Edmund Burke Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

PDF-PowerPoint presentation of the talk I gave on Sunday, 26th August 2018 at the 2018 Societas Ethica Annual Conference, Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium, 23th – 26th August 2018.
Abstract
In the first chapter of her “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman”, Mary Wollstonecraft defines human degrees of reason, virtue and knowledge as the instruments for measurement of human nature’s perfection. Reason, virtue and knowledge constitute, in Wollstonecraft’s intents, the new values that ought to promote a radical change, in general, in the whole human dimension and, in particular, in the woman’s sphere of life. In my contribution, I would like to analyse principles, contents and arguments present in Mary Wollstonecraft’s work “A Vindication of the Rights of Woman” – published in 1792 –, which constitutes one of the first texts – probably the first “manifesto” – of the feminist movement. I will also take into consideration Wollstonecraft’s work “A Vindication of the Rights of Men” in order to investigate the main points of Wollstonecraft’s criticism of Burke’s “Reflections on Revolution in France”. An initial, rather short part of my contribution will be dedicated to the presentation of the main events in Wollstonecraft’s life, in order to reconstruct at least some of the cultural and intellectual environments with which Mary Wollstonecraft came in contact during her life: Wollstonecraft’s role and contribution in the Enlightenment will thereby be described. Furthermore, the exposition of some biographical facts regarding Mary Wollstonecraft will aim at illustrating the dimensions of the hostile political and intellectual groups against which Mary Wollstonecraft had to fight in her life, since Wollstonecraft’s positions apparently belonged to an absolute minority as regards the spectrum of ideas of her times. The main aim of my investigation will consist in showing that both “Vindications” are expressions of a programme of radical modification of the society: The subjection of women in the `community is, in Wollstonecraft’s view, a part of the greater problem of the subjugated social community. Wollstonecraft expresses in her works an absolute denial of the traditional education of women: Wollstonecraft’s principal purpose is to promote the change of female education and the reform the social and political institution oppressing women. Women’s inclusion into public life can be reached, in the opinion of Mary Wollstonecraft, only through a common education for men and women; reform of the education of women means reform of the society.
We will see that one of the aims of Wollstonecraft lies in persuading women to abandon a false conception of the feminine nature in order to let them adopt the practical virtues of rationality, autonomy, and self-reliance. Wollstonecraft expresses her absolute denial of whichever categorization of women as creature of feeling rather than of reason. This point constitutes the first step, in Wollstonecraft meditation, towards a model and towards a proposal of a new education, in which women and men are given the same kind of education: education ought to produce in individual the attitudes to reason, to autonomy and to independence. The education to the attitude and the behaviour led by reason represents, in Wollstonecraft’s project, the opposition to the traditional cultivation, in the women’s sphere, of sensibility. The main principle of Wollstonecraft’s project of education consists in the persuasion that, without knowledge, there can be no morality: not sensibility, but reason ought to be the aim of the education itself. A method of education promoting sensibility in the individual can only produce mental instability in the individual; moreover, education tending to strengthening sensibility in women proves to be an agent in the diminution of value and in the consequent oppression of women. The duty of women consists, in Wollstonecraft’ view, in abandoning false femininity in order to reach the practical virtues of rationality, independence and self-reliance. The mind has no sex: There is no natural disposition because of which men are reason, and women are sensibility. This artificial distinction, which lies at the very origin of the oppression of women, is established only in the society: therefore, the society ought to be, in Wollstonecraft’s intents, profoundly reformed. I shall point out, furthermore, Wollstonecraft’s connections with the religious environment of her time. The religious roots of Mary Wollstonecraft’s thought will be, therefore, investigated in order to demonstrate that her thought was profoundly influenced by the religious background of that time: I will show that Wollstonecraft’s meditation cannot be interpreted without its connections with the positions of the radical dissenters. Moreover, utopian components are not extraneous to her theological conceptions. My analysis will, furthermore, concentrate on the reconstruction of Wollstonecraft’s polemical issues: therefore, I shall analyse Wollstonecraft’s criticism of, for instance, Rousseau’s and of Milton’s conception of the woman. As regards the connections of Mary Wollstonecraft with the feminist movement, the main question I shall propose in my contribution will consist in analysing whether the feminism model of Mary Wollstonecraft does or does not contain in itself a tension or even a contradiction between a possible radical feminism component and a more traditional component. Through her radical feminist component, Wollstonecraft undoubtedly denounces many forms of oppression of women. On the other hand, due to her traditional component, Wollstonecraft apparently binds the role of women, for instance, to the role of mothers, thus reaffirming the diversity, as to social duties and social self-realization, between men and women. In other words, the question will be whether Mary Wollstonecraft oscillates between models of radical, anti-patriarchal feminism and models of acceptance of separate spheres for male and women. The bibliographical studies on Mary Wollstonecraft will help in the analysis of the presence (or not) of this dilemma in her works.