Mary Astell (1666-1731), critic of Locke. (John Locke)

American Political Science Review, September, 1995 by Springborg, Patricia

High Church Tory pamphleteer Mary Astell was both shunned and respected by her peers for being one of the early systematic critics of John Locke's 'Two Treatises.' A review of Astell's analyses and rebuttals on a number of major arguments introduced by Locke is presented. How Locke appears in Astell's writings serve as a window of opportunity to determine the liberalist sentiments of the eighteenth century.

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...

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