Research:
Guided by a feminist approach to the historical-philosophical canon, the project reconstructs the dialogue between David Hume and Mary Wollstonecraft within the context of the British Enlightenment and its debates on sensibility, gallantry, and the woman question. Their shared posture of moral Newtonianism unites them in adopting an empirical method in the study of human nature and in recognising the formative power of education and habit on character. In Hume, the analysis of the theory of the passions reveals their role in the construction and of sexual and gender differences, as well as the function of social conventions in shaping masculine and feminine virtues. In Wollstonecraft, passions are central both to her conception of moral education and to her analysis of female oppression, particularly through corrupted forms of love and parenthood. Wollstonecraft's reappropriation of sentimentalism thus emerges as the foundation of an ethics capable of transforming manners and gendered virtues. The conclusions provide conceptual tools for a feminist theory of sentiments that addresses both the analysis of inequalities and the critical potential of the passions.
keywords: Hume, Wollstonecraft, moral psychology, philosophy of the passions, gender studies, feminist history of philosophy