Mary Wollstonecraft: Philosophy and Enlightenment
\nA\none-day symposium at Lund University
\nThursday 23 February 2012.
\nVenue: The Pufendorf Institute\n(http://www.pi.lu.se/)
\nThis symposium is open to all. Enquiries\nand registration:
\nLena Halldenius (lena.halldenius@mrs.lu.se)
\nMartina Reuter\n(martina.reuter@helsinki.fi)
\nSee\nalso http://www.agency.filosofi.uu.se/
\nOrganized jointly by:
\nThe Understanding Agency Research Programme\, Uppsala and Lund
\nThe Philosophical Psychology\, Morality and\nPolitics Research Unit\, Helsinki and Jyvä\;skylä\;
\nPapers with abstracts
\nKaren O&rsquo\;Brien | Birmingham
\nMary Wollstonecraft\, Enlightenment\nthinker
\nAbstract will follow
\n\;
\n\;
\nMartina Reuter | Helsinki and Jyvä\;skylä\;
\nRousseau\, Macaulay and\nWollstonecraft on Negative Education
\nIn her Letters on Education\, Catherine Macaulay\nadapts J.-J. Rousseau&rsquo\;s notion of negative education\, emphasizing that the\nprimary task of education is to protect children from harmful impressions.\nThere is a certain tension in Macaulay&rsquo\;s use of the notion. Her belief in the\nactive power of reason is much stronger than Rousseau&rsquo\;s and she does not seem\nto realize that Rousseau introduced the notion of negative education as an explicit\ncritique of John Locke&rsquo\;s theory of education. In my presentation I will first\nexamine Macaulay&rsquo\;s adaption of negative education and then\, in the second part\nof the paper\, I will argue that Mary Wollstonecraft seems to be less influenced\nby the idea of negative education than Macaulay. I suggest that\nWollstonecraft&rsquo\;s slightly lesser worry about harmful impressions does not\nprimarily follow from her belief in reason\, which she shares with Macaulay\, but\nrather from her conception of the imagination. According to Wollstonecraft&rsquo\;s\nnotion of creative imagination\, the imagination is not merely passively\ninflamed by impressions\, but also able to create impressions and combine reason\nwith passion.
\n\;
\nSandrine Berges | Bilkent
\nWollstonecraft on the\nVirtue of Chastity
\nIn the Vindication of the Rights of Women\, Wollstonecraft offers one of\nthe very few existing philosophical discussions of the virtue of\nchastity. \; I argue that her account is Aristotelian\, focusing as it does\non the idea that chastity is a firm character trait rather than a natural\ndisposition\, and that it is a mean between a vice of excess and one of\ndeficiency. Her account is somewhat complicated by the fact that she explains\nchastity as a derivative of modesty\, not understood as a sexual virtue\, but a\njust understanding of one's own worth. In that sense her account is very close\nto an account of modesty offered by Irene McMullin in her 2010 paper. The\nlinking of modesty and chastity enables Wollstonecraft to give an account of\nchastity different from those of her predecessors\, such that a feminist would\nbe comfortable accepting it\, but it also raises some potential worries about\nwhether concerns of chastity place an unreasonable burden on women. I will\nargue that responding to these worries by further developing the account in\nfact gives us some of the tools we need to combat oppressive prejudices and\nrelated practices traditionally born of concerns for chastity.
\nAlan Coffee | Birkbeck
\nFreedom as Independence:\nMary Wollstonecraft and the Grand Blessing of Life
\nThe importance of independence is a central and\nrecurring theme within Wollstonecraft&rsquo\;s work. As she uses the term\,\nindependence is not equated with contemporary notions of &lsquo\;autonomy&rsquo\; and should\nnot be understood as an individualistic ideal that is in tension with the\nsocial and relational aspects of her writing. Rather\, independence is a rich\nand complex concept that not only protects an individual from all forms of\narbitrary power\, but which requires that all others in society are also\nprotected to a comparable extent. This guarantees political\, economic and\,\ncrucially\, social equality for both men and women. More significantly\, the\non-going collective input of both sexes on equal terms is required to ensure\nthat the conditions for independence are maintained. Independence\, then\,\ndemands an effective and extensive social equality which is backed up by a high\ndegree of social cooperation. Understood in this way\, independence is a\npowerful concept in Wollstonecraft's hands for showing how women's subjection can\nbe brought to an end.
\nLena Halldenius | Lund
\nDrawing from the Original Source. Wollstonecraft on\nMorality and Nature
\nMy aim here is to\nanalyze what acting morally means and requires in Wollstonecraft&rsquo\;s thought.\nThis is usefully done partly by identifying what it is that makes moral agency\nso difficult. I argue that there are three components to Wollstonecraft&rsquo\;s\ntheory of moral agency: an internal intellectual struggle\, acting on a universal\nmotive\, and the activity of freely disposing of one&rsquo\;s person. The sometimes\noverwhelming difficulty of acting on the duty to be moral &ndash\; despite a person&rsquo\;s\nvery best intentions &ndash\; makes up the stuff of Wollstonecraft&rsquo\;s novels. I will\nuse her novels here to investigate how she lets &lsquo\;nature&rsquo\; and its counterpoint\n&lsquo\;artifice&rsquo\; serve to show of what this difficulty is made.
ORGANIZER;CN=Lena Halldenius;CN=Martina Reuter: METHOD:PUBLISH END:VEVENT END:VCALENDAR