Teacher: Cecilia Rosengren

Margaret Cavendish (1623–1673) was one of the many voices in seventeenth century Europe that embraced the new science, but also critically reacted towards the implications of a Cartesian mechanistic worldview and the scientific programme of Royal Society. What were the consequences for our understanding of nature, human perception and knowledge? The author Siri Hustvedt’s essay from 2017 shows the topicality of the early modern debates as well as the productivity of Cavendish’s ideas in our times.

Readings:

Margaret Cavendish, preface and chapters from Observations upon Experimental Philosophy, Eileen O’Neill (ed.) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001) [1666], pp. 3–22, 50–53, 95–107, 137–149. Also accessible in original edition online via GUB library services, data base EEBO (Early English Books Online): Margaret Cavendish, Observations upon Experimental Philosophy. To which is added the Description of the New Blazing World (London: A. Maxwell, 1666). Read the editor Eileen O’Neill’s introduction.
Siri Hustvedt, “The Delusion of Certainty” (extract), A Woman Looking at Men Looking at Women. Essays on Art, Sex, and the Mind, London: Sceptre, 2017, pp. 137–150, 337–340 (Uploaded on Canvas)
Cecilia Rosengren, “’Suppose a man in a deep contemplative study’. Margaret Cavendish, Descartes’ cogito and the nature of thought”, Feminist philosophy: Time, history, and the transformation of thought, will be published 2022 (Uploaded on Canvas)
Jo Wallwork, “Disruptive behaviour in the making of science. Cavendish and the community of seventeenth-century science”, Early Modern Englishwomen Testing Ideas, Jo Wallwork and Paul Salzman (eds) (Farnham/Burlington: Ashgate, 2011), pp. 41–53 (Uploaded on Canvas)
Emma Wilkins, “Margaret Cavendish and The Royal Society”, Notes & Records. The Royal Society Journal of History of Science, 68 (2014), pp. 245–260. (Uploaded on Canvas)