Mente, materia e pensiero. La strategia anti-lockiana di Mary Astell

digital

Article

Magazine

RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA NEO-SCOLASTICA

Issue

RIVISTA DI FILOSOFIA NEO-SCOLASTICA - 2023 - 2. Matter and Its Semantic Correlations Some Ancient and Modern Examples

Title

Mente, materia e pensiero. La strategia anti-lockiana di Mary Astell

Mind, Matter, and Thought. Mary Astell’s Strategy against Locke

Author

Emilio Maria De Tommaso

Publisher

Vita e Pensiero

Format

Article |

Pdf

Pages

Online from

07-2023

Doi

10.26350/001050_000358

Issn

0035-6247 (print) | 1827-7926 (digital)

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In The Christian Religion, As Profess’d by a Daughter of the Church of England (London 1705) by Mary Astell, the author challenges many aspects of John Locke’s philosophy concerning theology, politics, ethics and religion. This manuscript focuses on one of her main criticisms against Locke, that is, her rejection of his view on thinking matter. Adopting a dualistic ontology, clearly inspired by Descartes, Astell contests Locke’s substantial agnosticism, and its potentially heretical implications, including materialism and soul’s mortality.
She detects a sort of repugnancy between matter and thought, and, consequently, she argues that thought exclusively pertains to immaterial and immortal beings, such as minds. Following Astell’s reasoning, this paper aims to spotlight her argumentative strategy, which makes use of Locke’s language and philosophy against him, showing the inconsistency of his hypothesis. Interestingly, she comes to justify her ontology of mind on the basis of Lockean epistemology.