Feminist Thought
Hobbes
1600s-20th
Century
Age of
Reason: spirit of discovery, faith
in the capacity of reason, the search for a verifiable method of inquiry
According to
Losco and Williams in ÒEnter Modernity,Ó what social, theological, scientific,
cultural, economic and political changes ushered in and/or came to define the
modern era?
Other Thinkers
associated with the Age of Reason
Rene Descartes (1596-1650) –
Cogito ergo sum. Cartesian
dualism. Mind/body
Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
– anatomy; science; tools of intellect will give
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727)
– reason alone capable of fathoming the universe based on simple laws of
motion and physics
Scientific method
1588-1679
Political
Condition in England:
Turmoil
The English Civil War broke out in
1642; Oliver Cromwell
The Royalist cause -, many in
exile in Paris; Hobbes among them.
Stayed loyal to monarchy throughout
life; and Charles II, his pupil to him;
Accused of heresy, blasphemy,
atheism
Stopped publishing
What are natural
rights?
What is the state
of nature? Describe its
characteristics, HobbesÕ assumptions about it.
What is the
relationship between men, between men and women in the state of nature?
What is the
social contract? Who are the
parties to it?
Why do people
agree to the social contract?
What rights do
men give up/retain as a result of the social contract?
Do women give
up/retain the same rights?
Are men living in
an absolute monarchy more or less free than they are in a state of nature?
Are women living
in an absolute monarchy more or less free than they are in a state of nature?
(see p.70 in Losco and Williams)
How is the
marriage contract between husbands and wives in modern England like or not like
the social contract for men, for women?
Is a married
womanÕs relationship with her husband analogous to that between a male subject
and the ruler of the Commonwealth?
How so? How not?