Suchergebnisse

The philosopher meditating alone in his study is a cliché of western culture. But behind the hackneyed image lies a long history of controversy. Was solitude the 'palace of learning' that many learned people, religious and secular, perceived it, or a debilitating state of solipsistic misery and intellectual degeneracy, as its enemies described it? In the mid eighteenth century the debate became fiercely personal during a public quarrel between two philosophical luminaries: David Hume and Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In the 1760s Rousseau faced persecution from state and church authorities in France and Switzerland. Hume gave him refuge in England. The relationship rapidly turned toxic as the convivial Hume sought to manage his notoriously reclusive charge. Solitude became a casus belli in a war of words that fascinated intellectual Europe. But the fracas was more complex than it appeared. Who are we with, when we are alone? For Hume, no less than Rousseau, the question proved inescapable, in both his personal career and his philosophy. A closer look at two thinkers who, on the surface, were a study in opposites, reveals much about the vicissitudes of solitude in the life of the creative mind.

The validity of Susan Gubar's (1994) interpretation of Mary Wollstonecraft as a misogynist is examined. Three forms of historical inquiry -- examination of intellectual & cultural contexts, study of biographies, & analysis of feminist thought -- are used to scrutinize Wollstonecraft's apparent misogyny. Analysis of Gubar's reading of Wollstonecraft's A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792) reveals that Wollstonecraft strongly attacked the femininity of fashionable & wealthy landed women. It is asserted that Wollstonecraft's misogyny emanated from the traditional perception of women as lacking intellect & moral values & from European male authors' antiwoman writings. Although Gubar's contention that Wollstonecraft disliked herself is supported, Gubar's argument that Wollstonecraft denied her knowledge of herself as woman is challenged. Specifically, it is maintained that Wollstonecraft associated true womanhood with the mother rather than with the libertine, sexualized upper-class woman. It is suggested that Wollstonecraft's self-loathing may have been an inevitable aspect of her female identity. J. W. Parker

[ES] El feminismo de Mary Wollstonecraft está forjado sobre una profunda fe religiosa. De acuerdo con A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), la igualdad social y política de las mujeres es un derecho secular pero, lo que es más importante, es un requisito esencial para la redención espiritual femenina. La visión que inspiró este compromiso, como señala William Godwin en su Memoir sobre Wollstonecraft, es altamente idiosincrática, y combina la religión natural, el panteísmo y el romanticismo platónico —y en este sentido tipifica el carácter innovador del pensamiento religioso de la Ilustración. Pero en los escritos de Wollstonecraft estas ideas adquieren una especial visión feminista. Si la comunión con Dios es la más alta expresión de humanidad en ambos sexos, argumenta la autora, las mujeres deben tener acceso a la libertad emocional e intelectual necesaria para la satisfacción espiritual. La identificación amorosa con la perfección divina es el camino por el cual el alma se da cuenta de su propio potencial sagrado, dice en Rights of Woman; por lo tanto, los corazones y las mentes de las mujeres deben huir de los objetos terrenales en beneficio de los divinos —del Hombre a Dios— por medio de una imaginativa reorientación que sitúa la imagen del Amor sagrado en el centro de la subjetividad moral. El artículo analiza el ideal sobre la orientación divina de la imaginación erótica, y sitúa sus raíces en Rousseau y en otras formas anteriores de platonismo cristiano, para discutir posteriormente las fantasías que se esconden tras esas creencias. Finalmente, se sugiere que a través de la combinación de diferentes análisis históricos y la teoría psicodinámica es como mejor se puede entender el feminismo religioso de WoUstonecraft. ; [EN] Mary Wollstonecraft's feminism was informed by a deep religious faith. According to A Vindication of the Rights of Woman (1792), the social and political equality for women was a secular entitlement but, even more importantly, an esential prerequisite to female spiritual redemption. The vision which inspired this commitment, as William Godwin emphasised in his Memoir of WoUstonecraft, was a highly idiosyncratic one, blending natural religion, pantheism and a romanticised platonism —and in this it typified the innovative character of Enlightenment religious thought. But in Wollstonecraft's writings these ideas acquired a specifically feminist dimension. Since communion with God is the highest expression of humanity in both sexes, she argued, then women must be allowed the emotional and intellectual freedom necessary for spiritual fulfillment. Amorous identification with divine perfection is the mean by which the soul realizes its own sacred potential, the Rights of Woman claimed; thus women's hearts and minds must turn away form earthly objects to heavenly —from Man to God— via an imaginative reorientation which places images of holy Love at the center of their moral subjectivity. The paper explores this ideal of the divinely—oriented erotic imagination, showing its roots in Rousseau and earlier forms of Christian platonism, and then goes on to discuss the fantasies underlying such beliefs. It concludes by suggesting that it is through combining detailed historical analysis with psychodynamic theory that Wollstonecraft's religious feminism can best be understood.