Volume 25, 2025

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Locke's seemingly paradoxical patriarchal stance has led certain commentators to label him as a “patriarchal anti-patriarchalist,” or even one of the “equality radicals” of the late seventeenth century. Rather than falling into this binary between a “patriarchalist reading of Locke” and an “egalitarian reading of Locke,” this essay aims to reveal the complexities of Locke’s political thought. While the two interpretations come to opposite conclusions, both focus on two aspects of Locke's work: the residual patriarchalism evident in his accounts of marriage, and the separation of family from civil society. Despite Locke’s accounts of male dominance within the family based on Scripture, this essay argues that, considering the practices of his day, Locke provides relatively progressive accounts of women's rights and the marriage contract, specifically women’s entitlement to divorce and property ownership. This essay first revisits Locke’s alleged “residual patriarchalism” by exploring his interpretation of Genesis to reassess Eve’s role in relation to Adam. I argue that Locke's biblical analysis reveals an often-overlooked egalitarian undertone. The second section investigates Locke’s accounts of women’s rights and conjugal society, contending that women are not confined to a private sphere, but are granted significant rights that challenge traditional patriarchal norms. In conclusion, while not supporting either the “patriarchalist reading” or the “egalitarian reading,” this essay suggests that Locke’s contributions can be interpreted as challenging patriarchal structures.

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Throughout his life, John Locke came under heavy criticism for maintaining a Trinitarian-evasive posture in his theological writings. This led many over the past three centuries to regard the English philosopher as anti-Trinitarian, and more particularly, a Socinian. These heterodox charges primarily resulted from implications of his philosophical writings and a misunderstanding of his intentions in The Reasonableness of Christianity (1695), without paying much attention to his personal exegesis project, A Paraphrase and Notes on the Epistles of St. Paul (published posthumously between 1705-7). In both theological writings, Locke prioritizes irenicism and chooses not to directly address the Trinity. This article first surveys contemporary criticisms and defenses of Locke’s Christology with particular emphasis on the exchange between Dr. Winch Holdsworth and Catharine Trotter Cockburn as a microcosm of how Locke’s critics and supporters leveraged his silence for their arguments. Next, this article examines these charges of “Socinianism” as it pertains to Christology by comparing Locke’s treatments of widely recognized Trinitarian passages in Paraphrase with those of notable Trinitarians in seventeenth century England. Although it is clear from Paraphrase that he rejects a Socinian Christology, the Trinitarian-evasive Locke remains hesitant to reveal his Christological position. Instead, his comments establish the conditions for multiple Christological positions, once again underscoring his irenic priorities.

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This essay begins with an intertextual study comparing Locke’s journal entries collectively entitled Atlantis with the Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. It then proceeds at greater length to trace in maps and correspondence the appearance—and disappearance—of “Locke Island” as a cartographic name place and epistolary reference. Although the island bearing Locke’s name has been noted before, its story is untold in the detail that it deserves. Not only is it intrinsically interesting that an island in the new world—now known as Edisto Island—was once named for John Locke, but it is especially intriguing because of the fraught colonial politics attending it in the first place and especially the last. In particular, the disappearance of Locke Island from maps was a politically motivated cartographic erasure by one Maurice Mathews, a vindictive surveyor general at odds with the two principal Lords Proprietors for whom Locke worked as Secretary. Its story is also worth pursuing because—the coincidence is too hard to avoid, inviting conjecture—Locke Island was the very place in early colonial Carolina where Locke imagined an intentional community named Atlantis to be founded, however short-lived its fate.

