ENN New Voices: Catharine Macaulay's philosophy of education: Interview with Elena Gordon

In this episode Nan Lin speaks with Dr. Elena Gordon, a postdoctoral researcher in philosophy at McGill University, about 18th century philosopher Catharine Macaulay. We principally focus on her philosophy of education and explore Macaulay’s dual role as a historian and philosopher, her views on reason, sympathy, and the relationship between humans and animals, as well as her unique stance on educational reform. Dr. Gordon also reflects on Macaulay’s feminist perspective and offers advice for young researchers interested in reviving the voices of forgotten thinkers.
 
References

Works by Macaulay:
Macaulay, Catharine. The Correspondence of Catharine Macaulay, K. Green (ed.), New York:
Oxford University Press, 2019.

— Letters on Education with Observations on Religious and Metaphysical Subjects(1790), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.
— A Treatise on the Immutability of Moral Truth, London: A. Hamilton, 1783.

— Observations on a pamphlet entitled ‘Thoughts on the cause of the present discontents’” 2nd ed., corrected. London: Dilly, 1770.

— The history of England from the accession of James I to that of the Brunswick Line, 8 vols. London, 1763–1783.

— Loose Remarks on Certain Positions to be found in Mr. Hobbes Rudiments of Government and Society. London: T. Davies, 1767.
 
Other works mentioned:
Rousseau, Jean-Jacques. Emile, or On Education, The Collected Writings of Rousseau, vol. 13, (ed. and trans.) C. Kelly and A. Bloom (Hanover: University Press of New England, 1992).

Hume, David. A Treatise of Human Nature (1739–40), edited by L. A. Selby-Bigge, 2nd ed., edited by P. H. Nidditch. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1978.
        --The History of Great Britain. Vol. I. Containing the Reigns of James I and Charles I. Edinburgh, Printed by Hamilton, Balfour, and                  Neill, 1754.
​
Cobbe, Frances Power. Essays on the Pursuits of Women. Also, a Paper on Female Education. Cambridge University Press, 2020.

Coffee, Alan. “Catharine Macaulay” in S. Bergès, E. Hunt Botting, A. Coffee (ed.) The Wollstonecraftian Mind, (London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 198-210.

Frazer, Elizabeth., “Mary Wollstonecraft and Catharine Macaulay on education”, Oxford Review of Education, 37:5, 603-617, 2011.
Green, Karen. Catharine Macaulay’s Republican Enlightenment, New York: Routledge, 2020.

Greentree, Shane. “The “Equal Eye” of Compassion: Reading Sympathy in Catharine Macaulay’s History of England” Eighteenth-Century Studies 52 (2019), pp. 299-318.

Hill, Bridget. The republican virago: the life and times of Catharine Macaulay, historian, New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.

Hutton, Sarah. “Virtue, God, and Stoicism in the Thought of Elizabeth Carter and Catharine Macaulay” in J. Broad, and K. Green (ed.) Virtue, Liberty and Toleration: Political ideas of European Women 1400-1800, Springer 2007, pp. 137-148.

Locke, John. Some Thoughts Concerning Education. Edited by John W. Yolton and Jean S. Yolton. A Clarendon Press Publication. 2000.

Reuter, Martina. “Catharine Macaulay and Mary Wollstonecraft on the Will”, in J. Broad, and K. Green (ed.) Virtue, Liberty and Toleration: Political ideas of European Women 1400-1800, Springer, 2007, pp. 149-169.
​
Titone, Connie. Gender Equality in the Philosophy of Education: Catharine Macaulay’s Forgotten Contribution, Peter Lang Publishing Inc., 2004.

To listen to this episode, please visit our podcast page.