Explore the intriguing world of Margaret Cavendish, a woman who harnessed the power of self-debate. Uncover how this unique approach shaped her life and work, and how it can potentially transform your own thought processes and decision-making abilities.
Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle
A 17th-century aristocratic woman who found imaginative ways to have conversations with herself to get around society’s exclusion on grounds of gender
- “When we are thinking through an issue, the reasoning process often takes the form of a back-and-forth. Objections, concerns, and problems arise as we try to work through a point. Sometimes, this can make it feel like there is someone there, inside your head, actually responding to you.”
- In her Observations on Experimental Philosophy (1666), Cavendish explains that “By Discourse, I do not mean speech, but an Arguing of the mind… for Discourse is as much as Reasoning with our selves’.
- She was writing at a time when the prevailing view was that only men were cut out for a life of reflection, while women were better suited to more menial affairs
- Although she was aware of the social restraints on her philosophical endeavours, Cavendish took matters into her own hands by publishing her own ideas and addressing them directly to her readers
- Her engagement with her ideas was direct and direct, and there was no direct evidence of her engagement with any of her ideas from her peers or from her own experience
There is, then, a benefit to having one’s ideas challenged.
The aim of reasoning in philosophy is not to defend a particular piece of intellectual territory, but to get closer to truth. Having one’s commitments and assumptions pointed out and noting how they influence one’s way of thinking is an important step towards this.
Why did Plato write Socratic dialogues?
Perhaps in part because that is how he arrived at his own conclusions
- Sometimes you need to speak to someone else before you can work out what you really think
- The Blazing World – a short novel by Cavendish, published alongside the Observations
- She advocates forming a relationship with oneself
