Date of Award
Spring 2023
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
Department
Sociology
First Advisor
North, Paul
Abstract
Harriet Martineau was a radical materialist in several respects. Taking the (Baconian) scientific method—avoiding confirmation bias by “bringing together an accumulation of facts previous to the formation of a theory”—to its radical conclusion by extending it to mental phenomena, her (wholly neurophysiological) anti-dualist ontology of human consciousness demolished the division between mental and natural philosophy, the special spiritual status of humans among animals, a clear distinction between thought and perception, & etc. Because it revealed humans—and the mental/physical activity thereof—to be wholly material, and therefore subject to observable laws of nature as any other physical phenomenon, it also made human/social science possible. By way of positive philosophy—for her, the only philosophy—Martineau discovered the origins of religion in a combination of natural human tendencies (e.g., instinctive projection from ignorance) and the social history of ideas. Deeming knowledge a fundamental birthright to all, this former Unitarian theologian singled out liberal (reformed) religion/theism as an anti-philosophical and unethical impediment to truth and social progress. Celebrating “exorcism” (vs. nostalgic disenchantment), Martineau’s non-masculine (ca., domestic) modernity anticipated “social liberty” and the “reduction of fortuity” guided by reason (neither cold nor hard)—e.g., universal education, “deep modification of the institution of Property,” diminution of group distinctions (and in-group conformity/inter-group conflict therewith), and technology subordinated to/advancing the general welfare. The corporeality of human being rendered health—mental and moral integrated with the physical—a measure of that welfare, and a central concern of Martineau’s sociological inquiry accordingly. Moreover, health—along with want of caste and women’s equality—provided the basis for a universalizing standard of (labor) conditions both across society and through time, which permitted a culturally variable—rather than ethnocentric—developmental model (analogous to the biophysiological development of organisms—not in the neoliberal sense) that was nevertheless not relativistic. Ultimately, interconnected by Necessity as she saw us, Martineau’s materialism entailed radical responsibility: “social affairs are the personal duty of every individual.”
Recommended Citation
Ellis, Elexis, "Classical Sociological Theory Before the 'Fathers': The Radical Materialism of Miss Harriet Martineau" (2023). Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Dissertations. 897.
https://elischolar.library.yale.edu/gsas_dissertations/897
