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Mary Wollstonecraft - Coggle Diagram
Mary Wollstonecraft
Biography
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Companion, schoolteacher, governess
Sets up a school that subsequently fails, but still insists on the importance of education
Writes first response to Burke's Reflections. Vituperance could also reflect Burke's attack on Wollstonecraft's friend Price
Visits revolutionary Paris, bound up with Girondins. Opposed the Jacobins
Abandonded with child by her American lover in France. Returned to London after falling under suspicion, looking for her lover. Attempts suicide but is rescued and slowly reintegrated into London literary scene
Married Godwin but died age 38 giving birth to his child, which grew up to be Mary Shelley
Godwin's biography of her tarnished her reputation, but her work and life has been subsequently vindicated and acclaimed
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Contrast with Burke
Burke is suspicious of natural reason in political life, customs refined through history and experience are a much better guide
BUT the foundation of custom is often sheer violence, ignorance and superstition. Wollstonecraft asks how customs came about in the first place
In English history, customs were imposed by powerful nobles or rulers, or by parliament exploiting rulers
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Lauded events like the Protestant Reformation also tore up the old establishment. Alludes to Burke's Catholic family
Liberty
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English constitution has not secured liberty. No one in England is equally protected, and the "demon of property" infringes on the rights of men
Property is a threat to liberty. Property empowers people to infinge on other's rights and bypass the ordinary justice system. Poor's property is not protected
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Philosophy
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Approach
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Attacks Burke's methods, evidence, concepts, and consistency
"we are to reverence the rust of antiquity, and term the unnatural customs which ignorance and mistaken self-interest have consolidated, the sage fruit of experience"
Inequality
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W wanted to persuade women to be strong mentally and physically - path to freedom through self-transformation
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If man has authority over a woman, it must by justified by rationality
Women can only be virtuous when they are fundamentally economically independent from men. Cannot be dependent on the husband's bounty
Human nature
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Vice arises through arbitrary power and not civilisation. Kings cannot acquire virtue and wisdom since they are flattered and not given honest advice
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We have not yet established a proper civilisation, when we are not subject to arbitrary power
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