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'Have Ye Not Heard That We Cannot Serve Two Masters?': The Platonism of Mary Wollstonecraft

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Book chapter

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Authors

Tomaselli, Sylvana 

Abstract

Together with David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Adam Smith, Mary Wollstonecraft thought modern commercial society exacerbated the psychological need of most of their members to seek the approbation of others. Like them, she thought the better part of her contemporaries were caught in a hall of mirrors and sought to be esteemed for their appearance. In her view the contrivances this entailed distorted individual characters, relationships, and society as a whole. Though she partook of a European wide philosophical debate, she came to it from the very unique perspective of a largely self-taught English woman and in a large part from what might be meaningfully conceived as a Platonist perspective. In examining how this might be so, this chapter does not seek to make Wollstonecraft a Platonist as opposed to, say, an Aristotelian, much less a Christian. Her moral and political critique made her eclectic in her use of ideas and argument. She seems however to have been inspired by conceptions of the soul, love, truth and virtue that have their origins in Platonism. Considering her in this light provides greater insights into her philosophy of mind as well as her social and political views and provides a greater understanding of the continued importance of Platonism in the latter part of the eighteenth century.

Description

Title

'Have Ye Not Heard That We Cannot Serve Two Masters?': The Platonism of Mary Wollstonecraft

Keywords

50 Philosophy and Religious Studies, 5002 History and Philosophy Of Specific Fields

Is Part Of

Revisioning Cambridge Platonism: Sources and Legacy

Book type

Publisher

Springer

ISBN

978-3-030-22199-7

Rights

All rights reserved