Skip to main content
Contribution to Book
Dmaris Masham and Molyneux’s Question: What Response would Masham have given?
Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies Faculty Publications
  • Anna Vaughn, Sacred Heart University
Document Type
Book Chapter
Publication Date
1-1-2021
Disciplines
Abstract

This chapter discusses two aspects of Masham's philosophy as they relate to Molyneux's question. First, why didn't Masham discuss Molyneux's question in her writing? The author's answer reflects two aspects of Masham's life: (1) her practical duties constrained her philosophical interests to primarily religious and moral questions, and (2) as someone who experienced her own vision impairment, she may have disliked something about Molyneux's question and thus duly ignored it. Second, given her philosophical commitments, what might Masham's response to Molyneux have been? While Masham didn't write a treatise on sensation or lay the foundation for an understanding of the human mind, her interests did draw her into debates about the nature and importance of sensory experience, particularly in her engagement with occasionalism, the notion that God is the direct cause of all physical events and consequently sensory experience. Exploring Masham's writings within the context of Molyneux's question provides a unique insight into Masham's philosophy of mind, her views of perception, and the roles of reason and experience in our understanding of the world.

Comments

Book chapter in Molyneux’s Question and the History of Philosophy, Gabriele Ferretti, Brian Glenney (Eds.)

ISBN: 9780367030926

Citation Information

Vaughn, A. (2021). Damaris Masham and Molyneux’s question: What response would Masham have given? In G. Ferretti & B. Glenney (Eds.), Molyneux’s question and the history of philosophy (pp. 109-121). Routledge/Taylor & Francis Group.