vol. 2, 359). P. Springborg wrongly notes that Astell offers a ‘somewhat free rendering’ (Astell, Reflections, 22) of Book I, Chapter I of both Taylor and Sault's translations of the main text, The Search after Truth.
45 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 119.
46 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 113.
47 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 119.
48 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 126–7.
49 A. Docwra, An Apostate-Conscience Exposed, And The Miserable Consequences thereof Disclosed (London, 1699), 50.
50 J. Norris, The Theory and Regulation of Love (Oxford, 1688), ii–v.
51 J. Norris, Reflections upon the Conduct of Human Life: With Reference to the Study of Learning and Knowledge (London, 1690), 62.
52 Norris, Reflections, 34, 37, 75.
53 See D. C. Masham, A Discourse Concerning the Love of God (1696), in The Philosophical Works of Damaris, Lady Masham, introduction by J.G. Buickerood (Bristol: Thoemmes Continuum, 2004), 71–6, 103–4, 107–8.
54 Quoted in Masham, Discourse, 75.
58 Masham, Discourse.
59 Masham, Discourse, 105.
60 D.C. Masham, Occasional Thoughts in Reference to a Vertuous or Christian Life (1705), in The Philosophical Works, 7–8.
55 Masham, Discourse, 76.
56 Masham, Discourse, 66.
57 Masham, Discourse, 102.
61 Masham, Occasional Thoughts, 64–5.
62 Masham, Occasional Thoughts, 69–70.
63 On this topic, see E.J. Kremer, ‘Malebranche on Human Freedom’, in The Cambridge Companion to Malebranche, edited by S. Nadler (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 190–219; S. Peppers-Bates, Nicolas Malebranche: Freedom in an Occasionalist World (London and New York: Continuum, 2009); A. Pessin, ‘Malebranche's Doctrine of Freedom/Consent and the Incompleteness of God's Volitions’, British Journal for the History of Philosophy, 8:1 (2000), 21–53; A. Pyle, Malebranche (London and New York: Routledge, 2003), Chapter 9; and T. M. Schmaltz, Malebranche's Theory of the Soul: A Cartesian Interpretation (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), Chapter 6.
64 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 5.
65 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 11.
66 Astell, Proposal, 89.
67 Astell, Proposal, 153.
68 Astell and Norris, Letters, 91.
69 Astell, Proposal, 153.
70 Astell, Proposal, 97.
71 M. Astell, The Christian Religion, As Profess'd by a Daughter Of The Church of England (London: R. Wilkin, 1705), 295.
72 Astell, Proposal, 114.
73 Astell, Christian Religion, 86.
74 Astell, Christian Religion, 278.
75 Astell, Proposal, 90.
76 Astell, Proposal, 122.
77 Astell, Proposal, 110.
78 Schmaltz, Malebranche's Theory of the Soul, 192–3.
79 Schmaltz, Malebranche's Theory of the Soul, 192.
80 Astell, Proposal, 98.
81 Astell and Norris, Letters, 119.
82 Astell, Christian Religion, 136.
83 J. Norris, ‘A Discourse Concerning the Measure of Divine Love’, in Practical Discourses Upon several Divine Subjects (London, 1693), 13.
84 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 5, 267.
88 Astell, Proposal, 155.
85 Astell, Christian Religion, 36.
86 Astell, Christian Religion, 289.
87 Astell, Christian Religion, 5.
90 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 130.
89 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 130.
91 Malebranche, Elucidations, 612; my italics.
92 Malebranche, Elucidations, 612.
93 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 339.
94 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 415.
95 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 342.
96 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 132; my italics.
97 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 131.
98 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 130.
102 Malebranche, Search after Truth.
106 Chudleigh, Ladies Defence, in Poems and Prose, 12.
99 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 249.
100 Malebranche, Search after Truth.
101 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 130–31.
103 J. Sprint, The Bride-Womans Counseller. Being a Sermon Preach'd at a Wedding (London, 1699), 6.
104 Sprint, The Bride-Womans Counseller, 4.
105 M. Chudleigh, ‘Of Friendship’, in The Poems and Prose of Mary, Lady Chudleigh, edited by M.J.M. Ezell (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), 348.
107 Chudleigh, Ladies Defence, 31.
108 Chudleigh, Ladies Defence, 34.
109 Hamerton, ‘Malebranche, Taste, and Sensibility’, 536, 538.
110 See A. Pyle, ‘Nicolas Malebranche: Insider or Outsider?’ in Insiders and Outsiders in Seventeenth-Century Philosophy, edited by G.A.J. Rogers, T. Sorell and J. Kraye (New York and London: Routledge, 2010), 122–50.
111 Malebranche, Search after Truth, 131.
112 For their financial assistance in the writing of this paper, I am extremely grateful to the Australian Research Council, who awarded me a Future Fellowship in 2010 for the purposes of carrying out research on Astell and her contemporaries. For their helpful suggestions, I am indebted to Peter Anstey, Jocelyn Harris and other participants in the conference on ‘Women, Philosophy, and Literature in the Early Modern Period’, held at the University of Otago in September 2009. An earlier version of this paper was presented at that conference.