Copyright

Alison Stone

Published On

2026-07-16

Language

  • English

Print Length

16 pages

THEMA

  • QDTQ
  • QD
  • QDTJ
  • JPA
  • JH

BISAC

  • PHI005000
  • PHI019000
  • PHI009000
  • PHI022000
  • POL028000

Keywords

  • Victorian philosophy
  • Ethics
  • Metaphysics
  • Religion
  • History
  • Feminism

12. Ancients and Moderns

Chapter of: The Philosophy of Julia Wedgwood: Imperfect Antithesis

This chapter continues to look at Wedgwood on the recoil of Christianity against the ancients. First, she argues that the ancients lacked shame: neither Greek aidōs nor Latin verecundia are identical to modern moral shame, which presupposes Christianity. Against those who see shame as a harmful and wounding emotion, Wedgwood regards shame as a moral gain, corresponding to the inviolable moral dignity of each individual.Wedgwood maintains that ancient society was intrinsically hierarchical and based on slavery. It did not recognise purity, the key Christian and feminine virtue. When the Romans recognised a universal humanity, it was merely a thin sense of shared civic membership, not the inherent worth of all individuals. She also stresses the difference between the ancient Greek corporate whole and the modern individual with their psychical depths and interior conflicts. These contrasts between ancients and moderns almost look like perfect antitheses, but on closer inspection they remain imperfect. This, again, is tied to history as a process of moral and metaphysical learning. I highlight how Wedgwood’s view here contrasts with Nietzsche’s critique of Christianity, which she encountered late in life.

Contributors

Alison Stone

(author)
Professor of Philosophy at Lancaster University
https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9621-8263

Alison Stone is Professor of Philosophy at Lancaster University. Her most recent books are on nineteenth-century women philosophers. They are Frances Power Cobbe: Essential Writings of a Nineteenth-Century Feminist Philosopher (Oxford University Press, 2022), Frances Power Cobbe (Cambridge University Press, 2022), Women Philosophers in Nineteenth-Century Britain (Oxford University Press, 2023), and Women on Philosophy of Art: Britain 1770-1900 (Oxford University Press, 2024). With Charlotte Alderwick, she co-edited Nineteenth-Century Women Philosophers in Britain and America (Routledge, 2024), and with Lydia Moland, she co-edited The Oxford Handbook of American and British Women Philosophers in the Nineteenth Century (Oxford University Press, 2025).