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Kant sees the acquisition of basic concepts from an embryological point of view and calls his theory of representations “a system of the epigenesis of pure reason.” According to this theory, not the pure concepts themselves but their “germs” or “predispositions” are inherent in the mind, and the concepts express themselves with the help of sensations qua “occasional causes.” In contrast, Kant calls Lockean empiricism “a sort of generatio aequivoca,” suggesting that it is “absurd.” In this article, I first show that Locke’s position is not as different from Kant’s as Kant suggests. Then, I make it clear that Kant is a disguised Lockean empiricist and that his epigenesis is a Wittgensteinian “idle wheel.” The application condition (schema) for the concept of cause that Kant specifies is nothing more than what Locke and Hume adduce; therefore, as far as the category of causality is concerned, Kant’s epigenetic theory does not have any real effect that would cause it surpass Locke’s. In addition, Kant’s assertion that experience does not teach necessity is based on the Humean phenomenalist perspective, and it diminishes the necessity of the pure concepts that Kant sees as indispensable to establishing “experience” of “nature.”

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Review of Mark Boespflug's recent book, Locke's Twilight of Probability: An Epistemology of Rational Assent.(New York: Routledge, 2023)

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There is an apparent inconsistency at the heart of Mary Astell’s theory of virtue, for she seems committed to contradictory propositions: (1) that virtue involves alignment of all passions with their proper objects; and (2) that virtue involves the elimination or extirpation of at least some passions, such as pride, anger, hatred, and overwhelming sorrow. Jacqueline Broad (2015) has tried to solve this interpretive problem by suggesting that Astell recommends a two-step process for the virtuous management of one’s passions, with (1) occurring first and in the short term and (2) occurring second and in the long term. This essay agrees with Broad that Astell does not fall into inconsistency, but for different reasons. It argues that Astell consistently treats self-esteem, anger, hatred, and sorrow as unmoralized (i.e., neither virtuous nor vicious) passions that cannot, and hence should not, be extirpated, but that vicious forms of these passions, such as in the case of pride and overwhelming sorrow but also in the case of excessive anger and hatred, should be removed from the soul through proper redirection and adjustment in both the short term and the long term.

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In this paper I focus on Mary Astell’s treatment and uses of Machiavelli’s works and ideas in her political pamphlet Moderation truly Stated. I claim that there is in it an Anglican appropriation of some Machiavellian civic-humanist vocabulary. I show that in reconciling key Machiavellian insights with her Christian view of politics, Astell considerably qualifies them. Nevertheless, I argue that they are indeed operative in her political arguments (explicitly and implicitly), most significantly in its feminist agenda. I conclude, against some previous interpretations, that there is a neo-Machiavellian side to Astellian political analysis, both at the theoretical and pragmatic level.

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Catharine Trotter Cockburn (1679?-1749) was one of the earliest defenders of John Locke’s Essay Concerning Human Understanding (1689). This paper examines her engagement with Stoic ideas in her moral writings: Remarks upon Some Writers in the Controversy concerning the Foundation of Moral Virtue (1743) and Remarks upon the Principles and Reasonings of Dr. Rutherforth’s Essay (1747). My analysis focuses on her principle of living in accordance with nature and her concept of virtue as conformity to the nature, relations, and fitness of things. I argue that a Stoic reading of Cockburn’s moral naturalism enables us to solve some puzzle and tensions in her thought and gain a richer understanding of Cockburn’s ideas concerning the foundations of morality.

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This paper analyses Mary Astell’s views on self-improvement and friendship within the broader context of her moral and religious writings. I highlight that self-improvement for Astell has individual, social, and religious dimensions. Astell sees humans as parts of a larger whole and emphasizes how humans are interconnected with each other and how they seek to be united with God. The social dimension finds clear expression in her view that friends play an important role in one’s personal, moral, and spiritual improvement and perfection. True friends for her are willing to offer honest and critical advice where appropriate, admonish, and endeavour the bettering of the other. I engage with recent scholarly debates concerning friendship in Astell’s philosophy, which have identified resonances between Astell’s view and ancient accounts of friendship as well as more recent accounts of relational autonomy. I argue that it is worth paying closer attention to the more immediate religious context in which Astell developed her view. Kendrick’s spiritual interpretation provides a helpful basis for my interpretation but fails to acknowledge Astell’s distinction between general charity and friendship. I develop an interpretation that takes seriously the role of the divine in Astellian friendship, distinguishes friendship from general charity, and acknowledges how friendship can be morally transformative.