Mary Astell (1666–1731), Critic of Locke

Patricia Springborg

American Political Science Review, 1995, vol. 89, issue 3, 621-633

Abstract: In the now considerable literature reevaluating the reception of Locke's Two Treatises, no mention has been made of perhaps his first systematic critic, the commissioned Tory political pamphleteer, Mary Astell. Contemporaneous with Charles Leslie, who is usually credited with the honor, Astell had diagnosed Locke's political argument by 1705 and perhaps as early as 1700. Why has her contribution remained unacknowledged for so long? It is argued here that for too long commentators have been looking for the wrong person in the wrong place. Astell correctly saw that Locke's political philosophy was inextricable from his psychological and theological systems, addressing all three in works that were political, theological and homiletic. But why Locke, and why in 1700–1705? Did Astell already know the authorship of the Two Treatises, only officially established in 1704 with the publication of the codicil to Locke's will?

Date: 1995
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