Elizabeth Berkeley Burnet (1661–1709)

This chapter contains letters from the correspondence between religious writer Elizabeth Berkeley Burnet and her friend the English philosopher John Locke. It includes a selection of fifteen letters, spanning the period from 1696 to 1702. The main topic of their exchange is the Locke-Stillingfleet debate, a protracted religious controversy that began when Edward Stillingfleet, the Bishop of Worcester, highlighted the sceptical implications of Locke’s empiricism for significant articles of the Christian faith. This chapter begins with an introductory essay by the editor, situating Burnet’s critique of Locke’s Reply to Stillingfleet in relation to the themes of Burnet’s sole published work. It is argued that in this work Burnet puts forward a moral ideal of philosophical disputation, an ideal that is first developed in her letters to Locke. The correspondence includes editorial annotations, to assist the reader’s understanding of early modern words and ideas.

Damaris Cudworth Masham (1659–1708)

This chapter contains selected letters from the private correspondence of the moral philosopher Damaris Cudworth Masham. It includes some of Masham’s letters to and from her close friend John Locke, the well-known English empiricist and political thinker, as well as her correspondence with the Genevan philosopher-theologian Jean Le Clerc and the German philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, spanning the period from 1682 to 1705. The topics of the letters range from issues to do with enthusiasm, faith, and knowledge to friendship, Stoicism, Locke’s idea of thinking matter, and Ralph Cudworth’s doctrine of plastic nature. The chapter begins with an introductory essay by the editor, situating Masham’s letters in relation to the development of her own independent moral and epistemological views in her published works. The text includes a number of editorial annotations, to assist the reader’s understanding of early modern words and ideas.

Anne Conway (1631–79)

This chapter contains selected letters from the correspondence of Anne, Viscountess Conway, and the Cambridge Platonist and philosopher-theologian Henry More. The letters span the period from 1650 to 1653 and are mainly focused on ideas in René Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy and More’s Philosophicall Poems. Their exchange covers such topics as the ontological argument for the existence of God, the Cartesian method of doubt, Cartesian cosmology, and the nature of soul and body. The letters show Conway engaging in critical appraisals of both More and Descartes’s metaphysical assumptions. The chapter begins with an introductory essay by the editor, situating the correspondence in the context of More’s and Conway’s mature philosophical views. It is argued that these letters foreshadow Conway’s later interest in issues to do with the nature of substance and God. The correspondence includes editorial annotations, to assist the reader’s understanding of early modern terms and ideas.

Introduction

The introduction provides a succinct overview of the main philosophical themes and issues in the selected letters and epistles of four early modern English women: Margaret Cavendish, Anne Conway, Damaris Cudworth Masham, and Elizabeth Berkeley Burnet. It is argued that their correspondences make a valuable contribution to the study of early modern philosophy. To begin with, they provide a strong sense of the collaborative, dialogical, and gender-inclusive nature of the philosophical enterprise in this period in England (c. 1650–1700). They also give a strong indication of women’s own original philosophical viewpoints, as well as some insight into the genesis and development of each figure’s mature thought in her later published work. The introduction concludes with a brief survey of the main philosophical themes in the texts, ranging from metaphysics, epistemology, and natural philosophy, to ethics, moral theology, and philosophy of religion more generally.

Margaret Cavendish (1623–73)

This chapter contains a selection of the private correspondence of Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, as well as several epistles taken from her published works. It includes Cavendish’s letters to and from the Dutch diplomat Constantijn Huygens, the English philosopher Walter Charleton, the Cambridge Platonist Henry More, and the philosopher-theologian Joseph Glanvill, spanning the period from 1655 to 1668. It begins with an introductory essay by the editor, situating the letters and epistles in the context of Cavendish’s wider philosophy, and in the context of early modern debates concerning matter and motion. The topics of the letters range from issues to do with experimental science, the constitution of material things, and the nature of reason to the existence of space and belief in witches and demons and spirits in nature. The text includes editorial annotations to assist the reader’s understanding of early modern words and ideas.