Mary Wollstonecraft

This chapter explores Mary Wollstonecraft’s place in the history of political thought and her relationship to the male philosophical canon and its traditions. It focuses on her republicanism and its relationship to feminism as a way of illuminating some of the complications of canonizing Wollstonecraft. This raises a further set of questions about the radicalism of her ideas, the place of religion in her political thought, and her theory of property, as well as about her understanding of freedom and universalism. The chapter begins by explicating some of the main approaches to Wollstonecraft’s ideas, then engages with specific issues and problems around bringing her into the canon of political thought. From there, it assesses the strengths and weaknesses of various schools of interpretation and finally asks what work remains to be done in understanding this extraordinary thinker. It opens up the question of what it means to think of her as a “proto-intersectional philosopher,” and considers the limits of that characterization. Mary Wollstonecraft is now a fixture in the history of political thought and a feminist icon who shows us the depth of patriarchy and the limits of our non-revolutionary solutions. The chapter argues that we should strive to connect with her as a complicated, thinking woman, deeply engaged in the great struggles of her time, and finding her own place in the history of political thought.