Some Aspects of the Philosophical Work of Catharine Trotter

Some Aspects of the Philosophical Work of Catharine Trotter MARTHA BRANDT BOLTON l, CATHARINETROTTER (whose married name was 'Cockburn') is certainly not unknown to students of early eighteenth-century philosophy and especially the philosophy of John Locke.' She wrote a very able short treatise, A Defence of Mr. Locke's Essay of Human Understanding, published anonymously in 17o2. It was prompted by three anonymous letters critical of the Essay, written by Thomas Burnet. Trotter's defense was praised by several astute persons,, including Leibniz and Locke himself, who wrote a letter of thanks to the author when he discovered her identity.s Accordingly Trotter and her Defence are generally mentioned in accounts of the controversies that engulfed Locke's Essay within a decade or so of its first publication and her views are occasionally given brief attention in detailed discussions of Locke's account of moral law. Although known to philosophers nowadays mainly because of this connecTrotter published her philosophicalworks anonymously.Thomas Birch, editor of the posthumously printed collection of her philosophical writings, gave it the tide, The Worksof Mrs. CatharineCockburn.Before her marriage, Trotter wrote several plays, both comedies and tragedies , whichwere produced withsome successin London and published under her own name. On Trotter as dramatist, see FidelisMorgan, TheFemaleWits(London: Virago Press, 1981). 'See Leibniz, Nouveaux Essais (Leibniz PhilosophischeSchriften [Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, a96~]), bk. VI, p. 70; John Toland (see letter from Trotter to G. Burnet, 8 Aug. 17o4, in The Works of Mrs. CatharineCockburn, Theological,Moral, Dramatic, and Poetical,ed. Thomas Birch [London: J. and P. Knapton, 175a], II: 175); and James Tyrrell, in a letter to Locke(seeJohn Yoiton,John Lockeand the Wayofldeas [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1956], 19n. 5)-Alsosee Birch's "The Life of Mrs. Cockburn," WorksI, xvi. sLocketo Catharine Trotter, 3~ December 1702,TheCorrespondenceofJohnLocke,ed. E. S. De Beer, 8 vols.(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 198z),7:73o-3a. [565] 566 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 31:4 OCTOBER 1993 tion with Locke, Trotter produced several other philosophical tracts. Most of them follow a similar pattern. All but one undertakes to defend the views of some prominent philosopher against attacks from authors now considered of marginal importance. Soon after her defense of Locke against Burnet, Trotter published a short work, called A Guide to Controversies, that does not exactly conform to the format. It consists of two letters on the then still-sensitive question of the method of resolving disputes over Christian doctrine. These were private letters Trotter wrote while studying the fundamentals of the Roman Catholic Church and the Anglican Church, a process that ended with her conversion from the former to the latter.4 Even here, her second letter follows the rebuttal-pattern, for it is a detailed reply to her Papist correspondent 's arguments for an infallible earthly authority.5 Her third philosophical tract is a second defense of Locke, this time in rebuttal to a sermon on the doctrine of resurrection preached by Dr. Winch Holdsworth. 6 Then for a lengthy period she was occupied with raising a family under financial duress, due in large part to the fact that she married a clergyman who, for reasons of conscience, was unable to take the oath of loyalty to George I. When she returned to writing philosophy, she expanded her response to Holdsworth, who in the meantime had produced a book in reply to her earlier Letter to him.7 She went on to publish two additional treatises: the first, called Remarks upon some Writers in the Controversy concerning the Foundation of Moral Virtue and Moral Obligation. There she describes herself as undertaking to defend Samuel Clarke's account of the foundation of moral virtue and obligation. She considers a series of objectors: Edmund Law, Isaac Watts, William Warburton, and two authors of anonymously published essays on morality, Thomas Johnson and George Johnston. s Her last philosophical work, Remarks upon the Principles and Reasonings of Dr. Rutherford's Essay, has as its subtitle: In vindication of the contrary principles and reasonings, enforced in the writings of the late Dr. Samuel 4Although her family was Anglican, Trotter had in her youth embraced the Roman Catholic faith due to the influence of some distinguished...